This particular tiny house might be notable because Elon Musk was an early recipient but it has another claim to fame: better ways to ship the tiny house.

Well, he reportedly lives in the Casita, a $49,500 375-square-foot unit created by Las Vegas-based Boxabl…

According to Tiramani, other prefab home makers struggle with one glaring issue: shipping logistics.

But unlike other prefab homes, the Casitas can be folded down from 20 feet to about 8.5 feet while it’s being transported on a truck or towed by a pickup truck…

So when the Casita arrives at its final destination, the home just needs to be unfolded (which takes a few hours) and then attached to its foundation and utilities, before it’s totally move-in ready.

This sounds like an Ikea like solution to furniture: get the house down to a smaller package so that it can be easily transported. Then, at the location, you assemble the product. All of this cuts down on costs. Do not underestimate the importance of shipping and logistics; for example, companies like Sears, Walmart, and Amazon mastered shipping and logistics in ways that helped them sell a lot of goods.

More broadly, the mass production, easier shipping, and modular capabilities of such homes offers lots of opportunities. Mass produced housing as we know it – think Levittowns and large builders constructing subdivisions of suburban homes over months – has endured much criticism. At the same time, this mass produced tiny house comes in a more reasonable price point, could be available to more people, and could be customized. There is still an issue of having people to put these homes together and having land; this might tie this mass production to tiny house subdivisions or clusters.