Video: Drone footage from BYD Spark production line

Chinese automaker BYD grabbed a drone to shoot a fly-by video of a car assembly facility in Zhengzhou, China, where its Shark pickup truck is being assembled.

It looks like the company is rather proud of the degree of automation it managed to achieve at the factory – and for a good reason. The video is two and a half minutes long, yet not a single worker gets into the frame. Everything, from stamping to welding, painting and assembling, including the tricky bits like glass gluing, is carried out by robots.

The main assembly line that handles things like powertrain assembly and interior trimming never showed up in the video. Perhaps BYD still employs human workers there.

The BYD Shark is the corporation’s first vehicle to have premiered abroad sooner than it did in China. It has already bowed in Mexico with a 1.5-liter hybrid powertrain rated at 430 PS (424 hp / 316 kW). The truck is 5.45 meters (213 inches) long. It’s already official that a version for the domestic market is underway, but when it may debut remains to be announced.