'Go big or sink fast' has been the mantra of car makers in the last couple of decades.
If your manufacturing operations don’t utilise economies of scale, to use the business-jargon version, then you will never make money in a world in where profit margins are slim and disruptive shocks are becoming the norm, especially in the mass-market end of the car choice.
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Whenever I see articles and pictures about car manufacturing: the size of the factories and pressing plants, the number of robots welding the car bodies together, the IT required to coordinate all the processes, the massive paint plants, etc. etc., and the capital investment required for all these, I've always been left with the notion that surely, there must be a simpler and cheaper way of making cars? Gordon Murray has been promoting his iStream methodology for years now and I've never understood why it has taken so long for others to take up this idea. Perhaps a case of "not invented here" but perhaps also its time has at last come.