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China’s Dark Factories: So Automated, They Don't Need Lights | WSJ

The Wall Street Journal · 2.5M views · 2025-07-18 · 5:37

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as evidence that lights-out factories exist, though one commenter notes it is outdated relative to current automation.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2025–2026

Topics

Manufacturing & industrial processesRoboticsCars, EVs & motorcycles
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dark factorychinaev manufacturingzeekr

What people said

ffsm8 · 2026-07 · Reference

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 only when the automated QA detects issues or theyre doing random inspections are the lights turned up/on this is an outdated video for waht was state of the art a few years ago [VIDEO] again, i dont have insider knowledge so i cannot speak on whats SOTA in chinese automated factories beyond whats covered publicly

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kevlened · 2025-12 · Reference

> 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" [VIDEO]

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Telemakhos · 2025-08 · Reference

> 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 [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by The Wall Street Journal, played through YouTube.

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