I was enlightened by the link above to NUMMI. Here is a transcript of that video: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/transcript You have seen the same advice from Paul Graham: "Do things that don't scale", http://paulgraham.com/ds.html. In the case of NUMMI, the emphasis was changed from quantity to quality. It didn't mean automation, it meant listening to suggestions from the workers. The worker adopted the change because it meant a change from industrial mayhem to a fulfilling work experience. The changes at that plant have (too) slowly trickled through the US car industry, as the managers involved moved around the GM organisation, finally giving the US car industry the high quality we see today. Tesla is similarly learning that, rather than automation being the magic answer, it's the one-off things that humans can do by coordinating that will bring costs down and quality and production up.