Originally Posted by tandempower

Cars, bikes, and other vehicles are different methods for producing mobility. When Ford started, they were towing the chassis from one assembly station to the next using a rope. You could say they were working 'conveyor-free' at that point, and the factory was probably organized differently. Then, when they started using conveyors it changed the way they worked, the layout of the factory, etc.

Motor vehicles are basically conveyors for humans and other deliveries. The infrastructure they drive on and where they drive are the 'factory' of human life. The question is what we're producing, how, and why? Some people want to make the factory parts expensive to stimulate business activity and growth. Others want to make the factory produce more green growth, trees, forests, wildlife, etc. by organizing 'the factory' with environmental consequences in mind. Others want to use bikes and walking because we find it easier to stay fit and healthy when we're using our bodies to get around instead of sitting inside a conveyor. Still others don't like the expense/liability of having to be insured operating a powerful vehicle that can do serious damage and cause injury or death. Others just don't love cars enough to want to keep them clean and maintained and would prefer simpler options with less responsibility and maintenance demands.

But however you look at it, motor-vehicles are the equivalent of a motorized conveyor outside the factories, so it really is part of industrial production, even if you don't want to see that way because you prefer an image of the world where industrial production is distinguished from something else that is different somehow.