More likely a mix of low-cost materials and automation.
Bring it on, I often think that new cars (especially low-end ones) are pretty grossly overpriced.
In every industrial revolution, automation has beaten "cheap labor."
The printing press compared to hand-writing a book.
Look at the automated mill compared to hand-grinding corn. Then consider the cotton gin versus hand-picking out debris.
The assembly-line versus hand-building a car.
The Coke machine versus paying a guy to sell drinks on street corners.
The newspaper vending machine compared to paying a kid to sell papers on the sidewalk.
The PCB compared to hand-wiring a circuit board.
At each stage the quality improves, the speed increases, and the costs go down...yet at every instance the same Luddites lament that somehow unemployment will go up and that salaries and entire economies will go down.
It's a tiring pattern from that angle...yet exciting when correctly viewed as another instance of technology raising our living standards globally.
Remove all the steel.
The fat margins are in the high end stuff.