Auto Plant Full of Robots Still Needs a Human Touch

“ELLABELL, Ga. -- At Hyundai Motor Group's ultramodern new auto plant, robots perform a stunning array of tasks. They move materials, attach doors and do almost all of the welding. Dog-like robots with cameras in their snouts prance across the floor to inspect partially built Ioniq electric vehicles.

 

The factory, which opened near Savannah, Ga., late last year, deploys 750 robots, not counting the hundreds of autonomous guided vehicles that glide across the floor.

 

About 1,450 people work alongside them. That roughly 2-to-1 ratio of humans to robots compares with the U.S. auto-industry average of 7-to-1.

 

Human beings are still in the driver's seat for some jobs.

 

They spot burrs that must be smoothed and bits of trim that need replacing. They snap fabric door panels into place with grommets, push electrical connectors together until they click and duck into places robots can't reach to bolt down seats and attach shock absorbers.

 

Hyundai Motor Co. Chief Executive Jose Munoz said the factory was designed so that robots do tasks that are dangerous, repetitive or physically demanding.

 

People are left to troubleshoot, monitor quality and bring craftsmanship to the manufacturing process.

 

"We're not trying to minimize human involvement -- we're trying to maximize human potential," he said.

 

No robot can do Unice Youmans's job. She works on the factory's metal-finishing line, pulling out dents, sanding away imperfections and removing adhesive and dust from freshly welded vehicle frames before they are whisked away to the paint shop.

 

"I don't think it's something that a machine can do because we have to be very hands-on with these cars," she said.

 

The company has committed to hiring 8,500 people at the Ellabell site by 2031 as a condition of the $2 billion incentive package it received from the state of Georgia. But some incoming employees, unnerved by the ubiquity of the plant's robots, wonder how long they will be able to keep their jobs.

 

Salem Elzway, a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University who is writing a book about the history of industrial robots, said they are right to be worried.

 

"The minute humans become more expensive, more recalcitrant, the more automation you're going to get," he said.

 

The age of industrial robotics began in 1961, when General Motors put a claw-handed machine called Unimate into a New Jersey factory, programming it to unload scalding hot parts from a die-casting press.

 

Unimate was such a novelty that it was featured on "The Tonight Show," where it poured a can of beer into a glass and conducted the house band.

 

GM quickly staffed its factories with more robots, but the automation push created blowback. In 1972, the United Auto Workers struck for 22 days at a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, saying humans couldn't keep up with the pace set by the machines.

 

The auto industry today is heavily robotized, particularly in Hyundai's home country of South Korea. The country has one of the world's lowest birthrates, helping to drive its adoption of the machines, said Susanne Bieller, general secretary of the International Federation of Robotics.

 

The U.S. has more than 400,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs, but Hyundai said the Ellabell factory is meeting its hiring goals.

 

Its starting hourly wage of $23.66 for entry-level workers is considerably higher than pay for comparable jobs nearby, said Brent Stubbs, the plant's chief administrative officer.

 

New hires report to a state-funded training center to learn programming that teaches a robot to trace patterns with a marker, a precursor for teaching it how to weld, and move objects from one place to another.

 

Trainees also learn to work with their own eyes and hands. They check a completed sport-utility vehicle for scratches, door gaps and other imperfections beneath a canopy of florescent lights. They pick up handfuls of bolts until they can grab the right quantity by feel.

 

A group of 20 new hires going through training on a recent morning had varying opinions about their mechanical colleagues-to-be. Some feared they would be blamed if a robot made a mistake. Others worried a robot would eventually take their job.

 

Stephanie Redmon, who moved from Houston to work in the factory, said she was excited to join a high-tech workplace after a career in retail.

 

"I just think it's going to be really cool," she said.

 

The human workforce is sparse in much of Hyundai's plant.

 

Metal arms move slabs of steel through presses that stamp them into components of the frame. An array of robots weld those parts together without a person in sight.

 

It isn't until the frames emerge from the paint shop that people take over.

 

Hundreds of workers are stationed along two assembly lines where seats, dashboards and other components are added. At one station, a robot slides the powertrain beneath the frame and fastens it with several large bolts; two workers, torque tools in hand, add more.

 

"Tactile feel, knowing when a clip is fully inserted, being able to react to variability on the line, a wire harness that isn't quite routed -- that's what people really do well," said Jerry Roach, head of the factory's general assembly department.

 

Along with the robotic dogs, which go by the name Spot, Hyundai plans to deploy humanoid robots known as Atlas that have arms, legs and fingers. Robot maker Boston Dynamics, in which Hyundai owns a controlling stake, has posted videos showing Atlas sorting and carrying parts.

 

Hyundai declined to comment on the work it might do in Ellabell.

 

A complete robot takeover is decades away, said Jorgen Pedersen, CEO of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, a government-funded nonprofit meant to strengthen U.S. manufacturing.

 

Robots still struggle to handle fabric and other limp materials, he said, and performing the most complex jobs will take technological breakthroughs that aren't yet on the radar.

 

"The tasks that a human can do, the flexibility that we have, the adaptability that we have -- we've underestimated it for a long time," Pedersen said.

 

People at the Hyundai plant hold primary responsibility for quality control, both along the assembly line and after a vehicle is finished.

 

The final check comes at a track outside the factory, where the Ioniqs arrive by autonomous guided vehicle for a test drive.

 

Chico Murphy, the track team leader, steered an Ioniq 9 SUV over pavement studded with bumps, listening for loose parts. He checked the brakes, paused at the summit of a steep hill and hit highway speed on a straightaway. He said he and his colleagues occasionally discover issues that must be addressed before a vehicle is ready for sale.

 

Murphy said as long as people drive cars, they will want other people to give them a seal of approval.

 

"I think they like knowing that a human is there," he said. "It makes them feel a little safer than just relying on some machine."” [1]

 

1. Auto Plant Full of Robots Still Needs a Human Touch. Keilman, John.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 26 Aug 2025: B1.