New auto factory in Germany.. Amazing video .. :)

[jdv69z]

Saw a video somewhere of a BMW production plant showing raw stampings coming from presses to finished BMW's rolling into the shipping Trailers. I don't think I counted 20 humans involved in the whole process. Watching robots install the windshield sealant to the windshield, and then installing the windshield was amazing. Painting robots actually looked like humans in the video. They opened and closed the doors  to paint the interior sheet metal. I'm assuming American Car plants are much the same these days as well.

[lakeholme]

Saw a video somewhere of a BMW production plant showing raw stampings coming from presses to finished BMW's rolling into the shipping Trailers. I don't think I counted 20 humans involved in the whole process. Watching robots install the windshield sealant to the windshield, and then installing the windshield was amazing. Painting robots actually looked like humans in the video. They opened and closed the doors  to paint the interior sheet metal. I'm assuming American Car plants are much the same these days as well.

Yes, both the BMW plant in Germany and the one in SC have the painting robots.

I assume this plant is for assembly and not painting, correct? It would take one heck of an air scrubber system to remove all the vapors being within a community like that.
Heck, one would make a nice living just by being a window cleaner there 

Mike

Part of the painting process involves dipping and part is spraying.  BMW uses scrubbers and they recycle their water.

[1968RSZ28]

That's where the VW Phaeton is made, at about ten per day, and it sells for $100,000+ (which is why it was withdrawn from the U.S. market three years ago after being the biggest sales flop in VW history). The plant and the car only exist because both are the pet project of Ferdinand Piech, the VW Chairman, and he won't admit defeat and let them die.
 
John

$100,000+ for a Volkswagen!  The Germans must be smoking the Black Forest!  

Paul

[z28z11]

I have spent a lot of my career calling on and selling to prime automotive plants, including GM Bowling Green, Saturn/GM Spring Hill, Hyundai, Nissan (since before Day1, Smryna, TN when it was a trailer park of offices), Nissan/Decherd Engine, Opel/KS Germany, and visited the MB/Daimler V8 engine facility in Stuttgart, Germany (guided tour of the entire plant, 2000/2001-ish).

I'm glad VW built a plant in Tennessee - they will eventually learn, as Nissan did, that Americans can and will build a better vehicle than what is built overseas.

Regards,
Steve

[69Z28-RS]

.....
$100,000+ for a Volkswagen!  The Germans must be smoking the Black Forest!   

Well the Volkswagen company owns ten other car brands, including Porsche, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Seat, Skoda as well as Volkswagen passenger cars and commercial vehicles.   It was also a VW prototype that broke the FIA endurance record (or records?) which was set by a 1990 ZR1 in 1990 (included avg speed of 175.885 over 24 hrs, and over 173 mph for 5000 miles (avg speed included stops for fueling and driver changes, and car had to carry any parts that might be required for repair, which could only be performed by the driver (no parts were required).  Before the ZR1 record, the prior records were held by a Mercedes in 1936.   So the VW company is not without it's own outstanding engineering staff.