As the price of gas creeps up, people and business are considering increasingly sustainable practices … not because it feels good, but because it relieves economic pains. Six of one, half dozen of the other; either way, I’m happy to see people look domestically and locally for their sourcing, their buying, and so forth.
The New York Times Larry Rohter talks here about how companies are thinking in new (or really old) ways about manufacturing and retailing:
When Tesla Motors, a pioneer in electric-powered cars, set out to make a luxury roadster for the American market, it had the global supply chain in mind. Tesla planned to manufacture 1,000-pound battery packs in Thailand, ship them to Britain for installation, then bring the mostly assembled cars back to the United States.
But when it began production this spring, the company decided to make the batteries and assemble the cars near its home base in California, cutting more than 5,000 miles from the shipping bill for each vehicle.
