The Indian company Tata annouced their $2500 auto last week. The International Herald Tribune has an excellent article on the manufacturing changes required to make a $2500 car. Key quote for IHT article:
"Just as Japan popularized kanban (just in time) and kaizen (continuous improvement), so Tata may export to the world what can perhaps be called "Gandhi engineering" - a mantra that combines irreverence toward established ways with a scarcity mentality that spurns superfluities."
The article goes on to talk about how Tata dramatically cut the costs of making a car. In addition to cutting "superfluities" (had to consult a dictionary to learn this basically means "extras'), Tata also outsourced a lot of the work and used new low cost tooling and equipment.
Related to this is the recent annoucement of the Air Car by a small European auto company. It runs on compressed air and is built in a factory that employs less than 50 workers.
I've posted in the past on the growing number of small auto companies. The numbers continue to grow.
Tata announcement
http://www.news.com/2300-11389_3-6225465-1.html?tag=nefd.pop
Air car
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