And, a recent tour of one of the Asian powerhouse’s vehicle plants has proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least to Honda President and CEO Toshihiro Mibe.
“We have no chance against this,” Mibe said upon a visit to a Shanghai parts factory, commenting on its seamless automation across all levels of production. Logistics, procurement and all aspects of the process were so automated, in fact, that he did not spot a single human worker on the supplier’s floor.
Ford executives saying even three years ago that China was way ahead of the game
Toyota’s CEO has likewise said regarding not just his company, but the industry in general, “unless things change, we will not survive”
Aw, Capitalism not working out for you car manufacturers? Awww, that’s too bad.
Then stop being greedy fuckers
I cannot wait to see legacy auto disappear. It’s about time they failed. It’s fucking absurd that the most expensive piece of tech I own has a 15fps display with touch response rate measured in seconds, rather than milliseconds. They did this to themselves.
Legacy auto did nothing to compete with Tesla software, and they came out over a decade ago.
that he did not spot a single human worker on the supplier’s floor.
I know that workers cost money to have but eveytime I read something like this I wonder if the corporations take into consideration the decrease in the number of people who may be able to purchase the product in the first place.
When you have an economy that isn’t capitalist, you can plan it…and extracting surplus value from workers isn’t necessary. You can automate your industries without destroying the quality of life of the people….in fact, you improve it because people can work less.
It really is that capitalism has exhausted its usefulness and ability to advance society. It is now socialism or barbarism.
I have had this same thought and I feel like I’ve come to a realization. If companies can cater to the desires of the top 10% or so, they can make more money. Why sell 200 $5 objects when I can cater to the affluent and sell 6 $250 objects.
I see this constantly with Automobiles and construction. Auto manufacturers do not make the cheap baseline cars for the most part Because they’ve realized they can make more money manufacturing the fancier /vehicles trim levels with higher margins.
Same thing with new buildings; affordable housing is not what is being built. You only see fancier, expensive construction, with higher margins, being constructed.
Compete or die
almost as if competition is what capitalism was always supposed to be about
No, thats what markets are about. Capitalism is about making money by stealing other people’s surplus labor value.
No, that’s what capitalism becomes when unregulated. Just as communism does the same when unregulated. The fact the US is on the literal same trajectory as Russia post USSR collapse is proof.
Open any Economics text book that defines what capitalism is, and by it’s literal definition, OP is correct. Capitalism, at its core, is about using capital + labor to make better products with better materials to compete in a market of others doing the same where consumers ultimately choose which company they buy from; in turn controlling which company thrives or dies. Competition is literally a key component of capitalism. It’s what most regulatory bodies were designed to protect (before they were captured). So without competition, we have something else that just looks like capitalism, but functions exactly like fascism.
I’m not defending capitalism by the way. I’m just pointing out what it is actually defined as versus what it has now become. I wouldn’t say Russia is Communist anymore by any means, so calling what the US and others practice now “Capitalism” is likewise mistaking what their system was in place of what it has become.
Wikipedia disagrees with you. Markets are just one component of capitalism.
The very first line is exactly my definition:
“Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit.“
Wikipedia fully agrees with me if you read the very next paragraph from your link you didn’t quote, emphasis mine:
This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages, and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.
Yes I understand markets are one component of capitalism, I also understand that without them we don’t have capitalism as like you’ve said that’s a constituent component necessary for it to be defined as capitalism.
What market is there for Facebook? Google? X? Your ISP? Your government? Is it like 2 companies you have a choice between at most? Between Verizon or Quest? Between Facebook or MySpace? Between Democrat or Republican?
If there’s extremely limited choices in your markets, you don’t have markets. So you don’t have capitalism.
If you don’t have markets where things can compete for money based on their innovation, you get enshittification from the few companies who control everything. Which is very obviously where we are now.
In short, the enshittification of all things is because we no longer have competitive markets for consumers to use their money to buy what’s best. In its place, instead we have a CRAPitalist system that clearly doesn’t fit the definition of capitalism.
Which is my point. Which is why you cherry picked your answer from Wikipedia rather than reading more than the first paragraph.
Kinda think thats chinas plan
Honda and Toyota have been EV technology laggards all along, even behind us automakers
Is everyone going to import the dregs of their technology to the us, to eke out a few more quarters of profitability before becoming irrelevant?
I would absolutely love to have a Toyota Tacoma hybrid to replace my v6 Tacoma but I’m not going to spend $90k + to buy with old tech when the BYD one is looking to be $40k and will have the latest battery tech.
ok
Maybe you should have kept up and innovated instead of just trying to stifle your competition and enshittify your products idiots.
But think of the short-term shareholder value! Have you no decency?
I do not.
I’m curious what exactly this means. . . Are they taking raw materials in one door and finished cars out the other? Because that seems unlikely, would be impressive tho.
China’s robotics/automation is next level. They have gigapresses to form the car body in one step.
The bigger question is if we can’t manufacture shoes in the west, why not just design cars instead of making them as well?
Maybe the workers at Toyota, Ford and Honda should take control of these plants. They would run it better without the capitalist leeches squeezing out every ounce of profits into their own pockets.
I wonder how much of the US problems stemmed from unionized labor pushing against extreme automation (dark factory).
There’s no doubt companies got complacent but I imagine foreign manufacturers are abliged contractually bound to employee American folks in their plants.
What is a union supposed to do when your entire industry is in a “adopt (by accepting automation) or die” situation?
I’m all for worker protection and rights but how else do you compete in this landscape?
Most automaker plants in southern states in the us are not unionized. That was the whole point: third world salaries in one of the largest markets
The unions’ original demand was worker ownership, which actually fixes the problem. This is the compromise that the original owning class suggested, it’s not the unions’ failt that it was a fuckup.
Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the shareholders‽
That’s capitalism.
¯\(ツ)/¯
Time for bailouts and layoffs!
That’s US capitalism.
I just rented a car while on vacation and they gave me a perfectly fine Nissan Qashqai, except there was a problem with the car so I could not use it. The rental agency only had one car left, a BYD Seal hybrid.
What a fun car to drive. Had a lot of power, great handling, cameras and sensors everywhere for navigating tight spots, and since I was driving on the wrong side of the road, those came in handy.
I am sure that driving a brand new RAV-4 would be a similar experience, but after I was done with that car I searched its price range and competition, and the #1 car was in fact the Toyota Rav 4, and the comparison had that car out ahead due to resale value and initial quality, with the BYD Seal leading on price point, standard features, and battery range (which was significantly higher) among other categories.
I have a feeling that resale value and initial quality might be a shifting category, as well. Really impressed by that car.
