[Joel_Mckay]

Indeed, no one sane will invest in building factory systems on US soil under a Kakistocracy.

Robot platforms are already a difficult business model in the private sector. With the exception of robot vacuums the market just isn't viable in the US yet. Best of luck =3

[rtp4me]

It seems Honda just decided to produce the next Civic in Indiana. See [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/honda-...

[Aromasin]

"Just decided" =/= decided today. They decided months if not years ago, after months of negotiations with local authorities. Don't look at plants opening now to judge the current administration. Look at it 2 years from now.

[dismalpedigree]

Its not a new plant. I drove by it several months ago on I-74. Its been there awhile.

[rtp4me]

I don't know - the article specifically said Honda will produce the cars "to avoid potential tariffs". I don't think the Trump tariffs were in place "years ago"...

[toss1]

Of course, a marketing line to fit the current situation (and curry favor with the current vindictive administration) is easily added/updated at press time.

This does not mean the making of the deals and building the factory had anything to do with it at the time, but stating that those past decisions also have benefit in today's situation is not surprising.

It also does not mean that this has anything to do with the actual reason the deals and investments were made years ago. As you point out, those deals & investments years ago couldn't have anything to do with this week's tariffs.

[Hikikomori]

Quick peek on Wikipedia tells me that they've been producing Civic there since 2008.

[vel0city]

Yeah I didn't understand how this was news. Civics and Accords for the US market have been produced in the US for decades. This isn't anything new to my eyes, maybe I missed something though.

[mptest]

>how this was news I'll explain. It's a 'news' article from an arm of a multinational conglomerate trying to massage the economic harm the isolationist fascists currently in charge of the us govt are doing for (hopefully) obvious material reasons. see also: literally any of wapo's recent journalistic history, the nyt on gaza, social media like twitter's political shift, the tech ceo's in the front row of trump's inauguration, or if you prefer books, manufacturing consent, technofuedalism (yanis), surveillance capitalism, etc, etc, etc. capitalists stick together.

[dluan]

You're pointing out one plant making one model in one city. Chinese EV manufacturers are rolling out new models every week.

[themaninthedark]

Does the number of new models mean a good thing?

It I had a watch company and I rolled out new models of watches every week;

1. Either there would be so little variation that people would have choice paralysis. 2. People would wonder why I couldn't keep a consistent product line with concerns of product quality. 3. People would have major concerns about repairs and service parts availability since the next new things was not a couple years ago but quite literally, last week.

[Joel_Mckay]

Indeed, products for domestic markets may have some incentives to avoid international supply chains.

The policies likely will just lead to multiple heavily coupled regional factories producing identical products at higher COGS. Controlling supply and demand in theory also makes communism more efficient, but in practice eventually has unintended economic consequences.

We shall see how this evolves... May our popcorn be plentiful =3

[germinalphrase]

Consumer robotics, maybe - but commercial robotics has been a critical component of (for instance) Amazon’s fulfillment infrastructure.

[Joel_Mckay]

Amazon acquired that facet of its business, and should not be considered a B2B product.

Most general purpose robot firms just don't do well domestically, and rarely make it past a business cycle. I would partner with Festo Germany before touching US markets. =3

[chrisco255]

Most general purpose robot firms don't do well at all, because until very recently, general purpose robotics have fallen short of being useful in general purpose scenarios. Amazon acquired Kiva 13 years ago. Kiva was itself founded and headquartered in the U.S.

[Joel_Mckay]

My point was robotics startups don't typically survive with generic products very long. They are acquired or go under even after they reach TRL launch stage.

Best of luck =3

[petra]

Acquisition is a common result for sucsessful deep tech startups. It's because scaling in these markets is hard and better done at large companies.

[Joel_Mckay]

Perhaps, but a few competitors were left with EOL hardware after the Amazon acquisition... pushed out of that automated inventory transfer system.

Things scaled up at Amazon for sure, and no place else...

Best of luck =3