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So what? The FANUC robotics factory is a completely automated lights out factory, yet even a half meter arm that can brealy lift more than 10kg goes for 20-30k.

So what? The FANUC robotics factory is a completely automated lights out factory, yet even a half meter arm that can brealy lift more than 10kg goes for 20-30k. Robots are just expensive.

iandanforth 8y ago
False! Robots are expensive for three reasons 1. Small scale 2. High precision and 3. Patents. By far the largest one of those is scale. If you can build a car for 15k you can build a humanoid robot for 15k. I'm happy to take a long bet on this.
- GlenTheMachine 8y ago
  Existing industrial robot arms are already built at some scale, and they go fo $50,000 and up. And that's just an arm. No tooling, no sensors. This may be that the economies of scale aren't big enough, but we're already talking about hundreds of thousands of units per year in the industry. The car industry builds 75 million or so units per year. They get away with it because of turnover. Fleet owners don't keep cars past 20,000 or 30,000 miles. High end car owners replace their cars every couple of years. They pay $30,000 to $70,000 every five years. Because cars are more than transportation, they're a lifestyle choice and in many cases a sign of conspicuous consumption. I have a hard time thinking of any other consumer item that is both owned by the vast majority of people and is also a sign of wealth, that is purchased in the high tens of millions every year and for which people happily pay more than $20,000. Cars aren't a good proxy for household robots here, I think.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    "Fleet owners don't keep cars past 20,000 or 30,000 miles. High end car owners replace their cars every couple of years. They pay $30,000 to $70,000 every five years." Cars aren't scrapped after five years. The average car on the road is over 10 years old, and they're not normally scrapped before about 15 years old.
    - GlenTheMachine 8y ago
      >Cars aren't scrapped after five years. No, of course not. But fleet owners buy new ones every five years or less. Typically the old cars are sold on the used market. Which means there is always a market for new cars, and a steady availability of used ones. But the point is: fleet owners turn their inventory over much faster than the cars wear out.
taneq 8y ago
That $20-30k isn't what they cost to make, though. It's what they sell for. Prices in the free market are set by the second lowest supply cost.
TomTomXC 8y ago
At volume (e.g. an order of 1000 exactly same robots) you can get a 2m industrial arm with 200kg of payload, 2m/s speed and 2m/s2 accel for around 10k€. It's close to the material cost, that's why robotics companies venture off into new field such as collaborative robots, medical robots etc. where margins are still higher.
russdill 8y ago
These robots operate with much greater precision and have much higher durability and strength than required for a home robot. Additionally, people won't need a robot in their home 24/7. Just for a few hours per day. The robot can transport itself between homes during the day, splitting the cost. Additionally, a lot of that cost is engineering. If you only made a few million iPhones, they'd be much much more than $1000. The limiting factor will be how quickly AI that can support such a thing comes along.

So what? The FANUC robotics factory is a completely automated lights out factory, yet even a half meter arm that can brealy lift more than 10kg goes for 20-30k. Robots are just expensive.

iandanforth 8y ago

False! Robots are expensive for three reasons 1. Small scale 2. High precision and 3. Patents. By far the largest one of those is scale. If you can build a car for 15k you can build a humanoid robot for 15k. I'm happy to take a long bet on this.

GlenTheMachine 8y ago
Existing industrial robot arms are already built at some scale, and they go fo $50,000 and up. And that's just an arm. No tooling, no sensors. This may be that the economies of scale aren't big enough, but we're already talking about hundreds of thousands of units per year in the industry. The car industry builds 75 million or so units per year. They get away with it because of turnover. Fleet owners don't keep cars past 20,000 or 30,000 miles. High end car owners replace their cars every couple of years. They pay $30,000 to $70,000 every five years. Because cars are more than transportation, they're a lifestyle choice and in many cases a sign of conspicuous consumption. I have a hard time thinking of any other consumer item that is both owned by the vast majority of people and is also a sign of wealth, that is purchased in the high tens of millions every year and for which people happily pay more than $20,000. Cars aren't a good proxy for household robots here, I think.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  "Fleet owners don't keep cars past 20,000 or 30,000 miles. High end car owners replace their cars every couple of years. They pay $30,000 to $70,000 every five years." Cars aren't scrapped after five years. The average car on the road is over 10 years old, and they're not normally scrapped before about 15 years old.
  - GlenTheMachine 8y ago
    >Cars aren't scrapped after five years. No, of course not. But fleet owners buy new ones every five years or less. Typically the old cars are sold on the used market. Which means there is always a market for new cars, and a steady availability of used ones. But the point is: fleet owners turn their inventory over much faster than the cars wear out.

taneq 8y ago

That $20-30k isn't what they cost to make, though. It's what they sell for. Prices in the free market are set by the second lowest supply cost.

TomTomXC 8y ago

At volume (e.g. an order of 1000 exactly same robots) you can get a 2m industrial arm with 200kg of payload, 2m/s speed and 2m/s2 accel for around 10k€. It's close to the material cost, that's why robotics companies venture off into new field such as collaborative robots, medical robots etc. where margins are still higher.

russdill 8y ago

These robots operate with much greater precision and have much higher durability and strength than required for a home robot. Additionally, people won't need a robot in their home 24/7. Just for a few hours per day. The robot can transport itself between homes during the day, splitting the cost. Additionally, a lot of that cost is engineering. If you only made a few million iPhones, they'd be much much more than $1000. The limiting factor will be how quickly AI that can support such a thing comes along.