Bringing manufacturing jobs home has been in the news lately, but it's not the 1950s or even the 1980s anymore. Today's factories need far less humans. Global car sales were 78,000,000 in 2024 and the global automotive workforce was 2,500,000. However, if the global workforce was as efficient as this Honda factory, it could build those cars with only 20% of that workforce.
If something can be done for 20% of the cost, that is probably the direction of travel. Bear in mind too, factories will get even more automated and efficient than today's 2025 Honda factory.
It's not improbable within a few years we will have 100% robot-staffed factories that need no humans at all. Who'll have the money to buy all the cars they make is another question entirely.
Honda says its newest car factory in China needs 30% less staff thanks to AI & automation, and its staff of 800 can produce 5 times more cars than the global average for the automotive industry.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
5 Comments
There are only a handful of ways to make a fully automated economy work for the average person and conservatives do not even have the basic concepts of those ways within 500 miles of their consideration
And yet POTUS wants factories back in the US to create loads of jobs. Yeah right.
So, they can lower their prices by, say, 50% and we can still get Chinese cars for less than local cars even with Tariffs?
Aw I like the look of that little Honda EV too but I can’t support companies that don’t support humans…
Yes, now they only need to get AI to buy their cars too.