As an electronics designer professionally I just want to chime in.
With current infrastructure, it is very very very difficult to not go bankrupt and making consumer products in the EU the price for these sort of small products would be double to triple and of the same quality (I.e. shit products would also be shit, just much more expensive).
We need to be investing in automation infrastructure in low cost of living areas to get anywhere near competitive. Even current PCB manufacturers in Italy, Portugal, and Hungary are useful for B2B industrial, medical, and aerospace products mostly because the cost to assemble the PCBs is simply too high for consumers to consider buying.
Look at fairphone. They are designed in NL, software written in the EU, and still produced in China (searching for better conditions though) and like 90% of consumers that consider them won’t buy them specifically because of price point.
Designed in the EU, produced in china (and software in the EU) is already a large step up because development costs and profits go to EU companies, even if produced in China. Small companies have no other choice.
As an electronics designer professionally I just want to chime in.
With current infrastructure, it is very very very difficult to not go bankrupt and making consumer products in the EU the price for these sort of small products would be double to triple and of the same quality (I.e. shit products would also be shit, just much more expensive).
We need to be investing in automation infrastructure in low cost of living areas to get anywhere near competitive. Even current PCB manufacturers in Italy, Portugal, and Hungary are useful for B2B industrial, medical, and aerospace products mostly because the cost to assemble the PCBs is simply too high for consumers to consider buying.
Look at fairphone. They are designed in NL, software written in the EU, and still produced in China (searching for better conditions though) and like 90% of consumers that consider them won’t buy them specifically because of price point.
Designed in the EU, produced in china (and software in the EU) is already a large step up because development costs and profits go to EU companies, even if produced in China. Small companies have no other choice.