Routing it through the firewall and then making a dozen connections is simple for a worker, but extremely complex for a robot.
That factory was turning out 1 car/minute, so the $30/hr guy plugging harnesses in would add maybe $0.50 to the cost of the car? When you're selling vehicles with MSRPs over $40k (this was a large SUV assembly facility), the threshold for automating something is higher than you might expect.
Taking a wiring harness;
https://i.imgur.com/H3XVf92.png
Routing it through the firewall and then making a dozen connections is simple for a worker, but extremely complex for a robot.
That factory was turning out 1 car/minute, so the $30/hr guy plugging harnesses in would add maybe $0.50 to the cost of the car? When you're selling vehicles with MSRPs over $40k (this was a large SUV assembly facility), the threshold for automating something is higher than you might expect.