GM installs robots at flagship EV factory after laying off 1,300 workers
GM installs robots at flagship EV factory after laying off 1,300 workers
通用汽车在裁员1300人后，于旗舰电动汽车工厂安装机器人
Dozens of new robot arms have been installed at General Motors’ flagship electric vehicle factory in Detroit—even as 1,300 workers remain out of work following what was supposed to be a temporary layoff. The latest automation push has spurred union pushback over a potentially existential issue for automakers and their workers.
通用汽车位于底特律的旗舰电动汽车工厂近日安装了数十台新的机械臂，而与此同时，该厂仍有1300名工人处于“临时裁员”状态，迟迟未能复工。这一最新的自动化举措引发了工会的强烈抵制，因为这触及了汽车制造商及其员工之间潜在的生存危机。
General Motors installed approximately 50 robot arms at GM’s Factory Zero plant in Detroit, Michigan, according to reporting by Crain’s Detroit Business. Made by the Japanese robotics company FANUC, the robots are designed to help attach various components to vehicles during the assembly line process. But leaders at United Auto Workers (UAW), the primary US union for autoworkers, reacted with anger to the new robotic presence, given how GM has not yet called back any of the workers affected by supposedly temporary layoffs in March.
据《克莱恩底特律商业周刊》报道，通用汽车在其位于密歇根州底特律的“零号工厂”（Factory Zero）安装了约50台机械臂。这些机器人由日本发那科公司（FANUC）制造，旨在协助装配线上的车辆零部件安装工作。然而，美国汽车工人联合会（UAW）的领导层对此表示愤怒，因为通用汽车至今尚未召回任何在3月份被“临时裁员”的工人。
More than 1,000 union members are still “laid off indefinitely,” James Cotton, president of UAW Local 22, told The Detroit News. He said that the company could bring some of those members back to work instead of installing the 50 robots. The temporary layoffs were preceded by permanent layoffs involving another 1,200 workers at GM’s Factory Zero in October 2025.
UAW 22分会主席詹姆斯·科顿（James Cotton）告诉《底特律新闻》，仍有超过1000名工会成员处于“无限期裁员”状态。他表示，公司本可以召回部分成员复工，而不是去安装这50台机器人。在此次临时裁员之前，通用汽车零号工厂已于2025年10月永久裁减了另外1200名员工。
Many automakers, including Stellantis NV and Ford Motor Company, have deployed assembly-line robots, such as Fanuc robot arms, as they push to automate more of their US operations. Hyundai Motor Company plans to deploy Atlas humanoid robots made by Boston Dynamics—which Hyundai acquired in 2020—to start working in the automaker’s flagship EV facility in Georgia by 2028.
包括Stellantis和福特汽车在内的许多汽车制造商都在推进美国业务的自动化，并部署了发那科机械臂等装配线机器人。现代汽车公司计划到2028年，在其位于佐治亚州的旗舰电动汽车工厂部署由波士顿动力公司（现代于2020年收购）制造的Atlas人形机器人。
Andrew Bergman, a Local 22 member and union organizer who was among those laid off by GM, described corporate leaders in the automotive industry as prioritizing profits over human workers. “Technological development has the capability of making work safer for the working class and enabling workers to have a shorter work week without losing pay,” Bergman told The Detroit News. “But in the bosses’ and billionaires’ hands it’s used to pad profits and lay off workers.”
身为UAW 22分会成员及工会组织者的安德鲁·伯格曼（Andrew Bergman）也是此次被通用汽车裁员的员工之一。他认为汽车行业的企业领导者将利润置于员工之上。“技术发展本应让工人阶级的工作更安全，并使工人在不减薪的情况下缩短工作周，”伯格曼告诉《底特律新闻》，“但在老板和亿万富翁手中，它却被用来增加利润和裁减工人。”
The Detroit News also highlighted how corporate leaders and workers conveyed “strikingly different messages” about AI, robotics, and automation during separate gatherings held in Detroit during the same week of June. While the Reindustrialize Summit featured startup founder speeches about how robots could “empower our industrial base with superhuman manufacturing,” the UAW Constitutional Convention featured UAW president Shawn Fain warning against “the threat of humanoid robotics and mass automation” undermining worker employment and wages at a time of rising wealth inequality.
《底特律新闻》还指出，在6月的同一周内，企业领导者和工人在底特律举行的不同会议上，就人工智能、机器人和自动化传达了“截然不同的信息”。在“再工业化峰会”上，初创公司创始人宣扬机器人如何能“以超人类的制造能力赋能工业基础”；而在UAW宪法大会上，工会主席肖恩·费恩（Shawn Fain）则警告称，在贫富差距日益扩大的背景下，“人形机器人和大规模自动化的威胁”正在破坏工人的就业和工资。
Dark factory rising / “黑暗工厂”的崛起
Efforts to automate more US factories come as companies in East Asia have already charged ahead in establishing multiple “dark factory” sites—facilities featuring near-complete automation with a small human staff to provide oversight and troubleshooting. The Japanese robotics company FANUC is itself one of the original dark factory pioneers that has operated a “lights out” factory since 2001. In other words, the FANUC robot arms being deployed by GM and other companies to automate automotive production were themselves primarily built by other robots.
在美国工厂加速自动化进程的同时，东亚企业已经在建立多个“黑暗工厂”（Dark Factory）方面遥遥领先——这些设施实现了近乎完全的自动化，仅需少量人工进行监督和故障排除。日本发那科公司本身就是“黑暗工厂”的先驱之一，自2001年起就开始运营“熄灯工厂”。换句话说，通用汽车和其他公司用于汽车生产自动化的发那科机械臂，其本身主要就是由其他机器人制造的。
But the latest dark factory pioneers are primarily Chinese companies, including many automakers. The Chinese automotive brand Jetour has a dark factory churning out SUVs in the city of Fuzhou in China’s Fujian province, while the luxury EV maker Zeekr has a dark factory in Ningbo City in China’s Zhejiang province capable of producing up to 300,000 cars per year, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi uses more than 700 robots at its EV Hyperfactory in Beijing to help produce a new electric vehicle every 76 seconds, according to The EV Report. Xiaomi already had another heavily automated dark factory in Beijing capable of producing 10 million phones annually.
据《华尔街日报》报道，最新的“黑暗工厂”先驱主要是中国企业，其中包括许多汽车制造商。中国汽车品牌捷途在福建福州拥有一座生产SUV的黑暗工厂；豪华电动汽车制造商极氪在浙江宁波也拥有一座年产能达30万辆的黑暗工厂。据《电动汽车报告》显示，中国智能手机制造商小米在其北京的电动汽车超级工厂使用了700多台机器人，每76秒就能生产一辆新车。小米在北京还拥有另一座高度自动化的黑暗工厂，年产手机可达1000万部。
But as the Institution of Mechanical Engineers pointed out, leaning too heavily into fully automated factories can create new vulnerabilities and issues. Humans are often better at quickly identifying problems on the production line that can quickly spiral out of control in a fully automated system. Cybersecurity also becomes an even greater issue for heavily automated, AI-powered facilities featuring primarily robotic workforces.
然而，正如英国机械工程师学会所指出的，过度依赖全自动化工厂可能会带来新的脆弱性和问题。人类往往更擅长快速识别生产线上的问题，而在全自动化系统中，这些问题可能会迅速失控。对于以机器人为主力、由人工智能驱动的高度自动化设施而言，网络安全也成为了一个更为严峻的问题。
Still, many companies are betting that the lower labor costs and increased production capacities are worth it. China’s manufacturing industry had deployed 2 million industrial robots by 2024, adding 295,000 robots in that year alone. By comparison, Japan installed 44,500 industrial robots, and the United States installed 34,200 such robots in 2024. Meanwhile, China’s latest five-year plan puts AI and robotics at the heart of the government’s economic blueprint for the country as it looks ahead to 2030.
尽管如此，许多公司仍押注于更低的劳动力成本和更高的生产能力，认为这一切是值得的。到2024年，中国制造业已部署了200万台工业机器人，仅当年就新增了29.5万台。相比之下，日本在2024年安装了4.45万台工业机器人，美国则安装了3.42万台。与此同时，中国最新的五年规划将人工智能和机器人技术置于国家2030年经济蓝图的核心位置。
Such automation efforts may give Chinese automakers a significant edge in competitiveness as global EV adoption continues to rise—although US automakers have already been retreating from EV production in the wake of the Trump administration’s decisions to abolish the federal tax credit for EV buyers and freeze a federal EV charging infrastructure program.
随着全球电动汽车普及率的持续上升，这种自动化努力可能会赋予中国汽车制造商显著的竞争优势——尽管美国汽车制造商在特朗普政府决定取消联邦电动汽车买家税收抵免并冻结联邦电动汽车充电基础设施计划后，已经开始从电动汽车生产中撤退。