August 4, 2026
Factory of the Furious
The auto industry is building for a past that's never coming back
Car makers are opening new factories while commenters yell nobody’s coming to buy
TLDR: Car companies are adding huge new factory capacity in the US even though current plants already have lots of unused space and future car demand may shrink. Commenters are split between calling the industry delusional, mocking the flying-car talk, and arguing cheaper, easier transport could actually mean people travel more, not less.
The article threw a brick through the showroom window: car companies are building seven new US factories even though existing plants are running at under 70% full and millions of cars’ worth of capacity is already sitting idle. The writer says the industry is planning like the glory days of endless growth are still here, while the future looks smaller, older, and less obsessed with owning two or three cars per household. Cue the comments, which instantly turned into a full-on doom scroll for Detroit.
The hottest reaction? A brutal wave of “the old giants are cooked” energy. One commenter flat-out called major American car companies “dead companies walking,” arguing they’re terrified of Chinese competition instead of trying to build better cars. Another said the real problem is a wider US habit of pretending the rest of the world isn’t changing. But not everyone bought the article’s futuristic crystal ball. The mention of air taxis triggered immediate “LOL, flying cars?” replies, with skeptics saying that sounds less like tomorrow’s commute and more like rich people upgrading from helicopters. Robotaxis also split the crowd: some agreed shared self-driving cars could shrink private car ownership, while others fired back with the classic “if something gets easier and cheaper, people use more of it, not less” argument. In other words, the community was united on one thing only: something is wildly off — they just can’t agree whether the crash is coming from demographics, bad strategy, or sci-fi daydreaming.
Key Points
- •The article says seven new U.S. assembly plants are expected before the decade ends, potentially adding capacity for about 1.8 million more vehicles.
- •It cites Federal Reserve data showing U.S. automotive assembly plants are operating at less than 70% of capacity, implying nearly 4 million units of idle capacity already exist.
- •The article argues that robotaxis, autonomous vehicles, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, electric scooters and e-bikes could reduce demand for privately owned vehicles.
- •It cites Census Bureau data indicating U.S. population growth has slowed and is expected to slow further through 2050.
- •The article says automakers rely on factory utilization of roughly 80% or higher to cover fixed costs, making added capacity risky in a flat or shrinking market.