Today was my favorite day yet, we visited the Audi factory. Audi is my final presentation’s project company and so my group really got to hone in today. It was the most organized and sophisticated experience I would say we have yet to have and in comparison to the other companies. When we visited Continental I was honestly confused on why we were learning about the computer circuit boards that were going into the car and not seeing the actual production of the vehicles being created. MAN showed us the production of the engines but not the production of the entire car – whereas Audi showed us the production of the entire vehicle. I was able to get the entire picture of what the production looks like – starting with parts as small as the metal pieces that go within the car that you don’t even see or know exist. The robots and machinery they use scares me, the robots move so fast and in the same exact back and forth motion super quickly just to get a minuscule part of the car assembled. There were no people in parts of the beginning of the production which makes me think about the tech world we’re constantly moving into, and how when car companies say they’re innovative and technology is their future, they genuinely mean it because I saw it first hand. I learned machines can’t do everything though, they can’t unwrap packaging or move in ways hands can because they are only programmed to do a certain motion at a specific speed. This makes me wonder about the extent in which tech will continue to be such a big part of the automobile industry in general. When we got down more in the production line to where the car’s innards were being done and the test driving had to be done, there was more production line workers to do those things. So I guess the robots won’t take us over… yet.
After the main tour we had lunch in the cafe that was probably the best food I have had yet in Germany which I feel like should be surprising. After buying out the gift shop too, we had another presentation with a guy who worked for the product strategy side of Audi. He was great because we got to ask him more personalized questions about the brand and its shift to all EVs by 2026 and no more production of ICE’s. He did say though if something were to change, Audi would be able to go back to producing ICEs but they are no longer doing R+D on them and their longevity/sustainability. He told us about the how tariffs from the U.S. are impacting Audi and I asked about the main target group / age demographic for Audi buyers and how the shif to EVs might change that. It made me wonder if older generations are not looking to be open to using more tech-savvy things including cars, and Audi’s main buyer is 55 years old, then will they see a decline is sales? Will the production of EVs being more expensive offset this lack of sales by rising cost of vehicles instead? Regardless, the presentation was great and made me think of a lot of different aspects especially when he mentioned all of the financial metrics as of 2024. I also wondered if their employee # of about 88,000 would decline if robots are going to be such a prevalent part of the production within factories.
Audi was awesome and I am glad I got assigned it for my company – today was my favorite by far!
