Good to hear. My in-laws live maybe 90 min from the factory, so I may have a shot at getting down there. I tried over the holiday break, but they were understandably slammed end-of-year trying to get last min deliveries and such in so I wasn't able to get something scheduled through my guide.We flew up as a family( my wife and 2 boys) and took tour of the plant before we drove our R1T home to FL. it was INCREDIBLE!! Brian was an amazing host and tour guide! HIGHLY RECOMMEND taking delivery at the plant.
Lots of people have no idea what is involved in building a car from start to finish. To them it's like magic and things should just roll off the line 100% perfect, like magic. It's a complex process. One micron of misalignment in one place could end up a glaring one further down the line.That video is about as good a look as one could get without getting a slow tour of the factory floor! And it might be my favorite Youtube video ever because it had no influencers shouting their hot takes at me for 2 hours....
It also gave me an idea: we should all chip in to buy a Komatsu press and some rolls of sheet metal. We can put it in @Dark-Fx's front yard, then when someone has a fender bender he can just knock out a panel.... I'm sure it won't use much electricity.![]()
Thanks for the link - I will check that out.Lots of people have no idea what is involved in building a car from start to finish. To them it's like magic and things should just roll off the line 100% perfect, like magic. It's a complex process. One micron of misalignment in one place could end up a glaring one further down the line.
James May hosted a mini series on how a Mini is made and it's a good primer. Available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Building-Cars/dp/B08FWRSHQ8#
Tesla has an impressive drone tour of the factory too. Inside, flying through the robots. Not good for those with a bout of vertigo. Very entertaining for video production geeks.Thanks for the link - I will check that out.
I am impressed at nearly any factory, even one that turns out some flawed products. It's just amazing the scale of operations for any mass produced item. The Rivian factory drone footage we have seen plus videos like the one above sure have built up my level of respect for the process from start to finish. So many possibilities for errors...
I have a staff of 30 and a 10,000sf building and I can barely get everything right from day to day. I can't imagine keeping an automotive factory on track each shift.
Whoever dubbed and approved ICE motor noise at 8:54 needs an education on EVs.For anyone interested in this -
And the first portion of the video is actually from Rivian's wind tunnel work during development, which is very likely NOT done at Normal. There are not that many wind tunnels in the world. This was likely rented and could very well be in the UK (near where most of the F1 teams are HQ'ed).They ripped the footage from Rivian and added a few annotations. I've seen this done by AI in several other videos