Today was needed after we had a 6:15am departure and 30,000 steps walked the day prior. I got 10 hours of quality sleep and my legs were a little tired, but we weren’t expected at the University of Augsburg until 1:00pm, so that left the morning to explore. Some of us walked just 10 minutes from the hotel over to Schaezlerpalais, a Baroque palace that is open to the public for viewing and serves as an art gallery as well. There were a few weddings going on so part of the palace was closed, but the areas we got to see were stunning. Every room was decked out with art pieces covering the colorful walls and there was some furniture that was preserved. I had wished that the signs and painting descriptions had English translations, but everything was in German, so a little Google translate was used here and there. The long hall of rooms lead to a gorgeous ballroom. There were mirrors and artwork on all the walls surrounding us, nothing left untouched. When you looked up there was the most beautiful ceiling painting, it reminded me of the Duomo in Florence, Italy. Out the large windows you could see a nice garden in the back, which we couldn’t walk around because of the weddings, but it looked like a very peaceful space that was kept very well. We then took a trip over to the University of Augsburg campus and saw their athletic facility and fields. Some of our friends had a relay race on the track, which gave us another fun opportunity to explore campus and be outside.
The only scheduled activity of the day was the Bloomberg presentation. I was looking forward to this because we would be getting an outside perspective on the automotive industry and would be able to hear some non-bias opinions. It is interesting hearing the insights on electric vehicles specifically. This whole week we have been hearing a lot about the growth of electric vehicles and how most companies were continuing to meet this growth with more vehicle selections. What we had heard today was slightly different: electric vehicle purchases were actually a lot lower than these major car companies predicted. I understand and support electric vehicle production as it is great for our environment, but if people aren’t buying as much as companies thought, why are companies continuing to push out more models? Do they think with more options, more people would buy? I also am wondering why hybrid vehicles aren’t increasing in popularity if some seem attached to their gas engines. This session was very informative, allowing me to think outside the box, and this unbiased opinion has left me with some unanswered questions I’m looking forward to talking about next week at Audi.
