Big, sophisticated robot systems used on car-production lines can cost millions of dollars.

ECONOMIST: Robots: Nothing to lose but their chains | The

Engineers can calculate the most efficient route for a spray-painting robot to take around a car body, work out how quickly parts must be supplied, look for bottlenecks or even tell if a human worker's task is likely to give him backache.

ECONOMIST: Manufacturing technology

Robots are getting better at co-operating with each other: in some car plants a big robot now lifts a small one inside the vehicle to assemble components.

ECONOMIST: Robots: Nothing to lose but their chains | The

But even more fans swarm an eight-foot-tall robot, who looks every bit the part of a transformed version of the car.

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