Today we had an early start, with us meeting at 7:15 AM in the lobby. Fortunately, I was very well-rested, as I had crashed at 8 PM the night before. With some breakfast in my stomach, we got onto the bus, and headed to the Audi company located Ingolstadt, Germany. Although I got a lot of sleep last night, I still managed to sleep the whole bus ride, and somehow I was still tired when we arrived around 10 AM.
Post-arrival, we split up into two groups. One started off with a tour of the factory, while the other started off by walking around the museum. I started off with the museum, and the variety of cars that I saw was insane. One thing is for sure… I now know that the four rings on a car is Audi. From the starting cars to the end, it amazes me how much of an upgrade cars have had in just the last 10-15 years in the museum. To me it seemed as if the cars were progressing in a linear relationship type-of-way up until late 2000’s. From then on, the relationship seems to have turned into an exponential one. On the lowest floor of the museum, I saw a prototype of a fully autonomous car, and honestly I felt a mix of amazement and fear. All the possible accidents crossed my mind, but I’m sure those thoughts and issues are already being addressed at Audi. The following three pictures are pictures of the prototype I believe.
After walking around the museum for about an hour, it was our turn to tour the factory. Prior to starting the tour, we were asking to put our bags, and especially phones into lockers. This industry is very competitive, so this did not surprise me.
During the tour, we saw every stage in building a car. It was mesmerizing how precise ands mooth the process was. The robots incorporated into the process were very big, but managed to never fail. Something cool was that the colors of machines represented the company that machine was from. Additionally, we saw that the welding of the cars with the robots, and the other group that toured the factory before us, did not get to because when they went, almost everyone (including the robots that were on lunch break). Building on that, the process of making the cars was a mix of human collaboration and robots. In other words, you needed both for the process to run smoothly. Almost everything (robots, machines, and humans combined) run on what looked like a conveyor belt. Walking around made me feel like I was in the future. For a little fun fact… we learned that to build a car (from start to finish), they need 24 hours, and 10 hours are set aside just for the drying of paint.
Our tour guide was very helpful, and answered all of our questions to the best of her ability. Following the factory tour, we had a presentation about Audi and its progress/future. One main focus in Audi, as well as in the other companies’ presentations was sustainability. It is reassuring that this is a main focus, knowing that how the Earth is treated by humans in general tends to be on the more negative side. I am excited to see how this focus on sustainability helps with pollution. More specifically, I want to see the effect of hydrogen-fuel cells in cars. It is supposedly very beneficial on the environment, making me very hopeful for the decrease of air pollution.
Following this presentation, we had lunch in the cafe at Audi. It was very delicious, and the french fries tasted a lot healthier than the ones from America.
Finally, we traveled to the University of Augsburg, and had one final talk with Stefan Nicola over zoom. The overall topic and focus was more broadly on the auto-industry and the trends over several car companies. A trend noticed was that it is becoming more expensive and harder to repair things on our own because of the higher technicality applied with the rise of electric vehicles.
With that talk, we ended our day. Once we travelled back to our hotel, my friends and i got dinner together, and I enjoyed a nice, chill night.
Talk soon!
Kaylee