China’s Dark Factories: So Automated, They Don't Need Lights | WSJ
The Wall Street JournalCited 3× on HN, 2025-2026
2.5M views · 1 year ago · news · news
A WSJ report on China's 'dark factories', highly automated plants run by robots with little human presence, visiting Zeekr's EV factory. It covers Chinese labor costs, automation and overproduction in the EV industry.
HN cites it as evidence that lights-out factories exist, though one commenter notes it is outdated relative to current automation.
2:13Building the Steam Controller
Valve
2.3M views • 10 years ago
40:33BMW i3 Factory Production Tour
europeanautosource
6.6M views • 12 years ago
17:49Shenzhen: A New Breed of Intellectual Property (Part 3) | Future Cities | WIRED
Uncanny Valley by WIRED
172K views • 10 years ago
6:39The Machine to Build the Machines - NeXT
MuStudio
25K views • 15 years ago
3:33Kiva Systems Warehouse Automation at Quiet Logistics
KivaDirector
437K views • 16 years ago
1:07:51Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware (Full Documentary) | Future Cities | WIRED
WIRED Investigations
15.7M views • 10 years ago
7:18Robotic Distribution
WIRED
229K views • 17 years ago
12:59Mercedes A-Class Production line
TestDriven
84.8M views • 13 years ago
2:05Chinese smart-battery swap stations can change EV batteries automatically
South China Morning Post
487K views • 4 years ago
1:27:44Andrew Ng: Artificial Intelligence is the New Electricity
Stanford Graduate School of Business
524K views • 9 years ago
3:21Inside A Warehouse Where Thousands Of Robots Pack Groceries
Insider Tech
3.5M views • 8 years ago
26:49Inside a Huge PCB Factory
Strange Parts
3.7M views • 8 years ago
30:11The People's Republic of The Future
Bloomberg Originals
3.3M views • 7 years ago
8:13Inside the Lab Where Robots Run Their Own Experiments
Seeker
254K views • 6 years ago
1:41:36Sandy Munro's Tesla Deep Dive - Autoline After Hours 447
Autoline Network
182K views • 7 years ago
10:56Model Y E36: The Octovalve Episode
Munro Live
317K views • 6 years ago
7:36Tearing Into Tesla's Model 3
Autoline Network
762K views • 8 years ago
4:02Giant Robot Project, Part 1
Jaimie Stuff
275K views • 19 years ago
3:23:00Tesla AI Day 2022
Tesla
2.3M views • 4 years ago
3:03:20Tesla AI Day 2021
Tesla
2.6M views • 5 years ago
3 comments from Hacker News
i mean youre most likely not wrong (i dont have insider knowledge of those places), however your previous comment said "never want it to be dark" - when the reality is that its normal operation _is_ dark. only when the automated QA detects issues or theyre doing random inspections are the lights turned up/on this is an outdated video for waht was state of the art a few years ago ▶ this video again, i dont have insider knowledge so i cannot speak on whats SOTA in chinese automated factories beyond whats covered publicly
> Find me a “lights out” factory. They don’t exist. "Inside China's 'dark factories' where robots run the production lines" link "China’s Dark Factories: So Automated, They Don't Need Lights" ▶ this video
> the amount of light used when moving from last-gen 'heavy industry' to next-gen 'value add'/'light industry'/'design work'/whatever is going to be reduced Not to mention the automation of heavy industry leading to "dark factories": some Chinese factories are so completely automated now that they don't bother turning on the lights in large chunks of them. See ▶ this video