As part of my Grand Tour of German Automotive, I also visited the Volkswagen Transparent Factory Dresden (Gläserne Manufaktur). This plant is something of an oddball in automotive manufacturing, very different from all other automotive plants I have seen. Its purpose is quite different from “normal” car plants, and hence it cannot really be compared to a normal car plant. But it does fulfill its purpose rather well, albeit not quite cheaply. Let me show you this unusual plant…
Plant Visit
The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Volkswagen Osnabrück
The Volkswagen plant in Osnabrück is actually the plant of the former cabriolet specialist Karmann, which went bankrupt in 2009 and was bought by Volkswagen. It is the specialist plant for the Volkswagen brand for cabriolets… but the Volkswagen brand will stop making cabriolets in 2025. It is also the overflow plant if other VW plants need more capacity… but VW itself has overcapacity. As a result, the plant suffers from a lack of love and especially money for investments from the Volkswagen headquarters. Hence, the plant looks run-down. But despite these disadvantages, the organization itself was decent, and better than in Wolfsburg or the Audi plants.
The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Volkswagen Emden
The VW plant in Emden is a well run plant, and among the best in the Volkswagen group. It is also producing only fully electric battery powered vehicles… which are not selling well. This leads to a lot of struggles and problems for the plant. Producing only one type of power train makes production more efficient but less flexible. And Emden is paying the price for this lack of flexibility. Other car makers usually opt to produce all kinds of power trains on the same assembly line. But the organization and lean-ness of the plant was good compared to other German car plants. Let’s have a look.
The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Volkswagen Wolfsburg
Volkswagen is one of the largest car makers in the world, and the largest German car maker. The Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg is by far the largest German automotive plant. However, in terms of lean performance, it is merely mediocre. On the other hand, it is not easy to run a production in protected historic buildings. Lets go and have a look at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg…
The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Audi Neckarsulm
As part of my Grand Tour of German Automotive, I visited the two Audi plants in Germany, the headquarters in Ingolstadt and the second plant in Neckarsulm. In my last post I showed you Ingolstadt, in this post you will see Neckarsulm, which makes (among other things) the ultra-luxurious Audi A8 and its variants. Both plants are interesting, albeit for me the Neckarsulm plant performs and feels a bit better. Read on!
The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Audi Ingolstadt
Audi is a maker of higher-end vehicles and part of the Volkswagen group. As part of my Grand Tour of German Automotive, I visited their plants in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm. This first blog post looks at their main plant in Ingolstadt. My next blog post looks at the second plant in Neckarsulm.
The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Porsche Assembly Lines
In my previous post I looked at Porsche and the Porsche plants in Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart and the plant in Leipzig. In this post I will go deeper and look at three final assembly lines in these two plants. In Zuffenhausen I visited two final assembly lines, the 911 and 718, as well as the fully electric Taycan assembly line. In Leipzig, they have only one assembly line where they produce the Panamera and the Macan. Let’s go through them from the oldest (forty-year-old line for the 911 Zuffenhausen) to the intermediate (twenty-year-old line in Leipzig) to the latest (five-year old line for the Taycan in Zuffenhausen). Let’s go!
The Grand Tour of German Automotive—Porsche Overview
Porsche is part of the Volkswagen group. Yet, this luxury sports car maker maintained its own style and the shop floor feels (and performs) different from the Volkswagen group. In this blog post, I will look deeper into the main plant in Zuffenhausen and the second manufacturing location in Germany, Leipzig. The next blog post looks in detail at three Porsche assembly lines, from the oldest to the newest. The oldest is the forty-year-old 911 & 718 Cayman line in Zuffenhausen; then the twenty-year-old line for the Panamera and Macan in Leipzig; and finally the line for the electric Taycan in Zuffenhausen from 2020.