Revolution Within Automobile Industry-New Manufacturing
The automobile industry is undergoing constant blows of electrification and intelligentialization. Famous car brands or new-emerging startups, they all believe that cars will be super computer on wheels. But wait a minute, the revolution will happen when we just replace the steering system with super computers?
I’m afraid not. Think about the profound changes in the media industry, it is not about moving contents from newspaper and television to new places like web or internet, it is the decentralized and democratized way of spreading and creating that forms today’s new digital media. The paradigm shift leads to real revolution. The efficiency/method improvement is just the “skin” change.
It’s the same idea here, we believe that the real revolution within car industry will begin with the way cars are manufactured. We are rethinking about how cars are made. Henry Ford’s production line is no doubt a great invention in the human history. However, 100 years later, the way how people make cars remains unchanged. Of course, industrial robots have replaced human labor and the manufacturing efficiency has improved significantly. Still, there are problems along the way: extra-large factories, heavy investment, high entry barrier, longer iteration and lead time. These emerging issues one way or another hinder the innovation and democratization in car industry. Fancy factory and huge productivity do not mean faster response to user demands.
Now we have the tools and facilities which we couldn’t imagine 100 years ago: industrial robots, 3D printing, LoT, artificial intelligence, and more importantly, we’ve got millennials customers. Even Henry Ford would rethink about the way cars are made with these new tools and fresh demands.
So here we are－PIX is a new manufacturing and designing system for cars. We are creating a decentralized, distributed and user-participated way of manufacturing. With modular and parametric design, also the contribution of industrial robot, 3D printing and artificial intelligence, we make 90% less car parts a possibility. Besides, the distributed manufacturing enables faster response to customer needs, 60% manufacturing cost reduction(under the same productive capacity), and 75% car iteration time saving.
We believe what we do is contributing to the paradigm shift of car industry. With the new tools and vision, we can rebuild the manufacturing and mobility of cars.
