Hyundai Unleashes Atlas Robots In Georgia Plant (interestingengineering.com) 61
Hyundai Motor Group is accelerating its factory automation efforts by deploying Atlas humanoid robots from Boston Dynamics at its Metaplant America facility in Georgia, as part of a broader $21 billion U.S. investment strategy to boost efficiency and local production amid rising tariffs. InterestingEngineering reports: At Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America, Hyundai already uses Spot robots -- four-legged machines -- for industrial inspections. In addition, the plant features a dedicated robot that removes car doors before the vehicles enter General Assembly, and a fixed robot that reinstalls the doors toward the end of the process -- a technology unique to the Georgia facility.
The South Korean automaker has not disclosed how many Atlas robots will be deployed at the facility or what specific tasks they will perform. According to reports, the company plans to further expand the use of robots across its global manufacturing facilities, streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency. [...] The automaker aims to manufacture 300,000 electric and hybrid vehicles annually at the new facility. At its recent Grand Opening Ceremony, the company announced plans to ramp up production to 500,000 units over time, without specifying a timeline.
The South Korean automaker has not disclosed how many Atlas robots will be deployed at the facility or what specific tasks they will perform. According to reports, the company plans to further expand the use of robots across its global manufacturing facilities, streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency. [...] The automaker aims to manufacture 300,000 electric and hybrid vehicles annually at the new facility. At its recent Grand Opening Ceremony, the company announced plans to ramp up production to 500,000 units over time, without specifying a timeline.
Run! (Score:2)
It's 100 percent black mirror PLUS territory.
also get real I think this traces back to Godzilla, japan, no?
LIke Robots are really here?
Time to get Robot insurance? Etc?
Wtf.
But even Kurzweil said basically we'd model the technology on ourselves, necessarily because it's familiar, basically we're not creative so copy what works.
You ever see those windwalking sculptures on the windy Atlantic beaches by that Dutch guy? It's brilliant! He's even got patents now on the joi
In the eye of the beholder... (Score:3)
To me, I find robots a useful thing. Robots are why our kids are not in the coal mines, and a lost Komatsu continuous miner is just an insurance write-off compared to losing miners. A robot doing repeated heavy lifiting is a lot easier to maintain than dealing with workman comp issues or having to retrain people.
We are still wanting buggy whips, when we can jump to cars. Manufacturing jobs can be disabling, and dangerous. Moving to robotics is just better for everyone involved.
This stuff we need to embr
Re:In the eye of the beholder... (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd be correct, or at least entirely correct without glossing over a number of major problems, if we had some kind of Star Trek economy where everyone benefited from improvements to productivity. Unfortunately, instead we have late-stage capitalism where we've had a 50-year run of the ownership class taking all the benefit from technological advancement and everyone else playing musical chairs with the jobs that the demand from a withering middle class can still sustain. And these robots are going to take a lot more chairs out of play rather quickly.
If Japan becomes an empire through automation, it will be a dystopia straight out of '80s cyberpunk with widespread poverty and one giant neo-zaibatsu that owns everything.
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Ever notice how there's never anyone with an IQ under 120 in Star Trek?
A Star Trek economy requires a significant culling of the, primarily, unintelligent people in society. You need people to be productive and useful before they can become more productive or useful.
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If you're in command of a starship, head of engineering on the fleet flagship, or so on, I doubt you're in the bottom percentile in anything.
Try reading Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear for an alternative take on this,
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This stuff we need to embrace; not fear. Japan is likely well along to regaining its empire status in the next 100-200 years because they are willing to go with AI, robotics, and automation
Japan may run out of Japanese in the next 100-200 years from the looks of their population pyramid. They are certainly a case for robotics and automation, but not for good reasons.
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Stop "continuing the curve". Things settle at new stability points. Japan went from 30 million in 1800 to 60 million in 1925 to 120 million today.
People in Japan are still having babies, but not enough to maintain a population of 120 million. The population will go down, but it will not "go to zero".
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Okay, I'll bite. Please explain the circumstances under which the population replacement rate again climbs above 1.2?
Absent some major restructuring of society, Japan's only real hope is immigration.
Same as the US, actually.
Re: In the eye of the beholder... (Score:2)
Well, at a guess, it will be when japanese people feel that they can provide for more children. Maybe that will happen when there is more space for them because the population has reduced.
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A person has to stand behind that continuous miner and run it. Source, I work in the coal industry.
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So, one person has has to stand behind that continuous miner and run it.. Cool. Now tell me, how many miners did that machine replace?
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I was pointing out that it's not a robot, someone has to operate it. Technology replaces a lot of workers. I remember my mom thinking that computers were the literately of the devil because she lost her secretary job when her place of business got one in the early 80's.
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Because the entire thing is promo to make it look like there's a point to humanoid robots in an industrial setting, probably.
As you say, unless it can be demonstrated that using a generalist platform is more efficient across a variety of tasks than using specific systems for each task... this is just not going to be a thing in the real world.
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Best guess I have is either testing fitment early or the bare metal doors go on for paint and all that then are assembled with all their stuff separately then assembled door goes back on.
I think it's more likely the doors and such would be painted separately but maybe for matching they all go at once?
Got it (Score:5, Informative)
All the sheet metal is assembled and then painted as one. The doors are removed to prevent damage as the interior is fitted. Frankly I doubt that using robots to do this is a first, but I can't be bothered to chase references down. GM were using robots to install the entire pre-assembled and tested dash/ cross member assembly back in the 80s, Cockpit 2 they called it.
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Most automakers use an automated assembly line for the body/frame construction, now. It's a long conveyor of pre-bent parts getting bolted on. There are humans involved through some of it, but the bulk of the work is a machine.
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To ensure paint consistency. Minute differences in color can quickly become obvious when doors and the body are painted independently.
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"national sales tax"
The most viable and studied such tax is a luxury tax. It has no "burden", since nobody _has_ to pay it unless they WANT to buy a luxury item. Luxury items are new items for sale at retail (read not wholesale, not used) or services (hey, do it yourself and pay no tax) bought above a person's personal poverty level. But basic necessities - food, clothing, shelter - can be had without spending in the luxury level of spending, so anyone that cares to, can go thru life without paying a
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If we are talking fantasy tax system it's obligatory Land Value Tax time which compared to Fairtax is I think the clear winner on almost all fronts. More efficient, less regressive, less deadloss and it flips the script on how to handle land use with a pretty simple change.
And I used to be a Fairtax guy, read the book and everything and LVT is the true Libertarian tax system. The ultimate and final luxury good, land itself.
At least at the time the deal with Fairtax was not that it was a luxury tax but it w
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Typical FairTax supporter, doesn't notice that the FairTax *is* a national sales tax with some bells and whistles tacked on to distract you from that ugly fact. Or at least pretends not to notice that. It's only a luxury tax if you consider living above the official poverty line to be a luxury.
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You can live well above the poverty line and not pay FairTax. Buy a used / existing house, buy a used car, buy a used cell phone, invest your money, use it for tuition (an investment in yourself) and you can be 100% (fair)tax-free. FT is only on NEW items for sale at retail and services spent above the poverty line.
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Sounds like a recipe for recreating peak-pandemic-like car shortages, a somehow even worse housing crisis, and further stifling demand for consumer goods. Some neat features of FairTax I hadn't considered before!
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Funny thing, US manufacturers getting out from under the massive burdens of the US income taxes are expected to lower their prices to the point that the eventual retail sales price with the FairTax will be approximately what it was before the FairTax and under the income taxes. Only foreign manufactured things, that aren't paying US income taxes in the process of their manufacturing operations outside the USA will experience a price increase of about 30%.
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Nice idea, but doesn't work because it's so easy to avoid. Do you know why the Bush Family Foundation's corporate jet was purchased in Honduras? So they didn't have to pay US taxes on it. That's exactly what would happen to every other "luxury" item your 'FairTax' proposal would cover, Mexico and Canada would have all the Rolex and Ferrari stores in North America.
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About 80% of our retail spending is done in about 10% of all retailers, those being the big franchises like Walmart, Target, etc. Good luck getting all your purchases during the year out the door without them charging you the FairTax.
An expensive item bought outside the country is not exempt from the FairTax. Asking google, this response was received:
"Yes, according to H.R.25, the proposed FairTax Act, items imported into the US from outside the country would be subject to the 23% national sales tax. Th
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The last time he cut taxes my personal income tax went down $1,500 / yr. I'm nowhere near rich, so excuse me if I don't hyperventilate over this just yet.
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Any president can cut your taxes as long as you're happy with losing such trivialities such as hurricane warnings, food safety, water quality, tornado warnings, educational standards, national parks, and other federal programs.
Don't forget your health care sys... oh... wait.
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"Sure. Cut personal income taxes to make the masses happy and hope nobody notices the national debt going through the roof."
Revenue to the government went UP after that tax cut, look it up. The truth is that the income taxes act as a huge millstone around the necks of all our businesses. Abolishing them with something like the FairTax that totally untaxes businesses would put rocket engines on our economy, and should be done ASAP. It would be like subsidizing all our businesses.
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He got that dawg in him. Maybe he should look into getting it surgically removed?
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creating a national sales tax so that he can shift his personal tax burden on to you.
Do you realize how crazy that sounds?
Have blind hatred for the man and the mission all you want, but none of that even remotely reflects either reality, or anything that's come out of this administration. There's more than enough reason to justify frustration and anger without making things up out of whole cloth and it just makes you look mental when you do it.
And so it begins... (Score:2)
Some day will we look back on Cinco De Mayo 2025 as the date it all started?
#SkyNet
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Yeah in a couple of years, the headline will be "Hyundai rehires hundreds of humans to replace robot technology that failed to live up to the hype."
Robotic revolution (Score:2)
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Don't worry, they'll have to hire more Americans to fix the problems created by automation.
Re: Robotic revolution (Score:1)
What's better?
10% of the jobs coming over here or 100% of the jobs staying over there?
Considering automation has been about to put everyone out of work for the last 200 years...maybe the 10% is a low-ball estimate.
Are people really that blinkered about the strategic necessity of domestic manufacturing? Or is it all good so long as the cheap shit shows up in the amazon box?
Dey took arr jerbs! (Score:2)
I am doing a survey ... What is a job producing activity and what is a job taking activity? I mean, how do you guys differentiate between someone who is taking a job from another vs. someone who is creating new jobs and helping the economy by their existence?
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Re: Dey took arr jerbs! (Score:1)
Bzzt. Sorry. Those aren't your choices. Your choices are 1) bring a few jobs here and 2) keep all the jobs and profits abroad.
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Nope. That's Communism, and the "free world" under the trump states of America won't have any of it.
Re: Dey took arr jerbs! (Score:1)
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Even the LLM "AI" has gotten past the conditioned reflex response stage, why haven't you?
Tarifs are working - manufacturing back in US! (Score:3)
So tariffs worked miracles, now we have manufacturing of Asian cars back in the US, by US made robots. It's all great again!
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Except it is happening on paper only, like all "moving to the US" plans, that were announced back in 2016-2017.
You know who else tried to build a fully robotic factory and failed miserably, right?
Nah, not the original one, but the farcical copycat.
Re: Tarifs are working - manufacturing back in US! (Score:1)
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So it was on a leash before? (Score:2)
I guess now they're not afraid it's going to bite someone.