Hello all!
Today we had the opportunity to visit the awe-inspiring Autostadt in Wolfsburg. This facility is an amazing combination of everything that we see to be technologically forward and efficient and is truly a work of art in many respects.
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| Porsche's stainless steel exterior with subterranean exhibit |
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| Visitor's center's opened, glass paneled wall |
At first glance, Autostadt is a beautiful mixture of the modern architecture and the old, almost original factory buildings. The many different exhibits of the enormous Volkswagen family were displayed in their own unique ways and buildings that could be passed off something designed and constructed by Frank Lloyd Wright on some sort of paraphernalia, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, or perhaps just Tony Stark. For example, the Lamborghini exhibit strapped one of their presumably expensive sports cars to a rotating portion of one of the walls, the Bugatti exhibit featured an entirely chromed hall and display car, and the Bentleys subtly displayed their elegance, guarding the entrance to the onsite Ritz-Carlton, just to name a few of them. The visitor's center had rotating, 8m x 24m paneled, glass walls that rotated to allow for airflow in the hot summer days to reduce the financial and environmental cost of using the AC as well as solar powered ferries to the industrial portion of the park. The Autostadt is clearly a green statement to the world. That is, of course, apart from the Porsche exhibit, where they understandably gave themselves an F on their efficiency report card for the Cayenne Turbo, 911 Turbo, and the Boxster. After all, Porsche "makes cars everyone wants, but no one needs."
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| Display Chrome Bugatti inside Bugatti exhibit |
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| One of the Bentleys outside of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel |
The efficiency of the Autostadt, in its entirety, can further be observed with the almost entirely automated assembly line. During our visit, we went on a second, 45 minute tour through the car factory itself by means of a caterpiller-like tram ride. There, we were introduced to how the factory produces the thousands of VWs per day. With most of a car's physical conception being automated in a confidential process including a multitude of robots and a few human beings scattered here and there, we were taken through the few steps that had the most men and women working. I personally have never seen anything like what we saw today, besides instances from Toyota commercials showing off their robotic arms whirling away at the skeletons of cars worth about ten times my first car. It is almost hypnotic to see the complexity and the precision of these machines, while trying to comprehend that all it takes to make these robots run perfectly is a just few dozen lines of code with minimal human intervention. The dozens of people supervising and working along side the metallic marauders will start and finish a full-sized car in 36 hours.
36 hours. It takes longer, in point of fact, to register for classes at our university- in some cases. Another thing that I noticed in the factory was that everything was
pristine. There were no oil, gasoline, or mystery liquid spills/stains in view and I am certain that the facility was dusted to perfection. Not even the air was dirty, it smelled like curry wurst because there was a self serve curry wurst station in the center of the building inside one of the offices. The level of care that VW takes in their employees is beyond admirable too. There are many points in the assembly process that would require the worker to be put into uncomfortable positions and solve this, the entire car would be banked about 45 degrees to allow for more comfortable access to what was needed. There were also seats attached to sway arms that the workers would simply ride into the cabin of the frame. They even took the floor into account! Each and every car that is built is on a wooden platform to make standing on them more comfortable. Unfortunately, photographs were not permitted.
The engineering genius demonstrated by one of Germany's industrial giants is an incredible feat and will forever be a prime example of the astounding capabilities of man-kind that is rarely widely known. I had no idea that this amazing park (that should be named one of Germany's national parks in my opinion) even existed before it showed up on out itinerary in early May. I sincerely hope that I will one day be able to return to the Autostadt, years from now. Also, the central building has a "kids" area that was still very appealing to many of us as well as a great many restaurants and a cold stone, which should most definitely be taken full advantage of at every opportunity.
Ryan Vogel
Mechanical Engineering NU '20
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