Gigafactory? How About Microfactory? Arrival Rethinks How an EV is Built

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#ev #electricvehicle #interview #undecidedwithmattferrell

[andrewpaulhart]

I would imagine as the volumes increase the advantage of the mega factories become apparent. So I can believe this works really well for busses and vans and even luxury cars, but not so much for mass market cars.

This could be great for small countries that currently import all vehicles.

[LoganMaclaren]

Arrival arrived with a lengthy list of innovations, in a time when "innovation" is a buzz-word, and they're doing so from the very bases - the assembly line. I'm really rooting for them to succeed.
Thanks for another great video!

[chana]

Not Using Paint is also eco-friendly. Very excited for this idea to come to fruition

[TwoBitDaVinci]

great interview Matt, been waiting for this video!

[jeffbransky]

Historically economies of scale have been proven to produce products at the lowest costs possible. When you want to meet a large demand for a product you build big. When you expect demand to be small, you build small factories that have low output. If there isn’t enough demand for your product, you think small. Both approaches are valid depending on the market for the product. If demand for your product that is built in a micro factory grows too large, your product will cost too much compared to a rival company that has scaled up to meet demand.

[ppipowerclass]

They're dead right about the paint shop at a car factory. I live only minutes from the old Ford plant that was in Lorain, Ohio that produced Thunderbirds, Econoline vans and several other vehicles. They built a very " state of the art " paint shop there, spent a LOT of money on it, then closed the plant, never used it. I think the small factory idea is good idea, because it would trim a lot of the fat / overhead.

[Jer_Schmidt]

Thanks for making the video! I had heard Arrival refer to the microfactory before but was confused as to what the logic was behind that approach. Very interesting and I hope they succeed!

[johnpinke]

Elon says: "It's easy to build the first one, now build me a million!" I hope these guys have the staying power...

[cloobs]

lets talk in 5 years and see how they been doing on quality and delivery time, leave alone cost per unit. Their approach is similar to boat builders rather than mass production of a car, I cant see how u can even compare them?!

[christalbot]

Mega and giga-factories have a couple of advantages. One of them is efficiency of scale. Another is a centralized location. This means if the demand for this product shifts in location (e.g. Tampa now has its buses and doesn't need more, but Jacksonville, seeing Tampa's success, now wants in on the action), it doesn't change how the factory does business one bit.

Hmm. Since the micro-factory can be setup in a warehouse, I wonder how hard it is to move. If the new location has more-or-less the same dimensions as the old, you could theoretically move the robots to the same relative location in the new place (possibly eliminating the need to reprogram the mover robots). Since all the robots are already programmed for a particular vehicle, it shouldn't take too much time to get the new factory going. Though not the cost of a brand new micro-factory, it'd still probably be expensive. Employees would be a problem. They'd either go with the factory to the new location or the company would have to train a replacement.

Then again-again, since the factory is so flexible, it could simply be reset for a different untapped market (e.g. vans instead of buses).

[davebagley]

I'm waiting to see the first USPS EV. When that happens, we will have finally turned the corner.

[pebre]

I was skeptical when he said one microfactory could output 1000 buses a year, but then I googled that Chicago, for example, has about 1600 buses in their fleet. With that, I wish them much success !

[CaedenV]

This fascinates me as I am starting to get into 'making' or 'crafting' as a side business. Starting out my goal is to find highly profitable and highly custom print jobs because my personal abilities, and my 3D printer make it cheap and easy to get into that with very low overhead or space requirements. But looking to the future, I absolutely see the long term benefits of medium to mass manufacture with things like injection molding, and if I find a product or two that gains that kind of traction, then I will absolutely have to get something like that together. The up-front cost of it will suck, but injection molding I can make 1 medium sized part in an hour or two, where 3D printing would take the better part of a day or two.
I feel like these guys are going to run into something similar, though at a much grander scale than my little side-hustle.

[blustone]

Being British, I proud we're doing our bit to change to a more sustainable future. Our country is taking a bit of a battering at the moment and Arrival makes something light out of the gloom. Nice work for picking this one up and sharing something that I did not know, I didn't realise the company was micro factory based, good idea!

[czsmc]

This was really intersting, looking forward to the follow up.

[frohman]

Probably the most compelling approach I have seen outside of Tesla. Wishing them luck!!

[morkovija]

Cant wait to have one of those DPD vehicles as RV conversion. Perfect platform and a form factor

[nyuszi]

wow, not even the slightest indication of a grin when dropping that pun: 'And this is where "a rival" comes in.'

[alanwetherall]

Boy that video took me back in time. I used to work in the shoe industry with the traditinal long lines of circular tracks producing shoes. I joined a company that developed the cell based apparoch just like the video. The result was a faster more flexible production setup. The other thing that everybody overlooks is that it drasticall reduces the work in progress which is capital teid up and not producting profit. If you turn round your products in a quicker time it makes an amazing effect on your bottom line. I live about 40 iles from Bister in England and cant wait to go and see the site
alan