"Western executives who visit China are coming back terrified" (robotics)

[Renew Deal]

Robotics has catapulted Beijing into a dominant position in many industries

“It’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen,” said Ford’s chief executive about his recent trip to China. After visiting a string of factories, Jim Farley was left astonished by the technical innovations being packed into Chinese cars – from self-driving software to facial recognition. “Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West,” Farley warned in July. “We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”

The car industry boss is not the only Western executive to have returned shaken following a visit to the Far East. Andrew Forrest, the Australian billionaire behind mining giant Fortescue – which is investing massively in green energy – says his trips to China convinced him to abandon his company’s attempts to manufacture electric vehicle powertrains in-house.

“I can take you to factories [in China] now, where you’ll basically be alongside a big conveyor and the machines come out of the floor and begin to assemble parts,” he says. “And you’re walking alongside this conveyor, and after about 800, 900 metres, a truck drives out. There are no people – everything is robotic.”
-snip-

Free: https://archive.is/HO86m

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/10/12/why-western-executives-visit-china-coming-back-terrified/

[msongs]

1. what group will be most affected in a shift to china methods one wonders quietly nt

[msongs]

2. btw the link is another login required .... nt

[Renew Deal]

4. I found a free one

https://archive.is/HO86m

[CincyDem]

3. During Sherrod Brown's last senate run in '24, disgruntled auto workers where whining about jobs going to Mexicans...

...all I could think was they should be so lucky for those jobs to go to Mexicans...there's a chance you might get your job back from a Mexican.

But their jobs went to a microchip and there's no way on god's green earth that a microchip will ever give it back.

of course Bernie Moreno promised each and every one of them he was bringing their jobs back. a year later - not even the slightest hint of return. To quote WCFields (I think)...there's a sucker born every minute.

[Renew Deal]

5. You are correct

At best, you can hope that the robots and factories are built in the US, but even that isn't looking good right now.

[CincyDem]

7. Right...but even then, the employment surge from construction jobs is temporary.

These new plants are going to use 10% ( at most) of the staffing seen in similar plants just 12 years ago.

Not a sustainable model without a social contract. This “just go get a job” bullshit is gonna create a French Revolution moment somewhere out there. Not sure what catalyzes it or what lies between now and then but it’s gonna be a shit show if we don’t make some substantial societal investments.

[KPN]

21. It's gonna be a shit show. The haves are all about thinning the herd, and they've

got 35% or so agreeing with them thinking they are among those who are “”protected”. Voting against their own self-interest to the extreme.

[fujiyamasan]

25. A similar thing with higher skilled jobs

I think a lot of the outsourced development and coding jobs that have been outsourced to India and elsewhere will be eliminated altogether, just as entry level software engineering jobs are increasingly competitive and tougher to come by here.

It’s not perfect code, but it’s getting better. It also doesn’t sleep and there’s no time zone delay. Execs may figure, “meh it’s good enough, ship it”.

[Pisces]

6. The sad reality is you can not stop innovation. It is here and now we will have to adjust and deal with the

consequences. I think it will be ugly for a while. People will have to switch industries now if they want to survive. Moving to where the jobs are will be essential.

[ret5hd]

8. heard somewhere there's lots of farm jobs open.

[dalton99a]

10. +1. Robots are not very good at picking lettuce or tomatoes

[albacore]

14. Lots of robots in agriculture..

https://www.facebook.com/reel/517424500732581

[JI7]

11. Many in this country are still waiting for coal mining jobs to come back

I think it might take some tough economic times for people to change.

[progressoid]

19. I wonder.

I expect many to die out before changing. And they'll die without any introspection; angry at Democrats or immigrants or drag queens, but not billionaires that took advantage of them.

[fujiyamasan]

22. Yep, Hillary inartfully but honestly told them their jobs weren't coming back

But she also had good ideas to upskill and reskill, but many said “fuck that!, my daddy worked in the mines, and his daddy, daddy’s daddy and so on!”

And then Trump came along and said “I’ll bring your jobs back!”

And they all cheered because as he said, he loves the uneducated.

[ancianita]

17. Probably the same employment problem Chinese workers have because China's scale of robot use in manufacturing.

At scale manufacturing is what China's been doing since the Great Leap Forward. This didn't just happen in the last decade. Makes me think that US manufacturers need to travel more and see how much the rest of the world has both caught up with the U.S. and surpassed it.

It's just my guess that Chinese robotic manufacturing is probably not as much about the robotics themselves as it is more about the massive scale of China's own microchip manufacturing and China's need to make ongoing deals with Nvidia, the biggest chip maker on the planet. Nvidia's just made a trade deal that restricts it from selling its high end chips to China, so it's China's lower end chips that probably run China's robotic manufacturing at scale.
Admittedly I don't know about Chinese car manufacturing, but from what I know from riding Chinese made buses in Costa Rica and Cuba, China exports the crappiest made buses I've ever seen or ridden on, worse than the buses you see in stereotypical movies about Mexico.

[fujiyamasan]

24. Nvidia also knows its days are numbered in China

Because they’re going to eventually catch up. The biggest challenges for them are probably replicating the UAV machines from ASML (the Dutch company). That and of course the foundries by TSMC, but I think China is fast catching up here too. Maybe that’s when they’ll invade Taiwan.

They’re pouring a ton of resources into semiconductors. They think long term and strategically.

[JI7]

9. China will be the only super power in the not too distant future

And not a result of any wars we lost or even any type of foreign attacks.

[Renew Deal]

12. I was thinking along the same lines

If they can mass produce consumer products and cars in dark factories, they can also mass produce weapons. I suspect that we're already behind on that front.

[JI7]

13. Yes, but those are things we could be capable of

but with so many in the country supporting Trump. The cuts in government funding for different things.

The US was able to easily attract the best talents from around the world. We have the best research institutions. Now Germany, Japan, and others are taking advantage of this. Before others could not offer what the US could . Even China might be able to compete with this and get people to want to work for them.

With so many people supporting Trump and the hostility to different groups people will go somewhere else.

We already see the difficulties faced by those already here and how they are looking to other places.

Also Tik tok is banned in China along with many other social media apps.

We don't have to do the same but there should be regulations.

[Farmer-Rick]

15. My friends in China say

Those Chinese built cars are always breaking down and are of very poor quality. They are always blocking roadways as they break down.

Those so called robots are just faked remote controlled large toys. Not mass produced well made industrial equipment. A lot of what China does is faked. Trump learned from China how to fake the look of success without doing much.

Be wary of Chinese so called success. It's not what it seems.

[BidenRocks]

16. Ford's Chief Executive should study history.

When Henry Ford had his $5 Day initiative in 1914 increasing pay and reducing hours, employees could buy cars!

How inexpensive will a car built without humans be?

It won't be a Volks Wagon.

[rubbersole]

18. But can the robots pick strawberries?

Our workforce is flexible! Or used to be. Now they're just terrified to go outside. But soon to be replaced with Medicare and Medicaid takers now required to work...it's republican modernization 2025.

[Warpy]

20. Perhaps China will eventually get around to having their robots do some QC

sez she who got burned on yet another Chinese made item that fell apart quickly after the first use.

Those executives had better prepare to find ways to pry dollars away from the billionaires so they can modernize most assembly line work while realizing that we in the US are not like the Chinese in that we really don't like dealing with machines that have obviously replaced human beings in places we go for human contact.

I can't see getting my dinner out of a vending machine unless there's no alternative, can you?

[sinkingfeeling]

23. My impression of China after spending 3 weeks there.

I was awed by the infrastructure. The cities, the number of new buildings, the layers of highways, the double decker bridges with both cars and bullet trains. Everywhere green energy from wind, hydro, and solar. A high percentage of EVs (identified by color of license plate), 10,000 high-speed trains running each day, roadways like glass and completely and cleanly mantained.
The ease of buying train tickets and boarding them (always on time) and the tracks carrying them at up to 247 MPH without the bumps and swaying
I've experienced on Amtrak. The tunnels that run through mountains for literally miles.
All of it was extremely impressive.
My conclusion: if the US started tomorrow to spend every penny of our bloated military budget plus all the billionaire tax cuts on infrastructure, they will never catch up. It took over 10 years for them to build a 1600 foot tunnel in Arkansas (I-49), but China can build a new city and relocate 1.3 million people in less time.

[OAITW r.2.0]

27. I was there in the 90s.......

and it was just getting started. They had 8 lane highways with hardly any traffic. I thought why? 10 years later. I understood. They adapted the American model for creating the middle class.

[Buckeyeblue]

29. Such efficiency is only possible under an authoritarian government

I would bet that the average American lives a better life than the average Chinese person. The problem is that we normalized our relationship with China in a way that we never would have with any other communist/authoritarian government. We prohibited travel to Cuba while allowing businesses to move to China. The US created China by averting our eyes away from their horrible human rights record in order to take advantage of great economic opportunities.

[OAITW r.2.0]

26. When robots take over the factories.....

What will the current labor force do?

[Renew Deal]

28. The same thing they have always done.

Something else. I don’t mean to be dismissive, but this story is nothing new throughout history

[Johnny2X2X]

30. My whole life

I was born in the early 1970s, and from the time I could understand adults I have been being told that in order to have a middle class life in the future, you'll need a college education. And that's exactly what I have seen my whole life. Increasingly, even for entry level positions, a degree was required. And the last decade, the degree changed from any old degree, to something more specific and useful.

I am 10 years from retirement now, I am in a good spot to have a secure retirement. I got the degrees I needed and they paid off. But the last several years, what I am hearing is more ominous than what I heard growing up, I am hearing that most degrees will be useless and that most manual labor will be gone. So now they say learn a skilled trade. And that's always been sound advice, but what happens when the skilled trades are flooded with millions of people trying to find a new way to earn a living?

We're at the dawn of great change and the jackals are somehow in charge of ushering in this new era. I don't know what happens from here, but I don't think the US is going to be a safe and desirable place to live for the majority of the people.

[pecosbob]

31. "There are no people - everything is robotic."

The problem is that he thinks this is a good thing. You don't have to be a Luddite to see the inherent problem.