Almost all its startup rivals have suffered similar plunges, but Arrival is arguably a special case. The company is trying to move fast – launching a van, a bus and a car at the same time – and break the traditional industry model, using robot-controlled “microfactories” that it hopes will bounce manufacturers from the Henry Ford age to the iPhone era.
Given that iPhones are in fact all made (OK, some in India now, some in Brazil behind the tariff walls, but) in vast sheds in China, all there so as to gain massive volume, that’s not quite right now, is it?
The vans are made up of about 30 “Lego block” sub-assemblies,
What they’ve really done is remained with mass manufacturing to make the sub-assemblies. The assembly part, well, OK, that’s done on the small scale. It’s possibly interesting but it’s not as revolutionary as it’s written up as being.