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College Students Say Tesla Is Canceling Summer Internships

College Students Say Tesla Is Canceling Summer Internships | Entrepreneur

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/college-students-say-tesla-is-canceling-summer-internships/473654

Amid mass layoffs and cost-cutting initiatives, Elon Musk's electric vehicle company has reportedly begun taking back internship offers just weeks before the summer start dates.

College Students Say Tesla Is Canceling Summer Internships | Entrepreneur

"Tesla Is Reportedly Revoking Internship Offers to College Students Weeks Before Their Start Dates: 'I Spent Thousands On Housing'"

34 comments

Ghostalmedia

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Remember, this isn’t just an intern thing. It’s going to impact anyone hired to work for a team or department that no longer exists.

Getting an internship at a notable company is hard to do, and getting dropped at the last minute is fucking terrible, and can delay you entrance into the workforce. Which already takes way too fucking long and puts recent grads in even more debt.

That said, this article is also leaving out the other employees that suffered the same fate. I’ve known people who have left homes and pulled their kids out of school, all for a job that vanished when they arrived.

henfredemars

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There should be penalties for leading on an employee that uproots their life to go work for a job that doesn’t materialize.

Ghostalmedia

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Or at the very least, unemployment insurance that isn’t pocket change.

chunkystyles

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https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/promissory_estoppel

trebuchet

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It was a tough sacrifice, but the really important thing going forward is making sure Elon gets his 56 billion dollar bonus reinstated that was so cruelly taken away.

IphtashuFitz

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I admit I own a Tesla. Given all the recent erratic behavior:

Not only will I not recommend Teslas to anybody who might ask about it, I will warn them to look at company & CEO behavior over the years, and actively discourage others from buying one.
When the time comes, I will not be replacing my current car with another Tesla. I will still likely go with an EV, but by then there should be significantly more good (better) options available.

About the only way I’ll change either of these will be for Elon to step down and completely remove himself from any control over Tesla. But I don’t see that happening and I certainly won’t be holding my breath.

voracitude

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I at least don't blame you. They used to be the best EVs that you could get. May I ask what model year and how you like it as a car, independent of Musk's PR shenanigans?

IphtashuFitz

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‘21 Model Y long range. Overall it drives well, and the supercharger network is really nice. We took it on a trip up & down a good portion of the east coast last year and never had any issues charging it. We have a couple 30 lb dogs that love going for rides, so things like dog mode are really nice as well.

Things I really do not like:

The reliance on cameras for all sorts of features like auto high beams and auto wipers on top of traffic aware cruise control (aka autopilot) (and full self driving, if you have it). I regularly have the wipers go off on clear, sunny days. The auto high beams are so unreliable I don’t use them, and that means no autopilot at night. I have no faith in even trying out FSD because of how glitchy everything else is.
The minimal use of physical controls. I have to take my eyes off the road just to switch wiper speed/mode.
Software updates have, more than once, changed my settings for things like autopilot without warning, and I’ve only discovered it when driving and turning autopilot on.
The maps have lots of routing issues. It shows roads in my neighborhood that don’t yet exist (new development under construction), regularly routes me wrong ways (there’s a left turn near my home that it thinks it can’t take so it tries to route me two sides if a triangle as a result), and on our road trip we found a stretch of highway that it thought it couldn’t drive on and kept trying to route us along side streets. And there’s no way I know to report these issues so they can be fixed. Apps like Waze make that trivial.

Pretty much all of these are reasons why I refuse to even try FSD and discourage others from using it. About the only way I’ll give it another chance is if a truly independent third party tests it and says all these issues have been resolved.

bl4kers

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Software updates have, more than once, changed my settings for things like autopilot without warning, and I've only discovered it when driving and turning autopilot on.

I feel like this point can't be overstated enough. When I need to go somewhere, I shouldn't need to reorient myself because the car receives software updates all the time. A device that's constantly changing is inherently unreliable, even if technically it's improving over time.

Lichtblitz

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Teslas were the "best", as in the only option for what they did. They were never the "best", as in better than existing products for what they did.

Being first to market for such a long time was an incredible feat and it speaks volumes that their position isn't much, much stronger at the end of it.

voracitude

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Teslas were the "best", as in the only option for what they did

Linkerbaan

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johnyma22

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I agree w/ the "best" argument but I don't agree with the "first to market" argument.... There were a notable amount of electric cars in the UK before Tesla became a thing. Perhaps things in .de are different..

I did notice in Berlin just a few weeks ago that you guys don't really seem to be pushing for clean air zones in major cities unlike a lot of the UK which given your progressive population came as a surprise to me.

Lichtblitz

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Sure, there were electric cars. But if I remember correctly, Tesla was the first to deliver the whole next-gen package with an every day, everywhere car, plus charging stations plus the whole automation. If you wanted that, there was no way around Tesla for quite a while.

johnyma22

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RE "next-gen" "every day" "everywhere car" I can't comment because they don't really make a quantifiable point.

RE Charging: In the UK we had charge at home infrasatructure w/ .gov compensation and charging points at businesses/supermarkets/petrol stations way before a specific branded Supercharger infrastructure started arriving.

RE "whole automation": What do you mean? What point of Tesla is more automated than an Audi or BMW for a UK daily commute? Autopilot simply doesn't work for the vast majority of UK commutes and has been shown to be a poorly operating application with a potential incoming ban.

I think it's important not to rewrite history to fit a narrative.

inclementimmigrant

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Same here. For me, not only has the CEO been erratic as all heck, the tech has stalled out and I don't see any improvements and the other car manufacturers are quickly catching up and in some cases surpassed Tesla.

It's really sad to see the company fall so badly, so quickly but that's what you get when you let a completely unhinged person be in charge without checks. Still nice to see his money at least kick start the EV industry to where it is today, good and bad.

rem26_art

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Tangentially related, but I remember being in college when Tesla was like starting to take off. Like the Model S had just come out. I went to one of the Tesla internship presentations on campus and listened to some of the people who had the internship the previous year and they talked about how they were pulling like, 60+ hour weeks and that they had like, a shuttle that ran all throughout the night to take them from the workplace to the housing. Some talked about going back home at like 3AM, and then showing up for work again at 8AM. It really sounded kind of like it would be a very stressful experience and I didn't even want to apply after listening to it. I guess they were paid well, but

Sounds like things have only gotten way more chaotic since then

NeptuneOrbit

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The interns were pulling those hours? Or just the full time hires.

rem26_art

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the interns

Moonrise2473

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In the USA interns work for free? In my country interns work for free. (They're not supposed to actually work, but learn how work is done in that company)

During my free internship I was placed in the summer in a warehouse moving boxes without AC. The next day I called the teacher and said that I'm sick and unfortunately I couldn't get to do the slave anymore

Nollij

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In the US, completely unpaid internships are rare. Most are paid, but fairly poorly. There are a few major reasons for this:

You have to meet a lot of requirements for unpaid to be legal, and it all has to be documented.

Internships are a "farm" program- many interns are offered and accept a full time position afterwards. If they were unpaid, they are unlikely to accept.

Minimum wage is an absolute joke everywhere in the country. Why bother fighting it when you can pay as little as $7.25/hour? Even doubling or tripling that makes it appealing to poor college students and the farm program, and won't cost much.

(Your example would be illegal in the US, and possibly even enforced)

Moonrise2473

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Nice to know that's not free labor.

Here instead it's even forbidden by law to pay interns because theoretically should teach them (be a cost to the company) and they shouldn't actually work, just watch and do basic stuff. But what actually happens is they get free slaves, for example they sent a poor student to do the job of a skilled metalworker and die in a work accident https://www.fanpage.it/attualita/chi-era-lorenzo-parelli-il-18enne-morto-nel-suo-ultimo-giorno-di-stage-gratuito-a-udine/

When it was my turn to be the intern, the company lied about what they were doing, they said that they would do something related to my study field instead they were a moving company with a ratio of 2 interns per 1 minimum wage workers (we don't have a minimum wage in my country, I mean paid the minimum agreed by the unions). I just walked out and didn't show up to the "internship" anymore but I should have reported that. I was too naive

ashok36

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A preference cascade by consumers leading to a death spiral.

Watch for tesla to spin off the vehicle business soon and refocus on batteries / energy going forward.

Rentlar

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Tesla, in their infinite wisdom, cut entire departments that these interns were going to be hired into, so it's not surprising that those positions are being cut.

It really is a feels bad for students getting shutout of an internship at a famous company, and paying moving and housing expesnes. At least they can put "too good for Tesla" on their LinkedIn bio lol.

ramble81

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Which is slightly better than some places I’ve seen cut the staff and keep the interns on to run with what’s left

Rentlar

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How about doing interviews to assign Tesla supercharger design work as takehome tests?

NotMyOldRedditName

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You can say what you want about cutting something like the supercharger network and how that can be bad for Tesla, but that can be managed to some extent. Cutting off internships like this is long term a very bad thing. Companies like this need young talent and this is an amazing way to foster and grow that. This can be devastating to their long term future potential.

BigMikeInAustin

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Same things raised here apply to employees.

What about all the employees that Elon wants to move into his Tesla housing?

These people's jobs were closed and they were let go with no fault of their own.

A few years down the road, that means these people would get an email on their way to work that their job no longer exists, and their housing is now gone, on the whim of the owner.

intrepid

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The amount of exploitative powers that the US gives these abusive companies is absolutely insane. The minimum that's needed for such transgressions is the jailing of responsible management staff.

venoft

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I owe my soul to the company store.

iAvicenna

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D'Elon the Musketeer needs to make Tesla look like it is profiting so that he can get funds, even if it means scraping for couple thousands a time. The future of humanity is at stake, he is sure that people will understand once they see how great he is.

some_guy

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Had to fuck over some more people, huh Lonnie?

pyrflie

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Honestly sounds like they dodged a bullet. Tesla doesn't sound like beneficial employment.

intrepid

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It's not as easily dismissed. Many US companies cancel internships/employment offers after the candidate has spent a considerable sum on travel and housing. It's even more heartless when employment visas are involved.

For some very litigious companies, they're let off easily after causing huge financial and emotional strain to individuals. They should be punished, penalized and forced to compensate the victims for these.