Local Motors is a next generation American car company. It is the first disruptive entrant in the US automotive industry in decades and it is the first of its kind.
Local Motors will design, manufacture, and bring to market innovative, safer, more functional, lightweight, efficient cars through a revolutionary, local assembly and retail experience. These cars will revolutionize not only automobiles, but also the very structure of auto-making, auto-selling, and auto-servicing.
* In auto-making, Local Motors will build low inventory, high cash conversion, low capital intensity assembly facilities distributed across the United States, which will bring satisfying and meaningful manufacturing employment in a pleasurable life-work experience.
* In auto-selling, Local Motors will create an aspirational experience of scarcity driven demand whereby the local factory will create a Wonka-like fascination with its products and methods. Not only will it sell its cars, but it will sell the experience of people being able to visit and watch their car being "born".
* In auto-servicing, Local Motors will pledge a customer experience of loyal, uncompromising, personal service deserving of the largest purchase that many people ever make - their car.
Micro-Factory Retailing
We propose to do these things by challenging the paradigm of highly centralized manufacturing, embattled dealerships, and dispersed service locations. Instead, we propose to introduce our new cars by building a national network of local units each capable of manufacturing, sales, and service. The individual units will be supplied by a global "value network" of integrated suppliers of parts and sub-assemblies. Collectively, the units will be linked to a small headquarters providing support for process migration, design commonality and purchasing functions.
Web 2.0 Community
Design style, customer research, career opportunities and demand will be driven by a revolutionary virtual community, which enables styling and features to match unmet customer requirements while retaining full licensing rights.
Environmental Efficiency
Local Motors' lightweight vehicles will reduce carbon and particulate emissions while achieving best in class fuel efficiency, initially using conventional internal combustion engine technology. Using proven technologies, Local Motors will immediately address concerns over climate change, fuel costs, and dependence on foreign oil.
If the mass production and marketing methods of Ford and GM ushered in the first generation of automaking, and the lean Toyota Production System ushered in the second, Local Motors represents the first fully functioning "Automotive 3.0" company.
In the old paradigm,
* High capital intensity, current global auto manufacturers.
* They design a single model, make hundreds of thousands of copies a year, and push it through a network of dealerships.
* Mass Customization and the search for low-volume runs is elusive and expensive given the value chain structure.
* The customer feedback loop is inadequate and broken. Service choices are at the dealer or through a jungle of independent service providers.
The result: an undifferentiated experience and a customer making the second largest purchase of his life while being consistently dissatisfied.
Here is how we do it differently
* We will license a lightweight, superior safety, chassis that can be produced profitably at 2000 units/year within a $50,000 price point.
* On top of that we will layer design from our proprietary open source design community. This community empowers an army of hot-shot, competitive, designers from around the world to innovate and refine design.
* Our team specifies the target segment that fits the price point. The community delivers the innovation.
* Our team of can-do engineers and master machinists fit the winning design to the common chassis. These designs are then transferred to our network of suppliers who deliver the necessary sub-assemblies direct to the Local Motors facility on a JIT basis. All cars are assembled, tested for quality, and sold locally by a 20-person business unit at a facility with 1/100th the capital of today's auto plants.
The result: consistently newer, safer, more exciting, more efficient cars bought and serviced in a more pleasurable local experience.
