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>Unlike manufacturing cars or silicon, housing has very poor economies of scale. Building 10 houses isn't a whole lot cheaper than building 5. That's similar t
by zardo 10y ago
>Unlike manufacturing cars or silicon, housing has very poor economies of scale. Building 10 houses isn't a whole lot cheaper than building 5.
That's similar to cars. The economies of scale are there. You just need to sell 500,000 a year like a car manufacturer does.
Also, cars have customers which will pay many multiples the normal price for new technology, and that market that lasted for a century.
- morgante 10y agoIn what way is it similar to cars? If you want to mass-produce housing, you have to get around two very big barriers: 1. Most of the market looks down on mass-produced housing thanks to its association with trailer parks and/or identical condos. 2. Housing is mostly produced locally. Shipping large homes would be extremely difficult and expensive. > Also, cars have customers which will pay many multiples the normal price for new technology, and that market that lasted for a century. Sure, but that's equally true for housing. There are plenty of people who will pay a significant premium for a "smart home" or houses with energy efficient built in. This doesn't make mass-manufacturing easier.
- sjg007 10y agoThe reason we don't mass produce houses is because it is a job creator.
- majewsky 10y ago> Housing is mostly produced locally. Shipping large homes would be extremely difficult and expensive. You don't need to ship the whole house in one piece. If you ship premanufactured panels (which is the common method), the price of shipping should be comparable to shipping the "ingredients" to the construction site.
- zardo 10y agoThe economies of scale that a manufacturer would get from cranking out hundreds of thousands of the same home a year are "real". There are a lot of reasons the market doesn't support such a business though. The smarthome market is just not in the same league as cars when it comes to an subsidizing technological development. There is no Formula 1 for housing.
- Mindless2112 10y agoToyota manufactures houses in Japan [1]. If they sold them in the US, I'd buy one in a heartbeat. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzpv47o80eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzpv47o80eg
- majewsky 10y agoI haven't seen metal frames in prefab houses before. Is that because of the frequent earthquakes?