VW Golf MK2 Production line

[Music] do [Music] so when the foundation stone for the volkswagen factory was laid in 1938 the town of wolfsburg didn't even exist today the car factory and the town are inextricably linked with one another and not just as far as outward appearances are concerned this togetherness is something hardly found anywhere else theoretically half the population of wolfsburg works at volkswagen a few decades ago no one could have foreseen how this car factory and with it this town would develop the factory into the world's largest car production plant under a single roof and wolfsburg into a town with a hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants it takes sixteen hours approximately two shifts to complete one car a process repeated thousands of times each day this film summarizes the key stages from a sheet metal coil to a finished car visiting volkswagen car making begins on the railways the sheet metal coils weigh up to 30 tons they're supplied by steel makers in all the countries of the european community the coils with a gauge of up to 2.4 millimeters are cut up into blanks by automatic machines one machine can handle up to 100 meters a minute the blanks are then shaped in deep drawing presses vw's first deep drawing press from 1940 has now been taken out of service and is only occasionally used on request to produce ashtrays the manufacture of body components for modern motor cars demands equally modern production methods that includes smooth operation on the press lines planning of production orders is executed and monitored in the control center this is where all faults are reported and repairs and servicing deep drawing presses are considerably faster than the old ones from an unstable sheet bar a dimensionally stable side panel is produced the rigidity of the individual components later augment each other in the torsion resistant unitary body the floor plate is one of the load-bearing elements in a car's body it's made of particularly strong material just like other parts the outer panel of the doors is produced in several stages when the window is punched out a piece of plate remains which is later used for other parts the car door consists of an inner and outer shell to provide corrosion protection the two shells are bonded together the bonding agent is applied automatically to avoid any danger to the workers health the front of the car alone is made up of 110 individual parts the front end carousel welds them together on the rough body line the rear end of the car is joined together with the front end every 12 seconds a complete body three thousand every day even at this stage all the details of the future car are pre-programmed according to the future owner specifications golf or jetta a two or four door model right or left-hand drive with or without steel sliding roof the future owner is known now the car must be baptized in the production engineers language that means it's allocated an identification number at this point the body receives its production card with all the data necessary for the subsequent manufacturing stages automatic welding machines can't be used on all parts of the body a few welding and brazing jobs still have to be done manually the finished body now requires the moving parts the doors tailgate and bonnet the final polish before the painting the finished body is thoroughly checked rough surface areas are smoothed out from here each body passes through nine cleaning stations and phosphatizing before painting continues with dip priming cleanliness is the order of the day every tiny speck of dust is removed from the bodies as they pass through the automatic cleaning machines after dip priming the body's surface is still not smooth enough for the top coat of paint so a filler is applied the underseal shouldn't be visible later on it's applied prior to the top coat of paint after every change of color a cleaner removes residues of the previous paint the top coat in the pre-programmed color is also applied fully automatically surplus paint is carried off by a current of air after burning in the final polish for the sake of appearance also included for the sake of appearance are a few details which often make all the difference special model individual names model designation after all drivers like to show off what they've got virtually invisible and certainly not done for the sake of appearance is cavity wax wax flooding protects the body work for years against cavity rust uv light reveals even the slightest floor the assembly instructions contain all the data required for the further construction of the car that's why they stay with the vehicle right to the end in hall 54 which is often described as the hall of robots more than 6 000 employees work in two ships a car consists of over 5 000 parts depending on the particular model and no way can they all be assembled automatically due to the variety of components in modern cars a fitter must be able to differentiate and reliably put the assembly instructions into practice in the individual stages brake servo floor maps wire assemblies with hundreds of connections door locks the windscreen rear lights and side windows the heat exchanger for the heating the dashboard hundreds of thousands of manual jobs on five assembly lines which eventually merge into two lines where things continue automatically once again initially with the pre-assembly of the power unit despite automation man is still indispensable at key stages throughout the production process manual pre-assembly of the complete drive unit the flow of material for the two automatic lines is constant the automatic line begins with the transfer station openings for fittings must be machined to an accuracy of a tenth of a millimeter here one's being measured a car battery can weigh up to 18 kilograms seven screws attach the plastic fuel tank to the body down to earth engineers call it drive unit assembly the marriage connecting up the pre-assembled engine with the transmission and various other units the front end consists of the radiator grille preset headlights and horn an extract from the assembly instructions each vehicle requires a particular type of wheel rims and the corresponding tyres to insert the spare wheel a worker would have to bend down with the almost 10 kilogram weight 300 times in a working day the robot can only install the wheel in one specific position the end of the automatic assembly line a conveyor system transports the vehicles to the final assembly line here once again manual skills are called for for those tricky jobs that robots simply can't handle installing a steel sliding roof inserting individual screws internally adjustable door mirror door inner trim safety belts radio there are 20 different upholstery combinations to choose from to suit every taste and every requirement the particular seats which the customer ordered reach the right car at exactly the right moment after being filled up the car is driven for the first time under its own power the last manual checks the ecos test system reveals whether the car's electrical and electronic circuits are operating perfectly me [Music] every car must now prove whether it functions perfectly on the road on the rolling road the car is checked under simulated conditions the exhaust values are also checked and adjusted at checkpoint 8 the cars are provided with their documentation here in these supply parks they wait sorted according to sales centers for the transporter just as the original sheet metal coils at the beginning arrive by rail so the finished cars leave on special wagons of the german federal railways [Music] you don't normally drive through rivers every day nor do you go climbing over logs in your car and you certainly wouldn't want to drive up steps nonetheless our cars are called upon to do a lot of things like this day in day out cars have to be patient they have to wait around for days on end and sometimes even for weeks in the hot sun in the rain in the cold and in the snow this means that they have to be reliable year in year out and as effective as on their first day and still look just as smart in order to create the ideal technical conditions for a long service life a vast amount of money has to be spent on research and development this includes the largest vehicle test track for cars in europe and one of the largest in the world the test track at era lessin test results require unimpeded comparable test drives on a very wide range of road surfaces at 20 million test kilometers a year this would place too great a strain on the nation's network of roads and greatly increase the risk of accidents this test track consists of 100 kilometers of the most demanding and widely varying road surfaces in europe and has a total area of 10 square kilometers the speed track a real three-lane motorway 21 kilometers in length on which top speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour can be attained the road is built in the form of a circular track with two very steep bends with angles of up to 42 degrees these mean that driving is possible at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour without any lateral forces this track is also recognized for world land speed purposes the hill in fact this is an entire network of mountain roads as in the alps the hill has roads with gradients ranging from five to

Channel: Clive Davis

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Id: MF49JtXAGO8

Length: 22min 30sec (1350 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2021