Arrival, a small EV company, wants to replace the assembly lines automakers have used for more than 100 years with something radically different — small factories employing a few hundred workers, reports the Orlando Sentinel (April 27, 2021). The firm is creating highly automated “microfactories” where its delivery vans will be assembled by multitasking robots, breaking from the approach pioneered by Henry Ford and used by most of the world’s automakers.
The plants would produce tens of thousands of vehicles a year. That’s far fewer than traditional auto plants, which require 2,000 or more workers and typically produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year. The advantage is that its microfactories will cost about $50 million rather than the $1 billion required to build a traditional factory. Arrival says this method should yield vans that cost a lot less than other electric models and even today’s standard, diesel-powered vehicles.
Such vehicles are well suited to electrification because they travel a set number of miles a day and can be charged overnight. Arrival has already won over UPS, which has a 4% stake in the company and plans to buy 10,000 Arrival vans
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In Arrival’s factories, a motorized platform will carry unfinished vehicles among 6 different robot clusters, with different components added at each stop. The company is also replacing most steel vehicle parts with components made from
advanced composites. These parts are to be held together by structural adhesives instead of metal welds. The use of composites, which can be produced in any color, would eliminate 3 of the most expensive parts of an auto plant — the paint shop, the giant printing presses that stamp out fenders, and the robots that weld metal parts into larger underbody components. Each typically costs several hundred million dollars.
But automating auto plants is notoriously tricky. Tesla blamed overreliance on robots for the troubled start of its Model 3 production line. Manufacturing robots are usually programmed to do 1-2 tasks. Arrival is counting on its robots to handle a variety of jobs.
Classroom discussion questions:
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of microfactories such as Arrival’s?
- Why are robots the key here?