micky wrote:
Are they being paid by the hitch companies to drill these holes and
weld these nuts? After all, I think less than 5 percent of
passenger cars will ever have a hitch attached, expecially if you
don't count SUV's. And in some cases, he nuts are welded into a
square tube. Even if a robot does the welding, it must take a few
minutes to weld on both the side near the end of the tube and the
other side too. Or do they just weld the left and right sides?

They put the nuts in because some people order hitches with the car? Or because
they want to determine how they will be mounted to avoid liability when it's
done wrong?

The nuts may well be welded on before the metal is bent into the tube. In any
case, it's probably done by a machine, perhaps using a spot welding technique.