Gigafactory? How About Microfactory? Arrival Rethinks How an EV is Built
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 มิ.ย. 2024
- Gigafactory? How About Microfactory? Arrival Rethinks How an EV is Built. Go to brilliant.org/Undecided you can sign up for free. And also, the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium membership. In the world of vehicle manufacturing, not just EVs, bigger is usually seen as better for economies of scale. Gigantic Gigafactories pumping out thousands of vehicles. What if there was another way? A new EV company on the scene is challenging that notion. Arrival's microfactories are rethinking how an EV is built and producing electric vans and electric buses. Let's take a closer look.
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So what do you think of Arrival's approach? And be sure to watch my video on another innovative company in action - Highview Power and Liquid Air Batteries - th-cam.com/video/yb1Nuk3_t_4/w-d-xo.html
Jim Cramer likes it, so it must be great
I am the same in being excited for the idea. It will need to prove itself but GE used the station approach for jets years ago (in a simpler fashion) and not transporting buses around the planet just seems obvious.
Excellent and probably extremely efficient concept, now I want a microfactory. Small scale industry is the future imo.
I have to believe that a gigafactory is more efficient due to economy of scale. That said, this method lowers the entry bar into the automotive market. They are also in a much smaller niche than passenger cars. If the market is too small for a gigafactory pumping out full production to sell, then the gigafactory loses that efficiency advantage and will suffer under the debt load of building it. This would make this approach the obvious choice.
They don't have to beat Tesla anyhow, they just need to be competitive with other bus and van makers.
What's the square footage do they need? I'm not to far from you Matt. Just south on I-95.
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.
It all comes down to economic crossover points. Without all the numbers to the inputs, hard to know exactly where mega makes more sense than micro.
I can see that. Micro is the way to go for the most flexibility though. Old style lines for cookie cutter/identical products could scale more, but I'll trust Arrival knows way more about this than I do and can think about every aspect of it.
I agree, smaller market makes smaller startup costs much more of an attractive risk. The commercial market will differ from the mass automotive market in a lot of ways. A shuttle bus for a hotel is going to put on a lot more miles than mom's minivan. Different things matter, like longevity and operation costs.
Vans and buses are going to be produced in mass though. Think about how many UPS trucks will need to be produced to move their entire fleet to electric.
actually this is easily scalable, you can just create more micro factories since they are very cheap
This could be great for small countries that currently import all vehicles.
Australia would be finally be a viable location to build truck locally instead of importing
Still have to be a decent sized country, probably only need one for all the carribean.
South Africa has a huge mini-bus transportation economy, and assembles Toyota Quantum mini-busses lcoally. I've been trying to get people interested in Arrival, since their vehicles will have a lower total cost of ownership, the factories will employ people, they can be fueled from the sun, no pollution, etc. So far no interest locally...
they'll have to import a lot of steel and oil (for plastics) too
@@brtecson A country like Nigeria with a lot of oil, petrochemical and constructing steel plants should be talking to Arrival Automative
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!
Not Using Paint is also eco-friendly. Very excited for this idea to come to fruition
Good point!
No steel and no welding, probably a fraction of the energy consumption. If the composite is really 100% reuseable tha is also a big win.
Eco friendly AND $$$$ friendly 😜
@@SatisfyingWhirlpools I did not see a price tag yet.
I fail to see how using plastic instead of metal is "eco friendly". Sure it skips paint, but its still a giant plastic van basically.
Making paint more environmentally friendly is just another thing that needs to be tackled, regardless of this one company's material choice.
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.
Or you just won't keep up with the demand and your potential buyer will look elsewhere.
Theyre not ignoring economies of scale, they're going against the idea of a large, central factory. They then scale through the number of factories. So instead of a large factory that requires a large labor pool, housing, schools to be created through migration, they can build where these things already exist and where unemployment is higher.
@@annoyedok321 Scaling the number of small factories is very inefficient. Think about the cost of transporting parts and unfinished vehicles between micro factories (on public roads for that matter). It will accumulate to absurd amounts for a large scale manufacturer. The reason traditional manufacturers build a large factory with everything is that the car can be built completely in one place. They would only need to worry about transporting raw materials to the factory and the finished product from the factory.
@@mervynns4475 Look at the design of these vehicles and their purpose. Class B vehicles are already manufactured this way where a drivetrain and cab are purchased from Ford , Volvo etc. and moved to a final assembly after market company. You can haul more unfinished vehicles per trailer than finished ones. So the bigger, more expensive and more customized the vehicle the more of a benefit.
This Thinking had brought us most of the problems, actual economy causes for enviorement and society. You ca't solve Problems in the same way, they where created.
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 !
It’s a very different scale when you’re talking buses and delivery vans.
@@UndecidedMF Yes and mass transit is the better solution to sustainable mobility than 100 kWh SUVs with single occupants.
I think it is 500/setup/year, so a 2 'factory' setup pushes out 1000 in a year. I imagine them getting an order for 1000 busses, rent a local warehouse for 6 months and set up 4-5 of these in there and produce everything locally, and then move it all to the next town. That would be weird, but kind of awesome.
great interview Matt, been waiting for this video!
Thanks, Ricky! Glad you liked it.
@@UndecidedMF Matt, thank you for covering Arrival. Did you try to interview the CEO of Arrival, Dennis Sverdlov?
I second that, a great interview and covered a lot of really good information. 👍🏼
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.
The thing is, not having a paint shop has nothing to do with micro-factories. Heck, Cybertruck won’t have a paint shop. What kind of fat does Gigafactories at Fremont or Shanghai have?
@@berova That it takes an enormous investment to get started and that each new model or variant is costly.
@@timmurphy5541 that’s not fat, the cost is for equipment and infrastructure that gives capacity that allows big boys to scale. To get to comparable manufacturing volumes, you would need hundreds of more micro-factories which is many times the cost of a Gigafactory. From a long term and total cost perspective, that’s a waste of capital because you would have been able to build another one or two Gigafactory for what you would pay for all those micro-factories equivalent to capacity for one Gigafactory.
@@berova seems like the factory design also allows the ultimate in flexible manufacturing and semi-customization of the production, heck for a few minutes there I thought they were going to be 3D printing the entire vehicle short of the wheels drive train and batteries themselves... Come to think of it/ that is another possible car company to launch. (but when Chrysler tested an almost all plastic Citron CV2, it was TOO RIDGED for the crash testing we do in the USA), so crumple zones need some rethinking
@@berova But those costs are recouped when you have a business case like this UPS van for example where you need to optimize for shorter, more specific production runs with fewer variations within those runs. Then you need to think more about how you can spend the least amount between runs instead of making each individual run as cheap as humanly possible. This means fewer stages, more flexible manufacturing techniques that can more easily be retooled, requiring fewer material inputs that need less complex supply chains. All those factors also makes producing smaller runs closer to where the enduser is more viable at the same time. This isn't the first time a viable business case like this has been made, highly centralized production doesn't make sense for every situation. Assuming they've figured out how to make it work for these kinds of vehicles, and time will tell if they have, they will have found one of many other situations where distributed manufacturing already makes sense.
Elon says: "It's easy to build the first one, now build me a million!" I hope these guys have the staying power...
Elon says that, but still hasn't quite figured it out, has he?
You don't build buses the way you build cars. Even legacy makers like Mercedes and Volvo very often only build a rolling chassis. that could be shipped anywhere in the world to be bodied and configured to a customers needs. Cars are mass production consumer products. Commercial vehicles are custom built investments.
@@JT_771 🥱
@@alliejr 👏 👏 👏
@@alliejr Tesla has made a million vehicles
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?!
Indeed the proof is in the pudding, but this method might prove very suitable to fleet manufacture.
Indeed. This approach only works for small scale manufacturers. Transporting parts and unfinished vehicles between micro factories will be ridiculously expensive for large scale manufacturers.
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!
There are inherent inefficiencies in that approach. Yes a great advantage that you can have a factory to produce 1000 vehicle's at say $43 million however to compare them properly there is a glaring omission that $1 Billion factory how many vehicles a year can it produce?? Plus of course when you have multiple locations this inevitable leads to job duplication. You will simply need people doing the same job at two locations and they cannot be at two places at once.
Yes, but it’s not an apples to apples comparison. Most of those massive factories are meant to pump out hundreds of thousands of cars/trucks. Buses and delivery vans are a different scale. Someone else in the comments pointed out that the city of Chicago has fewer than 2,000 buses. A micro factory in the Midwest servicing multiple cities is all you’d need. Job duplication isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the costs are in line. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming years.
@@UndecidedMF Didn't Amazon order 100k vans? Also is there not a contract with the US Postal service which requires more than that? Of course these are just single customers so there is obviously the private sector.
However if you build a factory for $43 million that will only make 2000 buses well you are adding $21,5000 to the unit price.
I do disagree that it is not an apples to apples thing it very much is if the price is so much higher you certainly though have to account for the far less capital costs. With also accounting for the extra costs involved in the less efficient micro factories also driving up the unit price.
Your example of one micro factory covering the Midwest does highlight the weakness of this concept. As stated they can make 1000 Buses a year on a two shift system Now I have no idea of the number of tons and cities running buses in that area I am going to guess it will be several hundred not that they will all require 2000 buses and of course they will want to keep them running for a couple of decades at least. However the market for that area is going to be many thousands a year. A customer is not going to wait 5 or 10 years for his order to be fulfilled. So you are immediately looking at multiple factories with its inherent inefficiencies. In fact it then starts to make sense to centralise and build bigger more expensive factories for economies of scale and just drive or deliver them.
Micro factories of course make sense if your market is micro and for start ups which might not be able to raise the capital it is literally the only way to go assuming you are not going to outsource production. however I will bet that the first thing this company does If successful will be to build a Big Ass factory and start exporting all over the world.
@@glennedwards1449 Yes they order 100k vans from Rivian=. It was obviously a back door way for Jeff Bezos to use Amazon money to prop up a company he invested and is burning money like no one at the minute. That why the order was so large a well.
@@glennedwards1449 Tell that to Padre Pio.
I'm waiting to see the first USPS EV. When that happens, we will have finally turned the corner.
And USPS vehicles!
It would lower USPS OPEX by a significant amount.
I'd be more impressed if the USPS went to bicycles like many countries already have had for many years. But I did take a photo of a UPS Scooter delivery vehicle in Taipei when I saw it.
@@bradaltemeyer4472 Ebikes would be good for urban delivery but you need to look inside one of the standard trucks you will see the meticulous layout each courier organize for themselves. Not possible on a bike.
@@SxWerks my room mate at Texas Tech became a pre-loader for UPS at that time, it was very organized inside the truck by numeric codes (not by the courier themselves) (circa 1982) he had to memorize all these numeric codes to properly pre-load the truck for the drivers
We need Sandy Munro on the case!
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!
wow, not even the slightest indication of a grin when dropping that pun: 'And this is where "a rival" comes in.'
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).
That the thing, it seem the factory itself is highly modular, they talk about cells. Do these cells comes in shipping containers, where you just crane it into place, unbolt the side panels, remove, plug in the power supply and you are up and running and ready to start assembling components from their main factory in the UK? Is it really is that quick then, they can simply sale a complete product to a city.
Hey you want some of our brand spanking new buses. No, BYD sale them cheaper. Okay how about we had this as a sweetener we will build them in your city and employ locals to help assemble them, all at the same cost.
Politician's love to boast they brought extra jobs to a city.
@@DavidKnowles0 thats actually the first thing that came to my mind. Builded in your country of origin and gave you a job. It works that way with military contracts
I prefer cottage industry--work from home. If they get downscale the factory without losing economies of scale, then we can go back to cottage industry without going back to pre-industrial wages and amentities.
@@KrolPawi But that happens with giga factories already. No they aren't in every country they sell, but they're in sensible geographic areas where they can get their products to where they need to be without too much shipping.
The only reason this works is because of the product. You couldn't do this with a car, such as Tesla. Body design, different colors etc means you can't use the techniques that's being used here. Arrival is making vehicles where you don't have to bend a lot of metal and they don't have to weld, like they said. There isn't 20 different colors to deal with, or more. They're using a body material that no car owner would want. This is the only reason why is can be a micro factory. It's product specific. A lot less steps to make a delivery truck that can mostly look like a box than making a vehicle with a lot of curves.
But let's say they need to make 200,000 vehicle in one geographic area in a year and they can only put out one vehicle in a day with this technique per factory. That's a lot of factories, and I need a lot of expertise at each one. And that's why I think the economics breaks down at large scale. Really they'd have to put a lot of micro factories next to each other to consolidate.
I think the flexible thing is overstated. Most modern robotics being used in making vehicles offer a lot of flexibility. Tesla uses Agile. That's about as flexible as it gets. They can incorporate 20 - 30 changes a week. But they can't use a micro factory to make a vehicle that has to be welded, has lots of curves, has a much more complex interior, etc...... It becomes too big.
So this is product dependent, and I still think you lose economics of scale to some degree if you keep having to add new factories and personnel. It starts to become a logistics nightmare getting all the materials you need to 50 - 60 locations all within the same geographic area if your demand requires you to have that many factories. You could overcome some of this by have a macro factory of micro factories.
Probably the most compelling approach I have seen outside of Tesla. Wishing them luck!!
This was really intersting, looking forward to the follow up.
Glad you liked it!
Absolute great content. This is really a great concept. More useful to small to mid level economy countries, where heavy import costs exist. Would love to see it flourish asap.
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.
Do Not use the word " Crafted " you are Not crafting anything , a Lazy sloth ridden Millennial mindset of stupidity ...
@@reserva120 stfu allan 🤮🤮🤮🤬🤬👿👿
Injection molding can make a medium sized part in a minute or two if you have your machine set up correctly.
Cant wait to have one of those DPD vehicles as RV conversion. Perfect platform and a form factor
And the way they are manufactured, they can probably easily introduce variations of the same model that are specifically intended for RV's.
same haha. was just thinking of a future wherein I could convert one to use on holiday lol
@@laur-unstagenameactuallyca1587 By the time you get it you'd need to spend $40,000 on new batteries to even get anywhere.
A lot of respect for having the ad banner at the bottom during the ad, easier to skip, but at the same time, thanks Brilliant for sponsoring. (I literally only need 2 seconds to see the logo of a company I already know about. It's insane that ads waste so much time when almost everyone already knows the product/service. [speaking of an industry that is dated.])
First, Thank you Matt Ferrell for another compelling, fascinating, and thought-provoking "Undecided" episode.
The "micro factory" idea is an interesting approach, and I understand a lot of the logic. My first argument against the idea is simply that it is difficult to achieve (or completely misses) economies of scale inherently built-in to the large assembly line processes. I'm trying to imagine the correct question phrase I'd like to put to Elon for his take on how th4 micro factory idea would work in the situation where Tesla aims to produce millions of vehicles a year. Truth is, I don't see it in the mass automobile OEM application.
What arrival is doing is neat, and a great innovative way to do things as a startup who needs lower start-up costs, but once they are established and have a sustainable funding model they will absolutely move to a more traditional assembly line. The up-front cost is higher, but when mass producing cars it will be much cheaper, faster, and smaller.
That said, their move towards composite non-stamped non-painted materials can cut down a ton on the assembly line, but that will only make the move to an assembly line more possible earlier in the process rather than an argument against it. For small 500/year/setup installations their strategy makes sense, but when they are moving up to 10k per month needing to move through a single facility they have to ask themselves if they want to build and maintain and feed ~250 individual micro-assembly stations? Or do they want one large assembly line that will take less space, power, and overhead?
I think their real value is in creating highly complex and custom vehicles at low volume. You cannot build 500 custom mail trucks cost effectively on a traditional assembly line... but you can absolutely do it with this. More importantly, they can sell their system (with a hefty servicing contract) to UPS, USPS, police, ambulances, etc, and they can build/repair/replace their own vehicles in-house with this kind of system. I think when they outsource the tech to smaller firms rather than making the vehicles themselves, then they will have something truly game changing.
They are starting out by making specialized custom vehicles, they might expand their business by producing more niche work vehicles to the clients specifications something that doesn't really benefit as much from the scalability of large factories. If managed correctly this versatile system can definitely find a stable long term niche.
Innovative, exciting approach! I join you in wishing them success.
👍
As much as I love my v8 pickemup truck, As a school bus driver I am stoked to see commercial EVs. Imagine all the safety benefits. Such as being able to hear better at railroad crossings. Just to name one.
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
I love these VERY utility-focused vehicles! Can't wait to see them on the roads :) Electric and sustainable future is so awesome, as we will get so much better products overall!
Brilliant, he pronounced Bicester correct!👌
Commercial use of EV and hydrogen are, honestly, where it makes the most sense. So I hope to see this grow. If Arrival can succeed, awesome! But I have two major MAJOR questions. 1. How do they handle quality control? QC in a single factory is a LOT easier than QC in a network of microfactories. 2. How do they address maintenance? Is the tolerance of their microfactories good enough that parts from one can swap for parts from another easily years down the line when their products need significant replacement parts? And will they be available? These are the kinds of questions that will prove if Arrival works ... or is Dead On Arrival.
It is truly heartening to hear Mike's perspectives. I have long taken it as axiomatic that design have to be developed together. Design - of product and manufacturing - set the floor for minimum cost . They also set the ceiling for maximum quality. Volume of production helps to determine the appropriate general approach - in something like a step function. Hand build and assemble, cells, intermittent lines, continuous lines. First principles gets the unbiased to the better answers.
Deja Vu: Before Henry Ford invented the assembly line this was the way cars were built.
Below, Mahoney Technologies mentions Distributed Manufacturing. Big plants require big cities. Rural areas and small towns could become manufacturing centers. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!
I'm rooting for them, but when I saw that UPS truck door close so slowly and look pretty delicate, I wonder if they studied how delivery trucks are used in real life?
Thanks so much for this Matt. Super interesting and exciting. I am really hopeful too that they succeed and the interview I think unveiled how realistic this is - I did not smell any BS in this.
The Uk which is where I am is desperate for this so there is much to gain and the fact they are thinking globally with their micro factory approach allows so much flexibility in terms of not needing high demand in order to ramp production in a certain location.
Really like this and will be adding to my position 😁
I really like the vision and design style this company has. I really hope they make it.
I have PTSD from all the EV companies over the years with huge promises that have never made it to market.
Please learn from your predecessors failures so you can succeed!
They should get a partnership with a popular rv company and give us a decent priced electric rv.
OR just make one and start a new brand.
RV is the antithesis of EV best use case.
No stop and go.
No dedicated route or depot.
Typically seasonal use.
@@jimurrata6785 electric cars are on the way to get cheap enough to used in all cases regardless whether it's ideal. Plus I think being able to run all the appliances without running a generator is pretty good.
It is my sincere hope that this company succeeds. I want to see electric USPS mail trucks everywhere. From a recent article: "The Postal Service has said the contract could be worth more than $6 billion of business to build as many as 180,000 delivery vans. It also is looking at splitting the giant order between multiple parties." Arrival should bid on this. Mail trucks stop every 200 feet and never leave town. Regenerative braking all day long, short range: perfect EV application.
Some mail routes are up to 100 miles per day. Speeds up to 65mph. Some do leave the cities. 30 mile routes are not unusual for a city curbside route.
I'm not a huge believer in EV's but I agree with you about the points you made. Buses and delivery vehicle's that drive 100 miles or less per day, have the same route every day, and constantly stop and go seem like they would greatly benefit by going with EV's. Certainly makes a ton of sense for those applications. I see hybrids being a better idea for personal use because many in the midwest for example drive much further between stops, have a cold climate part of every year, and therefore having a gas engine backup is a great asset. And as hybrid technology improves many CUV's will get well into the 40 mpg range which is very good. Bottom line, I want options for people because only having combustion engines or only having EV's hurts the consumer.
m m, i agree, and for low speed stop and go driving, lightweight matters more than low drag. Thats where a boxy composite design could make sense.
@@zachl6918 I still don't think EVs are right for every consumer. There's a lot of drawbacks to any kind of irregular or out-of-area travel which people like to do pretty frequently. The technology just isn't there yet if it ever can be. Who knows if it's possible or economical to create and charge a new type of battery that you could recharge as fast as a fill up at the gas station. For applications like delivery trucks, city busses, shuttle vans, ETC they are absolutely perfect. Predictable routes, consumption and times to easily accommodate charge levels.
@@MrWhiskey1 💯 agree
This company will be winner .. it can make cars to many small country .. also many locations which is not good for big factories will be invited them ...
This type of factories is good for job distribution ..
These Chinese giga factories are changing economic pattern .. many were force to make big factories for price competition ...
We need this type of factories
This maybe an effective idea for small scale and localize production which can help every single local cities to employ their citizens withoit leaving the city boundaries unlike megafactories where you need to travel away from your city just to go to work, A Brilliant Idea from Arrival!
Each day that goes by, it becomes so clear.. I know nothing. So amazing how smart some people are in this world.
That company is innovating bigtime, niiiice 🤩🤩
Thank you 🙏 AGAIN for an excellent succinct informative and flawless video 👍🙏..these guys blew my mind 🤯 no welding, painting or stamping .. that's next level engineering and manufacturing.
I have worked in a high-volume mostly automated plant (OEM Tier 1 supplier) and there is a distinct tradeoff between high-speed automation and flexibility. The more flexibility capability designed into the process (cells as described in the video) the less high-speed the processes tend to become and the more complex the controls become (algorithm, error detection, changeover, etc. complexity). I hope they have top-notch software people.
Thanks for your opinion! I have the same feeling but have no experience in this area. Could you point to some videos, talk, articles on the subject?
“Welcome to undecided” is much better than “Welcome Tundecided” Noticed the change a few weeks ago, but forgot to mention.
Great content as always! 👍🏼
Really interesting. I really would love to see a public conversation between this guy and Sandy Munro
That would be fascinating!
An excellent and informative video, focusing on the innovative build infrastructure and their positive impacts (and challenges) rather than the. vehicles themselves. The micro-factory methodology does seem to offer a start-up, technology-driven company an alternative lower- kick start model with the flexibility to provide non-impactful growth as new models, options and production expansion is required. A friend of mine works at the Arrival factory in Bicester, and I've never seen him so pumped -and this guy used to be a race engineer in Formula 1! I now fully understand why.
This interview was the most lucid one on their microfactory concept, other sites and publicatons bring up the 'robotic cell', 40 mil investment or 6 month setup time buzzwords but dont go into detail exactly what is different from conventional assembly lines like the part about the press shop and paint shop
Great stuff
They need the credits they deserve!
It sounds so cool and unique! I love that they are trying something new and trying to be efficient!
Thanks for the great development of this topic. As a side question, Did anybody notice that the model S is being manufactured with the megacasting assembly? It was supposed to be used for 3 and Y!!!
A couple of thought on this. For one, it’s a very interesting approach - especially the composite material. The main issue that I see in the use of composite materials is automation. Handling soft materials is a pain and a half and nobody can cracked it.
We saw a machine cutting a composite-like material and then loading it to a cart for transfer. Can that be done fast enough, in the correct alignment, perfectly straight, etc.? I hope so but I doubt it. If they found a way that they don’t need to do so, that’s great. But that’ll probably require human intervention.
The closest thing I’ve seen to this approach that I think would work is how the Cybertruck will be manufactured. Almost similar benefits but without the drawback of the soft materials. Granted, you’d still need a body shop for painting (probably).
I love it for the end consumer, though. Having a material that can be resistant to simple bumps and bruises as well as scratches.
So i get the overall dynamics. Of course a robotarm can be reprogramed to do multiple things, but what about the other cell stations? In the video it was said that they wanted to make the composites locally, but how would they asseble the parts? Molding would ofcourse work great, but the speed is overkill for 1000 parts a year with a huge upfront investment. Alternativly they could use3dprinting, whitch would better match the microfactory philosofy, where a single cell can make all the parts, but it is way to slow.
I hope they integrate the micro factories with repair shops
You’ve done a great job on this video exposing this new way of manufacturing. It’s an exciting time in tech, Arrival has a lot going for it.
Its a cleaver approach. Makes you more adaptable and as Company aren’t path restricted because of sink cost. Also with the busses the ability to naturally offer local production jobs on a city bus contract will make get ahead in the line for bids.
Hey pontiac did panels like that in the 80s.
And BMW. Reliant were building cars that way in the 70s LOL
@@stephenirving1737 theirs were fiberglass im pretty sure and the pontiac fiero had fiberglass front and rear hood and the rest was a type of reenforced plastic. Honestly the only thing new about these vans is the manufacturing precess.
And GM’s Saturn cars
@@thebroz1138 those too but they came later, and i like the fiero way more.
@@deltacx1059 Fibreglass does not deform and spring back like the composite in the video. Just because something is vaguely similar, that doesn't mean it's the same.
Very interesting, thank you Matt. Now for micro lithium mining ;-)
Most lithuim is mined micro already!. As with child labor that is.
cell manufacturing has been around quite a while, nice to see it applied to composite material delivery and bus vehicles. The clean sheet design for this example is a little like the TATA motors / except for the Tata Nano, they were very willing and able to use off the shelf components where available to cut costs to hit their price point. Sunk Costs and existing infrastructure do shape thinking/ which is why when Lee Iacoca was told several years for the 300 or so open top version cars he wanted, He made a couple of calls outside of Chrysler, sent the cars/ and had all of them back topless in 6 months. *process/ *procedure or just slow and lethargic must be challenged.
I know this sounds a bit trivial, but the quality of production is remarkably good, everything is flowing so easy to follow. Thank you sir...
Imagine if they just made scooters! They could make so many!
Check out the Aptera. It's a streamlined 3 wheeled EV. Super efficient 2 seater.
Microfactories building Small Modular Reactors. I think the climate problem is solved.
Doesn't it produce radioactive waste?!
There are many other areas that produce greenhouse gasses other than power production and transportation. Energi for transport heating and so on are 72% of emissions. The other 28% come directly from agriculture(11%), industrial processes (6%), deforestation(6%) etc. We have to get to net-zero and that will include way more than just going to renewable energy. Norway has almost 100% hydropower and wind energy that is also used for heating, they are still the biggest per capita emitter of greenhouse gasses in Europe. We have to be at net zero globally by 2050, meaning industrial countries have to be significant carbon-negative, getting solar panels and driving EVs will be not enough by far.
@@vineetcv261 It depends on the type of reactor we are talking about. With fast spectrum small modular reactors, there would be near to no nuclear waste as it has a much higher burnup rate than traditional reactors. The waste would also only have to be stored for 300 years maximum. There are ways to reduce that time additionally but that could be done in an external facility:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor
@@mrkokolore6187 is that reactor operational or 30 years far like fusion reactor?! Isn't thoriem a solution
@@MrAntidodo Yes. There are also 28% of other things to do. That doesn´t mean the 72% aren´t important, does it?
I quite like the design language of their vehicles. Hope we start seeing Arrival up here in Canada soon!
What a refreshing approach to manufacturing and an authentic commitment to innovation.
Local Motors started off with 3D printed cars and microfactories: localmotors.com/
th-cam.com/video/t1vW6gMyPoQ/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/1mAbiG5OZZc/w-d-xo.html
Wow, sounds very interesting but the technology is probably only suitable to even lower production numbers than these guys.
Yeah, and the rally fighter (or whatever their car was called) was super cool. Super unpractical and expensive, but one of my favorite designs cosmetically.
I spent decades in managing manufacturing operations at several vastly different companies and I think this idea has very little merit. This is virtially the opposite of gaining efficiency by scaling operations and requires having redundant equipment, facilities, management teams, special equipment, and operations for almost "everything" . I am very willing to think outside the box but I heard no explanation that made sense as to how this is supposed to increase efficiency and lower unit cost. I, for one, am not buying it. Love to see innovations but this is not that.
This is indeed an innovative approach, about as "out of the box" as you can get. No offense, but your experience might lead to bias. But we shall see. Time will tell.
@ Irvin my initial thoughts exactly. I do like the look of the UPS van though. Hope it works for them.
I've worked in applying technologies to the automotive & aerospace industries, most for upholstery & interior design & composites for external use, but this presentation leaves me with questions about e.g. the shape formation of the composite panels and curing, proprietary I guess? I saw the cutting equipment.... Anyway I certainly hope this works out
They don't seem to boast that it lower the unit costs. It seem to me it all about lowering the costs of creating a factory.
@@DavidKnowles0 Yep, this is a “low risk” play. A normal factory is a lot of risk and a lot of reward. These guys are choosing to pay higher unit costs to lower their risk of completely failing (similar to paying an insurance premium). If their product does take off, they can just build a giant factory of “cells” to get their unit cost down.
I work in reporting delays in new car delivery from the factory, and the many micro factory over a few big factories is so smart, I can just imagine delivery times so much faster !
You know, I’m new to this channel but I find the content, and Matt’s take very interesting. I watch a ton f TH-cam but find myself sharing the content from this channel with my friend more frequently. Keep up the good work Matt.
Aircraft are being built like that for 30 years. BMW i3 and i8 were built like that. I do not understand what exactly did this company invent? both BMW and aircraft are not affordable. i do not understand how their commercial van will be? I will keep it simple the more capital one invest in to 'Hard Tooling' the lest the cost per item will be. I do not see this company changing his equation.
Completely agree. Going small is going bust. Also wtf is with no welding and paintjobs? Are they srsly want to use screws and glues? If that was cheaper and more durable, car companies would do it long time ago. What is a crapmling zone of such "composite" structure? What about effects of UV radiation on those plastic cars? They also say they build it close to the customer sites. What happens when this small market customer is already saturated? To many fishy thing about this concept company. Knowing UK, its another cowboy contractor scamming people with proprietary components and ridiculous service prices.
Mike Ableson is a great spokesperson for this company. Very informative yet not a hint of huckster in the guy. I hope that this is the future or auto manufacturing. Market forces will determine the winners and losers, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for this new concept.
You know where this can excel....in the custom-built markets.
There are a LOT of people out there with big egos and tons of cash. The Fed has enriched tens of millions of goofballs who have one thing on their side: great herd-following skills.
The basic premise I see it this; you have a few main platforms that are stable and safety-approved. You then offer the customer his/her own special design for the body and the interior. This is just as you might get spec home customized to your tastes with upgraded finishes, etc.
You're not competing with Ford or Toyota on price, you're competing with them on personal choice design.
Thank you for the video. I had heard of arrival from Zac and Jesse on Now you Know. But I'm glad to see more details. I really like this manufacturing technique. The assembly line was great and enabled so much of our progress over the last century. But this company has seemingly capitalized on technology to improve it. This is truly innovative in my eyes.
this is essentially the best business practice
A)they are renting, they are modular so they have more power over the negotiations of contracts, if they feel that it's not worth it, just pay out the rest of the money and tear up that contract
B) it's kind of an age old method being used, salt factories are best near the sea because they are taking a large quantity of an item and reducing it to a usible property IE: seawater to seasalt, that is best near the source as it's horrible to cart seawater to the middle of inland.
Sodapop factories take small quantities and make them into a bulk therefore best to be built in quantity and nearest to the consumers, hence why there are multiple pepsi and coke factories in a single state.
They can also offer pickup, something that other car companies won't offer, that usually takes a week or months after the initial manufacture of the vehicle, having a small warehouse may be an advantage... you want that thing gone... it's wasting space.
expandability, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V, highlight what works ctrl+C ctrl+V
Every microfactory could produce a different model. They could lease microfactories individually to produce custom vehicle lines. The customer would do the overall design, and Arrival could review and tweak to optimize for their production line.
I hope they take advantage of this.
Love the enthusiasm in this one
I live in Banbury uk where this is all happening, Brilliant Concept - way to go, and fantastic idea for the economy. Oh and by the way This was a brilliant interview, I watch all your stuff superb
Hello! I work in Arrival :-)
@@user-ft8mt5jb6f no you don’t it’s only British people only works there
Thanks Matt, what else can be built like this? Keep up the good work and the questions.
After watching and enjoying so many of your videos, I still hadn't clicked on that subscribe and bell button... I guess I was just kind of... undecided. Well, after this video, which is one of the most exciting ones I've seen in a while, I finally did! Your content is DEFINITELY worthy. Always high quality, put simply and interesting. It's never about the same thing. You find exciting topics of all sorts of different things. I can't wait to see these busses on the road!!
I'm impressed. A new approach to manufacturing that is really interesting.
This is a very good approach if proven to be cost-effective, especially for developing countries. The biggest contributors to pollution in developing countries are not cars but commercial vehicles like trucks, vans, and buses. If one can produce these vehicles at competitive prices against diesel vehicles it will go a long way in helping these countries reduce emissions.
Love your interviews. Thanks to you and your team.
Well not only in life and business but also in manufacturing, flexibilty is key. And Arrival is reversing the roles by looking at the assemblyline in a completely different way.
@Matt, I think its brilliant and an excellent implementation of Distributed computing and Microservices Architecture in Automobile Industry. I can't wrap my head around the fact, after watching your video, that how many such techniques exists which can help solve a problem in a different industry.
Thanks Matt, I finally have an idea what they mean by a microfactory. Designing the vehicle and factory as one is the part I had missed and it is fundamental to making it work. The use of work stations that can be added or missed out is again a part of the idea I had missed... I'm not going to wish them luck as I just know this is going to work x
Why aren't other companies not taking the state-of-the-art approach is? In my opinion, classical companies that run "Giga Factories" have to sell their items to the public, including their potential customers. Suppose the potential customers of the car that is made from such a factory will purchase their vehicles. In this case, the customers will utterly understand the consequence, resulting in decreasing job opportunities. I would not buy my care that is made from such companies. Mr. Ferrell, I really liked your video and thank you bring this meaningful topic to me.
Thanks for another great, insightful video Matt. A very creative approach to manufacturing, the van might be a great platform for an electric RV also, so many possibilities! Have a very Merry Christmas and Happy new year, greetings from Canada. 🇺🇸🇨🇦
Great topic & story, Matt - thanks!
The initial key is to get the first micro plant up and running, analyze the cost factors versus market saturation potential in that surrounding outbound delivery area, then refine/modify and add in a larger location (mid-size city, like Salt Lake valley, both Kansas City, Denver), re-analyze, refine/modify. The quick eval/implement turnaround looks fascinating.
That electric UPS truck looks so cool. Imagine if electric vehicles delivered themselves O_O
Yes, Moby, tell me more!
Haha kidding, love your constant green energy and transportation updates. Please keep at it!
Their design is amazing too! 👏
Excellent video Matt. I'd personally like to know more about the vehicles themselves, i.e., cost of operation, type of batteries & their lifespan, upkeep & maintenance on the vehicles, etc...Happy Holidays to you & your family! 👍😉
Great video as always and finally I got some understanding about the possible positive effects of the micro-factories. Your video answered quite a few questions that I had, I watched other videos about this and they talked and talked but did not really explain why and how this should be a better way to do things. Thank you!
That's awesome to hear
I love how gentle the vehicle design looks.
Another great video Matt!. It's so good to hear that Arrival is a U.K. company - this country once had a proud history of motor manufacturing but within 50 years mismanagement and poor labour relations obliterated it. And that deterioration continues to some extent possibly due to Brexit.
Have you covered the topic of EV production in China, particularly the export to the rest of the world and Chinese production in other countries (I wonder if Africa e.g. Angola, could be a manufacturing base for EVs to be exported to Europe). Answers to questions such as "will Chinese EVs be allowed in Europe and the U.S.? (there are many Chinese EV co.s but only a few (MG, Maxus included) sell in the U.K. Is this because the home market is not yet saturated or are there other reasons such as safety standards or recyclability? Would the U.S. tolerate Chinese EV production and sales (thinking to the U.S. consumer attitude in the 1960s and 70s to foreign vehicles and frosty relations)?
We used a very similar approach when we built our factory that did electronics re-manufacturing for a major tractor manufacturer. The most important part was our ERP system. We had a genius build it for us. Based on PICK database system from the 70's. Worked amazing.
When the tractor manufacturer bought us (Big Green) they installed SAP. They were idiots and couldn't even implement the functionality we had to have. Most of us eventually got fed up with their idiocy regarding tech implementation and personnel management and walked out. I really have nothing good to say about them.
It's perfect for developing economies and small businesses in general. Small businesses can grow quickly but often don't plan years in advance for large vehicle orders. A local micro factory can provide vehicles quickly as you grow instead of scaling in huge jumps unnaturally. Run a bakery that offers home delivery? Cool. Need a new customized van to help with that? No problem. Can Ford offer me a custom Transit quickly? Hell no.
Great concept. Hope they put up micro factories in other countries
Videos like this prove that there is lot to learn from others and there is more to come in tech and manufacturing.
Thanks Matt! This was a refreshing video
I found your video exciting. I love automotive stuff and know lots of engineers at Boeing/Raytheon, etc so I know how their brains work. The future holds many amazing streamlined opportunities. As these technologies take hold the cost of ownership will drop making them more attractive to the public. One glaring thing I see in the near future is body panels died to the color of a car. When u get a dent, the panel is just replaced, already infused with the Pantone color.