[aerohead]

I stumbled across a citation from May,1993.I believe it's either from AUTOWEEK,or WARD's Automotive.
The article credits an assembly plant paint shop with 30-50% of the overall cost of the factory,approximately $500,000,000.Phosphating,baking,electrode-position primer submersion (E-Coat),baking,primer-surfacer robotic sprayng,basecoat robotic spraying,baking,clear-coat robotic spraying,and baking operations can be skipped by Tesla,which constitutes the most expensive 'component' of contemporary automobiles,according to at least one messenger (I believe it was from Hundai,America,on Modern Marvels,QUEST Channel-8.4,DFW,Texas).