When I first learned how to code, I read a book called Automate the Boring Stuff. That title has stuck with me for more than a decade, and I find it to be a lesson many companies learn the hard way by fighting it instead of embracing tech.
It turns out that Audi is one of those companies that learned just how beneficial automation can be after its partnership in China helped it rethink the way it built cars.
Welcome back to Critical Materials, your daily roundup for all things electric and tech in the automotive space. On today’s docket: how Audi is rethinking car manufacturing, BYD and Xiaomi overtake Tesla as a tech leader and Nissan is still trying to stop the bleeding. Let’s jump in.
When Audi set up shop in China, it thought it was going there to show off its German engineering prowess. Vorsprung durch Technik—Progress through Technology—is its slogan, after all. But over time, Audi learned from China what happens when efficiency, policy and robots (like, a lot of robots) come together.
The automaker’s operation in Changchun more recently became the pinnacle of Audi’s factories, at least as far as automation is concerned. Thanks to a decade-long push from the Chinese government, Beijing’s “Made in China” plan helped to promote the domestic manufacturing of goods not only by bolstering manufacturing but also creating the tools needed to efficiently modernize the production line. In short: robots.
Audi took full advantage of this. And after discovering just how cost-effective it had become to build with some helping robotic hands, it never stopped. The Financial Times has the nitty-gritty:
Industrial robots from Chinese-owned companies—one of the key targets of the policy—dominate the production line, starting with an automated press that stamps metal sheets into door panels.
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