Cost to make Google phone in U.S: $4

money.cnn.com

10 points·alexlitov··7 comments

The headline used by CNN is grossly misleading. They are deriving the $4 additional cost by comparing the Moto X to an iPhone, and subtracting their estimated cost from each other.

Agreed. The comparison is not really valid..

"China also has far more skilled engineers than the United States does. Apple has said it requires 30,000 industrial engineers to support its on-site factory workers -- numbers that simply don't exist in America. "

Of course America doesn't have IE's, they stopped hiring those people in the US 30 years ago.

Bad headlines aside, its remarkable that its only $4 more expensive to make a phone in the USA! Why in the world aren't more electronics being made in the USA then? (Think quality control and product security, at least.)

The article addresses that:

"Unlike U.S. plants, Foxconn and other Chinese manufacturing operations house employees in dormitories and can send hundreds of thousands of workers to the assembly lines at a moment's notice. Workers are subjected to what most Americans would consider unbearably long hours and tough working conditions.

That system gives tech companies the efficiency needed to race products out the door. Plus, most of the component suppliers for tech companies are also in China or other Asian countries. That gives companies the flexibility to change a product design at the last minute and still ship on time."

This is a terrible headline. The cost of the phone isn't 4 dollars. It's 4 dollars more than the iPhone.

To slightly edit/correct your statement: I think they are saying the cost of manufacturing the Moto X in the USA ($12) is only about $4 more than the iPhone in Asia ($8).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com