Today was a little bit less structured than our past days have been, and frankly, it was much needed. We didn’t have anything on the schedule until 1:30, so our group took advantage of the free time by exploring a museum called Schaezlerpalais. In here, we were able to take in some historic artwork and beautiful architecture, reminiscent of the Wieskirche from yesterday. Regrettably, we couldn’t see the whole museum as there was a wedding that was taking place that day. This wasn’t the end of the world, however, because our entry was free! It was a great way to kill some time and have some fun before heading off to the university to meet via Zoom with our guest speaker from Bloomberg.

I know it may sound odd to meet with someone who works at Bloomberg on a trip all about the automotive industry, but we were talking to a professional journalist with a specialization in the automotive field. We learned a lot about the current position of major car manufacturers in Germany, which gave much greater context to our research and the factory tours we had already taken. We heard a lot about how China’s emerging electronic vehicles were competing with manufacturers like Audi and BMW, stealing market share that they had initially thought was theirs to lose.

We also heard a lot about other factors that have been hurting the automotive industry that I personally had not thought of prior to this meeting. For example, the lasting effects of COVID have still put a damper on the automotive industry, as more jobs have moved to a hybrid or online model, thus reducing the need for vehicles in many major industries to even get to work. Additionally, things like the impacts of AI and resource allocation to the development of large language models also take a toll on these industry giants, as they have to weigh where and how to invest their energy and resources to prepare for the future.

After wrapping up with our guest speaker, my group took advantage of the time to research and learn more about BMW, the company we would be presenting on at the end of the trip. After wrapping up our little research and planning session, we all headed back to the hotel, having had a much-needed chill day.