China’s Dark Factories: So Automated, They Don't Need Lights | WSJ
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it as evidence that lights-out factories exist, though one commenter notes it is outdated relative to current automation.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2025 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites Telemakhos · 2025-08 · on “A study of lights at night suggests dictators lie about economic growth (2022)”
> 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 [this video]
Cites kevlened · 2025-12 · on “The era of jobs is ending”
> 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" [this video]
Cites ffsm8 · 2026-07 · on “Why Software Factories Fail”
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 only when the automated QA detects issues or theyre doing random inspections are the lights turned up/on this is an outdated video for waht was state of the art a few years ago [this video] again, i dont have insider knowledge so i cannot speak on whats SOTA in chinese automated factories beyond whats covered publicly