On April 19, 2019 the Student Services Department organized a tour of the Tesla factory in Fremont. I was particularly excited to see the Tesla factory, as it was named after Nikola Tesla, a genius inventor who, just as myself, originally came from Serbia.
Students, staff, and faculty took part in what turned out to be an exciting and thought-provoking learning opportunity. After we got out of the comfortable bus that took us from Lincoln University to the factory, we were greeted by a Tesla employee, who kindly showed us around and explained all (or, at least, as much as he was allowed) about Tesla’s manufacturing process.
Tesla factory is one of the world’s most advanced automotive plants, with 5.3 million square feet of manufacturing and office space on 370 acres of land. During the tour, we could see firsthand how the electric cars are really made from the design to the finished product. We were told that it takes only 5 days to assemble a car, and most of this work is automated and does not require human involvement.
Modern technology has dramatically changed our society and this is really seen in the robots used in Tesla’s manufacturing process. Very efficient and precise, they do their job better than humans ever could. Apart from being amazed by the fact that people could build such advanced machines, this also gave me an uneasy feeling: How will our society change as we walk further down this road of automation? What will be the role of human beings if a lot of what we consider to be work today will be taken care of by robots? How will this strange new world look like?
The curious thing is this world is already here, and we had a chance to observe its workings during the Tesla factory tour.
- Ana Maria Gower
Director
Student Services Department