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.

cross-posted from: https://futurology.today/post/4251786

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.
Details of the new Honda factory.

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It's not improbable within a few years we will have 100% robot-staffed factories that need no humans at all.
You'll never get to 100%, you still need at minimum maintenance guys for the robotics
- people have been saying this since the beginning of industrial capitalism. in vol 1 of capital marx quotes a factory owner who argued his work force could soon be replaced entirely by machines. the point, of course, was to dissuade the workers to pursue better working conditions, as this would somehow hasten the process by making the labourers more costly than the machines
- They day will come when robots can do all the maintenance they need on each other.
  
  Doubtful. The amount of precise manipulation needed to do something as simple as repair the feeder mechanism on a welder, is still decades away, let alone cut and install wiring, or repair a work-cell cage. While some of that is kinda possible, to be able to do it at scale and more cost effective than human labor is well into the realm of fiction, and does not reflect a realistic assessment of the state of future or current capabilities.
Dongfeng Honda has a factory in Wuhan and their new Lingxi I've seen a few times. They... idk, are very digital? Like, the rear view mirror has been replaced with a rear view live camera, so if someone extremely tall is sitting in the middle back seat, you can still get a clear view of whats behind you, but having everything digital might be a double edged sword.
Also I'm sure even a 0.1ms delay on camera vs 0 for mirror will eventually cause a problem in split second decisions, but that's not unique to Honda.
- Having basic things like rearview mirrors be All Computer also makes me nervous about long term maintenance
  
  Eh, it's one of those things where if it works it's better than a mere mirror but if it breaks it's potentially catastrophic. The quality of the build is the important factor.
- They... idk, are very digital? Like, the rear view mirror has been replaced with a rear view live camera, so if someone extremely tall is sitting in the middle back seat, you can still get a clear view of whats behind you, but having everything digital might be a double edged sword.
  i was mildly road raging about some dipshit going 30 in a 35 on my way to work and thankfully they turned off the road and as they were turning, this motherfucker was playing anime on some shit like that
  I thought it was their fucking phone but since it was where the rearview mirror would go I'm wondering if it was a digital display to begin with and they just, have fucking anime playing on it while they drive
- Everything's computer
- Just takes some cold weather to make a car brick so hard you can't even force it into neutral.
  
  Eh, it's China. If your car doesn't start there's world class public transport.
  
  i think the only time in his life my dad took the local shitty public transit was a very cold winter a few decades ago where his gas car wouldn't start
I wonder if the west actually will be able to reindustrialize if factory automation is getting this efficient. Maybe, we could end up with a semi-deglobalized world where each trade block has their own efficient automated manufacturing spheres, and more localized mining/heavy industry.
Phrenologically, it seems like caucoids lack the capability for term planning though.
- China will probably not be giving the US that tech
- Even if factory automation is developed globally, you still need to build and maintain the automated factories... which requires re-industrialization.
Can someone ELI5 China’s plans for laid off workers because of automation?
I see “Honda” and automatically think this is a pretense in putting more innocent workers on the streets.
- I guess the next 5 year plan is coming out next year so we'll know the answer to this question then. Directly or indirectly.
- Can someone ELI5 China’s plans for laid off workers because of automation?
  The laid off workers will be part of the Democratic People's Reserve Army of Labour.
  
  In a cooler world that actually sounds awesome.
- Are there workers getting laid off? Or is production expanding as fast/faster than the work force?
  
  I dont see the workforce expanding by a factor of 5 tbh
china over here unlocking new production methods while the rest of the world struggles to switch from free trade to protectionism, like it'll make a diff
5 times more cars! Just what the world needs.
We really are speedrunning the paperclip-maker scenario.

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