All language subtitles for Superstructures Engineering Marvels Series 1 6of6 Giant Car Plant 1080p

Narrator: Beneath these
roofs there are more square
feet of car production,

than at any other
factory on earth.

Karl: Making a car it's
the great master arts
of the 20th century.

Narrator: The wolfsburg plant
in germany has over 12 miles
of automated assembly lines

manned by around 6000
high tech robots.

Torsten: It takes really
ingenious engineering to make
everything happen smoothly.

Every 16 seconds a
finished car leaves
the production line.

Narrator: Even
that is not enough.

The plant now aims to build
a million cars per year.

From the outside, it's
impossible to tell what
engineering innovations

could make this incredible
target a reality.

For decades, the red brick
production halls of germany's
wolfsburg car plant have

set a benchmark
for factory design.

Christopher: The sheer size
of this factory is astounding.

The area is nearly three
times the size of monaco.

Torsten: These are more than
100 workshops on this site.

It is like a
self-contained town.

Narrator: Inside this factory,
there is everything needed
to turn raw materials into

finished cars at
extraordinary speed.

Christopher: It would
not be possible without
highly efficient,

highly state of the
art machinery.

This is the result of 80 years
of relentless development
and advancement in technology.

Narrator: The plant's current
success negates a dark past.

It was founded just before
the second world war,

specifically to make the
cheapest cars possible.

Torsten: Right behind
me, this is the original
part of the factory,

as it all began in 1938.

Narrator: The nazi party
had swept into power.

One of adolf hitler's
ambitions is to give his
followers mobility by

creating a people's
car, or volkswagen.

So he enlists car
designer, and future
nazi, ferdinand porsche.

Karl: Ferdinand porsche
worked very closely
with adolf hitler,

in the creation of the
original volkswagen.

Hitler set for porsche
very serious demands, and
most challenging of all

was his requirement of a selling
price of only 1,000 marks.

Now 1,000 marks in those
days might have bought
you a used motorbike.

Narrator: At the time,
german factories like
opel's rüsselsheim plant

couldn't build cars
cheaply enough.

There was only one solution,
a brand new plant,

built for a revolutionary
type of manufacturing.

Andrew: If you want to
make a large number of
cars quickly and cheaply,

then mass production is
really the only game in town.

Karl: Real mass production
was not known in germany.

Porsche realized that if he
were going to meet these goals,

he would need to know
more about how american
cars were manufactured.

Narrator: Porsche heads to
america to meet henry ford,
the mass production expert.

His rouge river
plant is legendary for
speed and efficiency,

and crucially, it has
its own rail network.

Karl: Porsche took
away from america
the most advanced

production facilities
and concepts that
existed at the time

and they incorporated them in
the design of the new factory.

Narrator: But the
nazis had a problem.

Where to build
their new factory?

It had to be centrally located
and have good transport links.

They settle on lower saxony,

an area well served
by railways, and
close to an iron mine.

Torsten: Well, the site was
situated here because it was
in the middle of germany in

1938 and everything that was
needed to manufacture cars

was available out of
a surrounding distance
of around 30 miles.

Narrator: Construction begins
on one of the third reich's
most ambitious projects.

Taking their cue
from ford's factories,
they build an imposing

function-driven complex
with regular bastion-like
external stairwells,

skylights throughout and even
a dedicated power station.

Karl: The production volumes
that they aimed to reach,
up to 800,000 cars a year.

Were far in excess of anything
in europe and in fact exceeded

most of the car production
by companies in america.

Narrator: The nazis pour
over half a billion dollars,
in today's money, into the

factory and start building
an entirely planned new town
for thousands of workers.

In just over a year the first
four halls are ready to start
making hitler's volkswagen,

the car that would go on to
become known as the beetle.

Karl: They invested in the
very, very best equipment.

They had an extremely
advanced press shop.

They had one big press
that could stamp out the
whole roof of the beetle.

Narrator: But hitler then
starts the second world war
and the wolfsburg factory is

re-purposed to make military
vehicles and munitions.

The nazis staff it
with forced workers.

Many come from
concentration camps

and they are brutally treated
by the factory's ss guards.

In 1944 the factory
is almost destroyed.

Karl: During the war, the
factory was bombed and a fully
loaded lancaster bomber had

piled into the biggest hall
and gone through the roof
and caused tremendous damage.

Narrator: Instead of that
being the end of the factory,

it's rescued after the
war by the british.

In 1945, major ivan hirst
oversees repairs,

and arranges the order of
20,000 of the strange cars

the plant had been
designed to make.

The beetle press equipment
had been spared so the factory
quickly starts production.

Carl: It hadn't four doors.

It had the engine
in the wrong place.

It had not enough trunk space.

It had not enough heating.

But fortunately, the
customers from all over the
world decided differently.

We started producing
first in December 1945,

and 10 years later we produced
the first millionth beetle,

which was an unheard
number in europe.

Narrator: Despite its
failings and its association
with a nazi dictator,

the beetle becomes a
worldwide sensation.

By 1972 it is the biggest
selling car of all time,

and as its popularity grew,

so too did the
wolfsburg factory.

Today, it has more
than tripled in size.

It spreads across 70 million
square feet, the largest area

of any single car
plant in the world.

The brick production halls still
form the heart of the operation,

but the beetle presses
have been replaced with

four gigantic press shops,

making almost half a
million body parts per day.

And the assembly lines
are now staffed by about
6,000 high tech robots.

Every day they're capable of
assembling up to 3,500 cars.

The original power plant
has been expanded and
linking this vast site

together is an extensive
private rail network.

Torsten: This is europe's
largest private train station.

And there is more than
40 miles of rail tracks
on the factory premises.

Narrator: Every day more
than 1,600 tons of steel
is brought into the plant.

Christoph: Altogether
we have 11 wagons per day
coming in with raw material.

Torsten: It is an incredibly
challenging task to deliver

all the freight
into this factory.

Narrator: Directing each train
to the right part of the plant
would be impossible without a

sophisticated control system,
managed from this tower.

Train operator: We have
three colors of lines.

On the yellow line we have
free tracks, on the red lines
we already have some rail

wagons standing and on the
blue lines, like here, are
actually trains driving.

Narrator: The operator
has control of 150 shunting
switches which allow trains to

change lines and head
directly for their allotted
destination building.

Torsten: For efficiency the
trains are transporting the

materials right
inside the workshops.

Narrator: This train
is delivering 24 ton
rolls of raw steel.

Once inside the depot,
specially made cranes unload
the rolls directly from the

train carriage and place
them on giant cutters.

Christopher: The first step in
manufacturing is turning that
raw material into components.

We take the uncut steel and
form the shapes of the door,

of the hood, of the
trunk, the wing.

So the first challenge
is to keep up with the pace
of production and assembly.

You need machines
that are fast enough.

The equipment used to
build the original beetle
could never cut it.

Narrator: The original beetle
presses were enormous machines

that stamped the
body panels into shape.

Karl: It used to be pretty
exciting to see operators
putting sheets into these

presses and then
standing there as this
immense press comes down.

Narrator: But these presses
had a major drawback.

They had to be loaded by hand.

Andrew: We're just losing
time at every step while
those human operators try

to meticulously line up
that steel to make the
perfect final component.

Narrator: Today the factory
must produce ten times the
number of cars it used to

when it was making the beetle.

Christopher: Manual feeding
could not be plausible
today in a press shop.

Narrator: There's no way
that hand fed presses can
make parts fast enough.

Narrator: Germany's
wolfsburg car plant is more
than 16 million square feet

larger than its nearest
rival, south korea's
ulsan auto factory.

And demand for body
parts is relentless.

Housed in the rear hall of the
original wolfsburg factory,
enormous pressing machines

need to spit out more than
five body panels per second.

Torsten: The press shop of
the factory is serving,
not just this factory,

but the group across the world.

Almost half
a million body parts get
manufactured there a day.

Narrator: This phenomenal
output is thanks to a

revolutionary panel
pressing system.

Six of the heavyweight
industrial beasts
are linked together.

Mechanical arms with
suckers maneuver the
steel from press to press

with more precision and speed
than people ever could.

Christopher: They are linked
together almost as in one
machine and then the steel

can move through each press
automatically to form the
correct shape and part.

Andrew: These presses are
enormous and in order to exert
enough pressure to bend the

steel, they need to
press down with a force
of about 8,000 tons.

The only way to generate
a force that big is to use

hydraulic pistons to squeeze
those presses together.

Narrator: Each press slams
the steel plate further into
shape and the line delivers

a constant flow of
identical panels.

But unfortunately,
linking the presses
only solves one problem.

Andrew: Obviously the
factory needs to make all
the different components

for a car, from the bonnet,
to the doors, to the roof.

And you can't have a
separate press street for
every single component,

it's just not feasible.

Narrator: Each press shop
must be versatile enough to
make different components.

Christopher: Inside
each press is a die.

They're actually what
forms the shape, the cookie
cutter of the component.

Narrator: To make different
parts, new dies must be
swapped into the presses

but it's a massive operation.

Karl: Traditionally in
the industry, it took about
two to three hours to change

the dies because it's
quite a difficult job.

The machine is sitting idle
during that whole period.

It's not doing
productive work.

Narrator: Leaving
presses inactive for long
would slash production.

Engineers had to come
up with a solution.

Christopher: New processes
have been developed to
reduce this changing period

from a matter of hours to
a matter of minutes.

There are doors on either
side of the press street
and the replacement die

is craned in onto rails.

The door opens, and
the old die goes out

and the replacement
die simply rolls in.

It is no longer something
that stops or slows
the production process.

Narrator: The presses
can now run almost 24/7,

but this puts tremendous
strain on the machines.

Christopher: The dies are
not necessarily delicate,
however it is machinery,

moving and grinding
almost non-stop,

so equipment can wear,
problems can arise.

Narrator: A single
press malfunctioning
could be catastrophic.

Torsten: If the presses would
break down we wouldn't have
the body parts to make the

body shell and
everything would stop.

Narrator: But maintaining
them is easier said than done.

Andrew: These panel pressing
lines are enormous fast moving
heavy noisy machines and that

means it's incredibly
difficult to find faults
before they arise.

They don't want to stop the
machine and go in and check
it, so there needs to be a way

to identify those faults
before they become serious

in this incredibly
challenging environment.

Narrator: One innovative way
that faults can be identified

is by listening to the machines.

Ulrich: Yeah, perfect.

This is the acoustic camera
from the press shop wolfsburg.

We have one camera
and 48 microphones.

Narrator: The acoustic
camera is pointed at one
of the press shops where

it can listen to a
machine as it runs.

Andrew: What just sounds like
a huge machine clanking to you
and me actually has a unique

and precise acoustic
fingerprint which this
camera can listen out for.

Ulrich: It's like
the doctor who checks the
heartbeat from the patients.

Narrator: The camera
produces a wave form,

a visual representation of the
sound the machine is making.

Andrew: Any deviation from
that acoustic fingerprint
recorded while the machine

was working normally, allows
them to narrow down exactly
what might be going wrong

and diagnose problems
before they become serious.

Narrator: Today the
wave forms match.

There are no faults.

The factory's next
challenge is to put all
the components together

to make cars as
fast as possible.

Body panels and other parts
travel about 3,000 feet to the
halls near the power station,

where a daily engineering
ballet takes place
on the assembly lines.

Christopher: So wolfsburg's
goal is to increase production

to nearly a million cars a year.

So to get anywhere near
that number it means employing
robots and in their thousands.

Narrator: Each car comprises
around 10,000 components,
so putting them together

is a herculean task, even for
a forest of high tech robots.

Christopher: This can be like
watching a great performance.

The sounds, moving in sync,
in harmony, and the dancing
across, the rhythms.

It's almost like a hypnotic
state, although it's super
highly programmed and

planned right down
to the last detail.

Narrator: Each individual
part must be fixed, not
just in the right place,

but also in the right order,

and this largely
automated assembly line is
one of the fastest there is,

the result of an
extraordinary evolution.

Andrew: Assembly lines are
absolutely central to the
concept of mass production.

They allow creating a product
to be split up into a series
of discrete steps and then

they can work one after
the other continuously
assembling products as

rapidly, efficiently and
cheaply as possible.

Narrator: The first assembly
lines revolutionized car
production with a simple idea.

Instead of making workers
move from one stationary
car to another,

the car moves on a conveyor to
stationary groups of workers.

Christopher: This did create a
big increase in efficiency but
really it was nothing compared

to what we would later
see with the introduction
of robots and automation.

Narrator: But
programming robots to
be faster than people

is a difficult highly
complex task.

Helge: So the human has
hundreds of thousands of
years of trained experiences,

visually, sensory
and motor skills,

and to put this into a
robot is very challenging.

Narrator: Germany's
gigantic wolfsburg
car factory relies on

assembly lines staffed
by around 6,000 robots.

The first was
introduced here in 1973.

It could only
perform simple welds.

Just a few years later,
robots are omnipresent
on assembly lines.

But the brute force
some are capable of
is a serious hazard.

Helge: They are potentially
dangerous and can cause
injuries to humans

that are moving in
the same workspace.

You can see that 200 to
400 pounds of pay load

can actually harm
seriously the human.

Narrator: There have
been fatalities.

On January 25th 1979, robert
williams, an engineer at
ford's plant in flat rock

was struck on the head and
became the first person in the
world to killed be by a robot.

Christopher: So the robot
that would have killed robert
williams, at the ford factory,

back in the '70s, would
have been a pretty simple
robot by today's standards.

So one of the things
that really changed the
intelligence of the robot

itself is the microchip.

Narrator: At a cost of
at least $100,000 each,

these super smart robots are
some of the most dexterous.

Inside each of their
joints is a step motor.

This rotates in small
increments and the arm
can hold its position

without the need for
brakes or a clutch.

The software that runs the
robots' on-board computers

took more than a
year to write,

but it enables them
to move in six axes,

only one less than a human arm.

They can spot weld,
clip or apply glue with
exceptional accuracy.

Andrew: They're very
good at repetitive tasks.

They don't get tired or
bored like humans would.

Helge: Robots execute these
tasks 24/7, over an entire
week as often as needed,

at a very high quality,
at a very high accuracy.

Christopher: These are in
many cases very large pieces
of machinery and there

have been some examples
unfortunately of tragedies,
even in recent years.

In 2015, in kassel, in
a factory in baunatal,

there was a worker
who was crushed under a
metal plate, for example.

These accidents,
they are accidents.

They still happen.

And robots need to be
treated with respect.

Narrator: Around 65% of
wolfsburg's vast floor
space is dedicated to

these assembly lines where
the aim is always to get
the robots to work faster.

But the relentless
high output can become the
victim of its own success.

It creates a
fundamental dilemma,

how to keep the robots
supplied with components.

Torsten: It's an enormous
challenge to coordinate
that all components and

all parts are just in time
at the right place of work
at each assembly line.

Narrator: Traditionally
parts were stored next
to the assembly line.

Karl: If you do that, what
you end up with is a warehouse
full of parts waiting to be

put into cars and
that's what the japanese
call the muda or waste.

The first time the japanese
went to porsche to look at
their operations,

they looked around
and they said,

"where is the factory?
This is the warehouse."

because along the assembly
line there were big boxes of

parts waiting to
be put into cars.

Narrator: At toyota's karamo
factory in japan, kiichiro
toyoda was the first to

develop a radical new system
that does away with the need
to store any parts at all.

It's known as
just-in-time delivery.

Karl: The concept today
is to make the part,

install it and do it quickly
and not waiting around.

Narrator: It means that
each robot receives parts

just when it needs to
install them and not before.

Andrew: The fact that you
don't need to store loads
and loads of components,

just in case, means that you
can save a lot of money
and space on warehouses.

Narrator: It's
hyper-efficient, but
it's also high risk.

Andrew: You need to make
sure that every single
stage of the process is

perfectly optimized, as the
name suggests, just-in-time,
because any slight delay can

radically delay the whole
of the production line.

Narrator: It only takes
one bolt to be delivered
late and the entire system

will grind to an expensive halt.

Orchestrating it is a
colossal task that takes place
at the factory's control room.

Hilmar: We're standing here
in the middle of the brain
of the wolfsburg factory.

Narrator: Computers
break the assembly line
down into distinct beats

that are completed
at different stations,
roughly 20 feet apart.

After the chassis is
completed, the doors, roof
and hood are attached.

Hilmar: So the assembly
line has an average beat of
60 seconds and this means

that in every beat,
another part is installed.

The parts have to be in
position at exactly the
right moment to make sure

they're installed in time.

We achieve this by
delivering the parts
in an exact sequence.

Narrator: The drivers
follow a strict timetable.

But there are over 10
miles of potential delivery
points in the factory.

Christopher: The robot
waits for no man or
machine for that matter.

Narrator: The factory roof is
fitted with a monorail system

capable of delivering
100 parts per hour.

Any mistakes will cause
problems for robots further
down the line but that's

nothing compared with
the danger inside the
sealed paint shop.

Narrator: Inside germany's
colossal wolfsburg factory,
cars travel more than a mile

along assembly lines before
the body shells are complete

and they reach a stage
known as body in white.

The cars then head north,
past the power station,

to a hall that's
too dangerous for
workers to enter.

Christopher: In a modern
factory like wolfsburg there
are indeed several stages of

production in which there
are almost no people at all.

Narrator: Painting
releases noxious fumes
but robots are immune.

Helge: Painting the
body of a car involves
usually introducing the

particular car
into a closed room.

Narrator: At this paint
shop, specialized automatons
first dunk the cars

into an electrostatically
charged undercoat bath.

Helge: There are no health
issues because we don't have
any humans inside this work

space so the human
is actually protected
from all these fumes.

Narrator: Automated gas
burners then warm panels to
aid the adhesion of top coats.

Christopher: With wolfsburg
striving to increase production
to a million cars per year,

it does mean that
every production stage needs
to be highly optimized and

use as much efficiency and
automation as possible.

However that doesn't
actually mean that every
stage and process is

currently automated nor will
it necessarily be automated.

Narrator: In addition
to all the robotics,

the plant has a workforce of
more than 60,000 people.

The most complex process
is building the powertrain.

It takes a battalion of
highly skilled workers to
turn the engine, clutch,

gearbox and drive shaft
into a single unit.

Andrew: The powertrain
in a modern car is incredibly
complicated because it's made

of loads of different
components, everything
responsible for getting that

power from your fuel and
converting it into motion.

Narrator: It has its own
dedicated assembly line which
must be perfectly coordinated

with the car body it will
eventually be installed in.

This is a high-risk
process, the ultimate
just-in-time delivery.

Christopher: There's
no room for error.

Every car has its own unique
powertrain and it has to
meet the line at exactly

the right point for the
assembly process.

Narrator: To make it
even more of a challenge,

the body and the powertrain
are made on different floors.

Torsten: So the powertrain
is made right below.

Right below this level
there's another level of the
production where the engine,

the gearbox, the exhaust,
the axles, brake lines,

where everything is put
together to one unit.

Narrator: Timing
is everything.

Each of these skilled
technicians has to know
exactly how long they can

spend on each task.

Andrew: Before the chassis and
the powertrain come together,

the chassis is basically just a
rather elaborate lump of metal.

When those two things
do finally join, it's
known as the wedding.

Narrator: At the exact
prescribed time, robotic
arms lift the powertrain

through a hole in the floor.

Torsten: And this powertrain
unit is then arriving
here just in sequence.

That means at the moment the
body shell which is supposed
to get that powertrain arrives

and then the powertrain is
lifted up by an elevator from
the ground floor to be fitted

perfectly into the body shell.

Andrew: The wedding sounds
incredibly romantic and

it's the first time that
this thing becomes a car.

Torsten: The powertrain
is like the groom and

in this case just happened
to be a white bride.

Narrator: Achieving a
successful wedding would alone
be a marvel of engineering and

logistics if wolfsburg
only made one model of car.

But they don't.

Helge: The consumer wants
to not have the same car as
the neighbor, for instance,

but they want to drive a
very individualized car.

So they cannot just produce
one car model across the
entire line but there has to

be a certain variability.

Andrew: This factory is making
so many different models
and specifications of car that

it's incredibly
difficult to make sure
that the right chassis

and the right powertrain
always meet.

Narrator: One of the
reasons for this factory's
exceptionally high output is

that different models
of car can be built on
the same assembly line.

But how do the robots
know which powertrain,

for instance, to install
onto which body shell?

Christopher: The robots
on the line are actually
capable of making

multiple different types
of cars and in wolfsburg,

we see six, seven
different models and

several of those models
come down the exact
same assembly line.

And the way these robots
are so adaptable and can
be programmed in so many

different functions is
really quite amazing.

Narrator: Every chassis might
look similar but as each one
enters the assembly line,

a scanner reads a tiny tag
attached to its rear,

called a radio frequency
identification tag or rfid.

This is the secret.

The tag holds all the
information needed
to build the car.

The model.

The specific set
of components.

Even the color.

Helge: They are very similar
in a way to the bar codes

that everyone knows
from the supermarket.

However, these chips
are more intelligent.

Stefan: So the body tracking
system, our rfid system, is
telling each and every station

what model, what
car, what style.

As you can imagine a sunroof
is different than a full roof,

a right steering wheel
car is different than a
left steering wheel car.

Narrator: The data the
rfid stores enables the
robots to be programmed

to make quite different models
right next to each other.

Torsten: So in total
there are four production
lines in wolfsburg.

We are assembling not just
the volkswagen tiguan and
the volkswagen touran,

we are assembling here
also a car which is not
labelled on a vw sign,

the seat tarraco.

Narrator: There are
so many variations that the
probability of two identical

cars being made next to
each other is minute.

Torsten: Theoretically it
happens once a year,

that two twin cars
are leaving the

production of this facility.

Narrator: Crucially, this
adaptability future-proofs the
plant because it means that as

soon as a new model
is approved, it can go
straight into production.

Torsten: We're not just
building cars at this facility,

we have to keep
ahead of the game.

That means we always have
to design and create new
cars for our customers.

Narrator: Every year this mega
car plant produces enough cars

to create a traffic jam from
new york to los angeles.

One of the biggest
challenges for mass producing
cars is maintaining demand.

Andrew: The car market is
incredibly competitive and

things are changing
all the time.

Torsten: And to design new
cars and the best cars we need
to have the best facilities.

We also do research and
development processes here

in the headquarters
of volkswagen.

Narrator: They have a
state of the art research
and development center

right here at the
wolfsburg plant.

Andrew: When you're designing
a car there are lots
of different constraints.

Some of them are just the
laws of physics but others are
making sure that whatever it

is you've designed is actually
able to be manufactured.

And that's why it's really
important that the guys in r&d
are talking with the people

who are actually gonna
have to build the thing.

Narrator: Having the
designers and engineers in
close proximity makes the

evolution from concept car to
mass production much faster.

Christopher: Before a car goes
into mass production, design
does have to meet engineering

and at that point, the engineers
get involved and will say,

"right, actually for this
design to become a reality

we're going to need
to do a, b, c."

there is a massive importance
given to testing of prototypes.

Precision down to every
detail really matters.

Having no gaps in the door
and no sounds or no sound
flushes at any point.

Opening and closing doors.

Testing the suspension up and
down in an actual environment.

And that is really critical
in today's environment.

Narrator: Inside one of the
most recent buildings at
the plant is a $110 million

test center that can analyze
new designs five times
faster than its predecessor.

With high volumes of
new models being made,
any improvement can be

very valuable and any
mistake can be disastrous.

Andrew: Computer
simulations are one thing,

but the acid test is to
put it in a wind tunnel.

Alexander: In our original
tunnel we needed up to
30 minutes to load a car.

And now we can manage it
in under five minutes.

Woman: It's directly
in the middle.

Andrew: The wind tunnel at
wolfsburg is an absolute
feat of engineering.

It looks like something
out of the future.

Alexander: This
tunnel is very fast.

We can simulate driving
at 155 miles per hour.

Narrator: Generating this
kind of wind speed requires

a colossal state of the
art 3,000 kilowatt fan.

Anselm: This is our fan,
with a diameter of 26 feet.

This is the heart of
our testing track.

Narrator: The pressure
to maximize performance

is so high that the
company broke the rules.

Volkswagen's reputation was
seriously damaged in 2015
after the company admitted

installing software
in millions of their cars
to cheat emissions tests.

Loretta: Volkswagen knew
of these problems and when
regulators expressed concern,

volkswagen obfuscated,
they denied and
they ultimately lied.

Narrator: The scandal put
top executives in jail and

vw had to pay more than
$30 million in compensation.

Despite this, in 2016
vw became the world's

most successful car
manufacturer by sales.

But building huge
numbers of cars creates
yet another problem.

Christopher: It's really
critical to remember that

the work does not end
at the end of the line.

We don't build cars just
in case we sell them.

You'd overrun the factory.

There's only so much space
available and how much of that
space do you really wanna give

to turn into a parking lot.

You need a really efficient
distribution system to move
the car from the factory to

the customer around the world.

Narrator: A car can roll
off the assembly line and
be delivered to somewhere

as far away as shanghai
at a phenomenal speed.

Narrator: Wolfsburg builds so
many cars that simply shifting

them off the site is
an industry in itself.

Christopher: The
solution is pretty neat
if not challenging.

The same network that brings
in the raw materials brings
the finished vehicles out

and that's principally
the trains.

Oliver: Every working day
about 1,800 cars leave the
factory by freight train.

Narrator: The challenge
is to keep each train's
waiting time to the minimum.

Andrew: Conventionally
you'd use a process
known as shunting,

which is where you bring in
an individual train carriage,

load it up with cars,
then drag it out again

and couple it on to the rest
of the train and you can't
do more than one of these

carriages at a time,
so it's incredibly long
winded and inefficient.

Narrator: Instead,
the wolfsburg factory
has a specially designed

multiple loading bay.

Oliver: We have a big
advantage here, working
with a sliding stage.

It means that we can do
three work processes at once.

Narrator: First, cars are
driven onto an empty carriage.

Then the giant sliding stage
moves the full carriage

directly to the track where
the engine is waiting.

At the same time, cars
are driven onto the
next empty carriage.

Andrew: The upshot of this
basically is that they can
load multiple carriages in

much quicker succession.

Narrator: It enables
super long trains to be
assembled much faster

than with traditional shunting.

Every day around 180 loaded
carriages leave the factory.

But not all customers
want their cars delivered.

Georg: Volkswagen decided,
"okay, let's invite the
people to come here."

and they opened the site for the
customers and for the visitors.

Narrator: Some can even
collect their new car

as soon as it comes
off the assembly line.

Andrew: The customer can
be the very first person
to sit behind the wheel

and drive the car which for
some people is a real thrill.

Narrator: A few cars travel
along a tunnel without their
odometers clocking up a single

mile to one of the world's
most high tech car showrooms.

Andrew: The advantage of these
towers is that you can store
loads of cars but with a very

small footprint on the ground.

Narrator: But there's no
drive ramp, so how do the cars
get to their parking spaces?

Inside each tower is
an automated elevator.

Powered by a pivoting
120 kilowatt motor with
a 7.2 ton counterbalance,

the mobile platform can
lift cars and park them
anywhere in the tower.

It's the fastest automated
high-rise parking
system in the world.

Georg: The vertical
system, it works very fast.

It needs about 40 seconds,
I think, to bring a car
up or bring a car down

and over hand it
to the customer.

Narrator: In manufacturing,

no company can sit
on its achievements.

Volkswagen recently announced
that it intends to invest

$50 billion on new
factory technology,

with a significant amount
going to wolfsburg.

As well as electric cars
and new materials,

they're also developing fully
autonomous warehouse trucks.

Christopher: They are
able to make decisions
effectively for themselves

and they'll pick up material
where it's required,

they'll go to different
stations as required.

These are smarter more
efficient robots than
we've seen before.

Narrator: Whether this
superstructure will go on

to produce 1 million cars per
year, only time will tell.

Christopher: The agenda for
wolfsburg was to really
build a car for everybody

as cheaply as possible.

So you could say that
it began life wanting to
make cars for the people

and now it wants to
make cars for the world.

Narrator: The plant may
have had a dark history,

and more recently been
embroiled in scandal

but with its commitment
to smart technology,

it's still as ambitious as ever.

Captioned by cotter
captioning services.