There are two 60 meter/200 ft tall glass silos used as storage for new Volkswagens. The two towers are connected to the Volkswagen factory by a 700 metre underground tunnel. When cars arrive at the towers they are carried up at a speed of 1.5 metres per second. When purchasing a car from Volkswagen in select European countries, it is optional if the customer wants it delivered to the dealership where it was bought or if the customer wants to travel to Autostadt to pick it up. If the latter is chosen, the Autostadt supplies the customer with free entrance, meal tickets and a variety of events building up to the point where the customer can follow on screen as the automatic elevator picks up the selected car in one of the silos. The car is then transported out to the customer without having driven a single meter, and the odometer is thus on "0". -wiki
8 Comments
radxThe clip in the description is quite unrelated. Those delivery towers of VW in Wolfsburg are not parking garages, they are storage silos for recently produced cars.
Both silos are connected to the production facility via an underground tunnel, and if you decide to pick up your recently purchased car yourself, they'll give you a tour, a meal, the works. Then you get to see your car picked up by the robot arm and delivered to you on the ground floor without having driven a single mile.
It's quite impressive, actually. Just like the price tag on everything they build.
EMPIREsays...when you say "everything they build" do you mean that plant specifically or VW in general?
radx>> ^EMPIRE:
when you say "everything they build" do you mean that plant specifically or VW in general?
VW in general, at least in this country. Golf and Polo are borderline, but the rest ... adjusted for inflation, wages in Germany are on average 5.9% below the level of 1991. Can't afford a VW on that kind of dough, so it's Japanese/Korean/Romanian cars all the way.
EMPIREsays...well, yeah, I was going to mention the Polo and Golf (I actually had one of each. now I have a 12 year old mitsubishi carisma. unemployment is a bitch, and so is my wife's low salary).
But I really did think VW in general was rather common in Germany, even for middle class.
radx@EMPIRE
You thought correctly, VW is indeed very common over here. But take out all the Golfs and Polos and what remains is either old and used, a company car or leased. Same for BMW, Audi and, to a lesser extent, Mercedes and Opel. We produce cars for others to buy, because we can't afford 'em anymore. The majority (>60%) of new middle class saloons made in Germany you see over here -- those are company cars.
deathcowI so want to shock-power Luke Skywalker until he jumps off that edge.
MaxWilderImagine how many quarters you'd have to put in that vending machine!
chilaxeThis isn't rational is it?
Valuing the car having 0 miles instead of 0.1 miles is nonsense, and if customers had to pay the price it cost to build and operate this thing ($1000 per car?) they would make the rational choice and take the 0.1 miles.
Discuss...
Enable JavaScript to submit a comment.