China’s Dark Factories Advantage

Western executives say China has moved from low-wage, subsidy-led manufacturing to highly automated 'dark factories' staffed by few people and many robots. That automation, combined with a large pool of engineers, is reshaping cost, speed, and quality curves in EVs and other hardware. — If manufacturing advantage rests on automation and engineering capacity, Western industrial policy must pivot from wage/protection debates to robotics, talent, and factory modernization.