Lego breaks ground on first US manufacturing facility

Who among us hasn't stepped on enough Legos to last a lifetime? Oh well, let's have some more <3

As of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced.[1]

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

Interesting learnings for me from this article:

- Lego operates multiple $1B+ factories around the world - they are not just a design and marketing company

- 1400 manufacturing jobs in Virginia expected - not just an automated thing. Anyone know what changed economically to justify the high US labor costs? Particularly compared to MX

- 100% Carbon neutral via on-site Solar in Virginia (not particularly sunny). No offsets shenanigans. Oil prices might be too high today if this is about to happen to most new factories in the world.

As someone with young kids who recently bought a $70 Lego set, it’s not just the plastic blocks, it’s a whole design. My daughter built this awesome Lego tree house with over a thousand pieces. She followed the instructions and built it step by step over a few days, which was fun for her in and of itself, and now that it is complete she continues to play with it.

So sure the plastic pieces are easily reproduced but clearly Lego does great work on architecting some really cool designs. (I have no affiliation with Lego company to be clear)

There are, lots of em, but they aren't as good. LEGO charges a premium, but their manufacturing precision really is phenomenal. Also, LEGO's premium isn't that extreme. Their sets have worked out to about 0.10 USD per piece for decades, they've just gotten bigger and more elaborate.

The other brands also don't have the same brand deals, I can't get an X-Wing set from Mega Bloks, for example. Though notably you can only get Pokemon sets from Nanoblock, and the experience of assembling one will make you appreciate the work LEGO puts into their instructions and manufacturing precision.