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Robots already build cars, and supply of new cars is often out-stripped by demand. It's not really new ground. The limitations in car production are always the

by weego 5y ago

Robots already build cars, and supply of new cars is often out-stripped by demand. It's not really new ground. The limitations in car production are always the component supply chain, not the actual manufacture.

nly 5y ago
Google image search "car factory" and it's super obviously it's quite labour intensive. I'm not sure why an investment in robots has to be "new ground".
- newsclues 5y ago
  You are right, modern car manufacturers still use humans in assembly lines. But to see how much robots actually do nowadays, compare that to auto assembly from decades ago when robots were new, or further back when they did not exist
  - jrwoodruff 5y ago
    Yup! And really, the highly, highly automated processes in car manufacturing are in the stamping, body construction and painting phases. Almost no humans involved in those three major phases. Final Assembly is the most labor intensive, because it involves lots of fiddly little parts going into hard to reach places. Even then, it's usually robot-assisted tasks, so one person is installing a seat, where it would usually take two, or something like that.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  The Google Image search isn't reflective of an actual car factory.. There are of course hundreds of workers there but final assembly facilities produce something like 1 car/minute. They're heavily reliant on robots - most of the parts move around the floor on autonomous transports, the stamping is all robotic, all of the frame welding is robotic, paint is of course robotic. GM is of course tied in with the UAW, so they're going to be as favorable to labor as possible in their promo videos, but take a look at this video of one of their production facilities, this is reflective of the amount of manual input into modern automotive production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ow7gmZTIpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ow7gmZTIpo
  - jrwoodruff 5y ago
    I've toured this plant. They don't show it in this video, but in the stamping and body areas of the plant, they don't even have the lights on at task levels - it's a dusk-level lighting until a human enters the space. This plant was built circa 2006, and is pretty amazing. Bring steel coils into one side of the factory, get a fully assembled car from the other side.
- deelowe 5y ago
  You're using the wrong terms. Add "advanced manufacturing" to the query to get some idea of the current state of things. I toured a new automotive plant over 10 years ago and up until the final configuration stage, the only manual labor was cabling and quality control. This included sheet metal unloading and delivery (from rail), stamping of the chassis, welding, paint, installation of doors, hood, suspension, etc, powertrain installation, and many others. From my estimate, 2/3 of the factory was very close to being "lights out." The entire welding and paint process was fully automated and required a line stop to enter the area.
- cosmodisk 5y ago
  Humans do the basic stuff that robots aren't any good at: pulling wires through, putting some pieces in an inconvenient place,etc. All the welding, painting and many others are fully automated.
Tade0 5y ago
Robots indeed build cars, but not from start to finish. Especially customisation and snapping delicate plastic trim pieces in place is still done by hand.
- batmansmk 5y ago
  Humans spend 15h to 60h of labour to build a car. After, humans worked on individual parts, shipping, loading etc. My rule of thumb is that there is about 10% of manufacture cost that are direct or indirect cost connected to payroll. If I may add another axis of reflexion that I consider fundamental for modern engineers to consider, food for machines for producing a car (44% natural gas when smithing things) is about 15 to 25% of the energy cost to use the car in its lifetime, according to the EU. Or about 2,400 euro of a 8L/100km car. So in a world where energy gets more expensive, automation needs to definitely evolve, but not solely to be faster or replace more humans. https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/9/2396/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/9/2396/pdf
  - glitchc 5y ago
    Even 60h seems low here. Do you only mean assembly? Tacking on parts manufacturing, sub-component assembly, and software is likely to increase that estimate by a factor of 2 to 5.
    - batmansmk 5y ago
      The numbers are coming from Toyota, Peugeot and Renault. You can take the financials - manufacturing payroll is its own category.

by weego 5y ago

nly 5y ago

Google image search "car factory" and it's super obviously it's quite labour intensive. I'm not sure why an investment in robots has to be "new ground".

newsclues 5y ago
You are right, modern car manufacturers still use humans in assembly lines. But to see how much robots actually do nowadays, compare that to auto assembly from decades ago when robots were new, or further back when they did not exist
- jrwoodruff 5y ago
  Yup! And really, the highly, highly automated processes in car manufacturing are in the stamping, body construction and painting phases. Almost no humans involved in those three major phases. Final Assembly is the most labor intensive, because it involves lots of fiddly little parts going into hard to reach places. Even then, it's usually robot-assisted tasks, so one person is installing a seat, where it would usually take two, or something like that.
mikeyouse 5y ago
The Google Image search isn't reflective of an actual car factory.. There are of course hundreds of workers there but final assembly facilities produce something like 1 car/minute. They're heavily reliant on robots - most of the parts move around the floor on autonomous transports, the stamping is all robotic, all of the frame welding is robotic, paint is of course robotic. GM is of course tied in with the UAW, so they're going to be as favorable to labor as possible in their promo videos, but take a look at this video of one of their production facilities, this is reflective of the amount of manual input into modern automotive production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ow7gmZTIpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ow7gmZTIpo
- jrwoodruff 5y ago
  I've toured this plant. They don't show it in this video, but in the stamping and body areas of the plant, they don't even have the lights on at task levels - it's a dusk-level lighting until a human enters the space. This plant was built circa 2006, and is pretty amazing. Bring steel coils into one side of the factory, get a fully assembled car from the other side.
deelowe 5y ago
You're using the wrong terms. Add "advanced manufacturing" to the query to get some idea of the current state of things. I toured a new automotive plant over 10 years ago and up until the final configuration stage, the only manual labor was cabling and quality control. This included sheet metal unloading and delivery (from rail), stamping of the chassis, welding, paint, installation of doors, hood, suspension, etc, powertrain installation, and many others. From my estimate, 2/3 of the factory was very close to being "lights out." The entire welding and paint process was fully automated and required a line stop to enter the area.
cosmodisk 5y ago
Humans do the basic stuff that robots aren't any good at: pulling wires through, putting some pieces in an inconvenient place,etc. All the welding, painting and many others are fully automated.

Tade0 5y ago

Robots indeed build cars, but not from start to finish. Especially customisation and snapping delicate plastic trim pieces in place is still done by hand.

batmansmk 5y ago
Humans spend 15h to 60h of labour to build a car. After, humans worked on individual parts, shipping, loading etc. My rule of thumb is that there is about 10% of manufacture cost that are direct or indirect cost connected to payroll. If I may add another axis of reflexion that I consider fundamental for modern engineers to consider, food for machines for producing a car (44% natural gas when smithing things) is about 15 to 25% of the energy cost to use the car in its lifetime, according to the EU. Or about 2,400 euro of a 8L/100km car. So in a world where energy gets more expensive, automation needs to definitely evolve, but not solely to be faster or replace more humans. https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/9/2396/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/9/2396/pdf
- glitchc 5y ago
  Even 60h seems low here. Do you only mean assembly? Tacking on parts manufacturing, sub-component assembly, and software is likely to increase that estimate by a factor of 2 to 5.
  - batmansmk 5y ago
    The numbers are coming from Toyota, Peugeot and Renault. You can take the financials - manufacturing payroll is its own category.