Former Tesla engineer: 'serious safety issues' worry current employees

• Tesla staff have disclosed ‘serious safety issues’ to an ex-employee
• Ex-Tesla engineer and whistleblower is suing Tesla for defamation
• Current engineers ‘are afraid to say something is wrong’
• READ MORE: Cybertruck flaw can CHOP OFF a passengers’ fingers 

Customer reports that Tesla has halted deliveries for its futuristic Cybertruck amid allegedly dangerous safety issues with its gas pedal come as no surprise to one former insider.

Engineer Cristina Balan told DailyMail.com that the gas and brake pedal safety issues she witnessed a decade ago with Tesla’s Model S, which led to her coming forward as a whistleblower, are now likely happening again with Cybertruck.

‘After I left, it got worse,’ said Balan, who is suing her former boss Elon Musk’s electric car company for defamation.

‘I have quite a few people that are right now in Tesla,’ Balan said. ‘They brought some serious safety issues to my attention.’

New Cybertruck owners have described its gas pedal as a ‘deathtrap,’ demonstrating how the pedal cover can slide off the accelerator and become snagged on the carpet, locking it in place and spurring the car to accelerate at top speed.

Balan’s disclosures come as new citizen drone footage shows full fleets of unfinished Cybertrucks backed up over parts concerns — as well as Musk’s announcement that  as many as 14,000 Tesla workers will be laid off due allegedly to flagging EV sales.

Customer reports that Tesla has halted deliveries for its futuristic Cybertruck amid alleged safety issues with its gas pedal come as no surprise to ex-Tesla automotive engineer and auto safety whistleblower Cristina Balan. ‘After I left, it got worse,’ Balan told DailyMail.com

With new drone videos emerging showing full fleets of unfinished Cybertruck’s backed up over parts concerns, Balan told DailyMail.com that Tesla engineers, just like she once was, may be struggling to get leadership to take safety seriously

Balan, who joined Tesla’s Fremont, California, factory in 2010 as a senior computer-aided design (CAD) engineer, is now battling Tesla in court over what she describes as retaliation for her efforts to correct a dangerous issue with the Tesla Model S.

Poorly made floor mats, according to Balan, showed a tendency to curl underneath the all-electric Tesla sedan’s brake pedals preventing drivers from slowing down their vehicles, not unlike the recent issue that jams Cybertruck pedals into full speed.

‘They said that they will try to deal with it,’ Balan told DailyMail.com, referring to current Tesla employees and potential future whistleblowers who have reached out.

But she worries that her own lengthy and now very public legal battle with Tesla, with lawsuits over both wrongful termination and defamation across the past decade, might be scaring other Tesla employees away from coming forward on Cybertruck.

Above, Cristina Balan signing the first cover of the Tesla Model S, back when she worked at the EV-maker’s Fremont, California factory

‘People, good engineers, they are afraid to say something is wrong,’ Balan said, ‘because they know that they will go on the same track I was.’

While there has been no official announcement from Tesla, several customers have posted text messages they have received from the company cancelling their Cybertruck ‘delivery appointment’ due to an unexplained and ‘unexpected delay’ regarding preparation of their vehicle.

Tesla cited an unspecified parts issue, according to these texts to customers, which could relate to Cybertruck’s accelerator pedal covers.

‘It appears they need at least until April 20th to correct the issue, but it could be potentially longer than that,’ a Tesla representative texted one customer, Max Pyko of Birmingham, Alabama.

‘Tesla is working on getting improved parts to all affected locations asap,’ the company’s text message continued.

And new drone footage, obtained by DailyMail.com, shows rapid efforts to expand Tesla’s Giga factory outside Austin, Texas — where an estimated 600 Cybertrucks sit idle to the west and east sides of Texas State Highway 130.

The Cybertruck had been rushed into production at Tesla’s Texas Giga factory, as attorneys for construction workers have alleged in recent years, despite on-site safety hazards and incomplete construction of the facility itself.

And at least one Cybertruck customer in California has recently come forward claiming that the EV’s brakes malfunctioned just weeks after purchase, sending their vehicle crashing into the pole of a road sign.

In a post on the Cybertruck Owners Club forum, the driver said they attempted to slow the Cybertruck by pressing the brakes, only to find they did not engage — adding that the air bags also did not deploy when the EV collided with the pole.

Images of the incident showed the shiny steel front end smashed, the side panel hanging off and the hood bent on the side of the impact.

Balan’s informed outside assessment of Tesla’s ongoing Cybertruck situation is that some of the company’s current engineers may be locked in a battle with management to fix the EV’s safety issues, despite threats to their livelihoods.

One Cybertruck owner in California posted photos of the damage to their car after it crashed into a traffic sign pole, due to a brake issue. A broken bumper cover can be seen here

Balan was released from portions of her ‘forced arbitration agreement’ with Tesla in June 2019, when a US District Court judge, Marsha Pechman, said that her defamation and libel case against Tesla could proceed in federal court. Above, Balan at Tesla when she was an employee

‘From my experience, and from my team’s experience, I can assure you that at one point one engineer or one manager tried to fix it,’ Balan told DailyMail.com.

‘The amount of threatening and the attacks on the engineers expanded if they found an issue or a problem,’ she explained. ‘This is how the mentality of Tesla is.’

READ MORE: Tesla Cybertruck owner reveals potentially fatal flaw that causes throttle to get stuck while driving – ‘It’s a deathtrap, man’

Tesla’s Cybertruck has sparked concerns for one owner who said a malfunction with the accelerator has turned the vehicle into a ‘death trap’ after the pedal got stuck while driving.

DailyMail.com has reached out for comment to Tesla, which dissolved its US media relations team in October 2020.

Balan — a single mother who has spent the past two years battling breast cancer while raising her 14-year-old son — is now once again in federal court in California as Tesla attempts to appeal her defamation and libel lawsuit.

‘When I heard about the diagnosis, it was one week, imagine that, one week after Tesla won their petition to confirm their arbitration in California,’ Balan told DailyMail.com. ‘And I was already devastated by that thing [the breast cancer diagnosis].’

But her legal woes began farther back, in 2014, when Balan attempted to bring the floor mat’s ‘curling’ defect directly to Musk’s attention, alarming middle-managers — whom she says not only ignored her concerns, but tried to keep her quiet.

‘My entire team asked for a meeting and said, “Cristina, if you are there and if you have the guts to go higher up, if you want to go to Elon, we are coming with you,”‘ Balan said.

‘It was an entire team at Tesla back then. It was not just me.’

Hand-written notes by a member of Tesla’s HR department appear to corroborate Balan’s accusations of wrongful termination: one note added to her exit interview reads ‘Threatened if she spoke up.’

For many of the years since then, Balan’s battle with Tesla has been held in private, due to so-called ‘forced arbitration agreements’ written into her and most other Tesla employees’ contracts with the company.

The agreements compel employees to handle any of their grievances outside of court, ostensibly with an independent and impartial third-party ‘arbitrator’ acting to resolve the dispute.

Balan was effectively released from portions of her forced arbitration agreement in June 2019, when a US District Court judge in Seattle, Marsha J. Pechman, said that her defamation and libel case against Tesla could proceed in federal court.

Tesla’s ‘broad confidentiality clause,’ Judge Pechman ruled, ‘leads to the harsh, one-sided result that Tesla may publicly attack Plaintiff [Balan] while she may not publicly defend herself.’

‘The clause also implicates public safety concerns,’ the judge continued, ‘when applied to employees who, as alleged here, seek to notify the public that a car company is failing to adequately address design flaws.’

Another Tesla Cybertruck owner recently complained that the pedal cover for his accelerator slid off while he was driving his vehicle (pictured), pushing the speed to 100 percent

The pedal cover was wedged under a piece of fabric that was part of the vehicle’s floorboard, making it impossible to the driver to release it until he was able to stop the Cybertruck

Tesla’s ‘broad confidentiality clause,’ Judge Pechman ruled (above), ‘leads to the harsh, one-sided result that Tesla may publicly attack Plaintiff [Balan] while she may not publicly defend herself.’ Judge Pechman noted Tesla had failed to back-up its public accusations against Balan

As Balan also told the BBC this week, her cancer is now in remission, but she still worries that she might not live to see her final days in court.

‘I want to clear my name,’ she said. ‘I wish Elon Musk had the decency to apologize.’

Balan told DailyMail.com that she plans to respect the privacy requests of the current Tesla insiders who have quietly reached out to to her about issues with the automaker’s latest EVs, including the Cybertruck.

‘They contact me because, you know, they know my story,’ she said. ‘And they know the story from my team in there.’

This article will be amended if the company responds.

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