Alright, welcome back to Monroe Live, everybody. Today, Sandy and I are going to go over our trip to Germany. We had the opportunity to visit Gigaburlin and we did a really short trip.
大家好,欢迎回到 Monroe Live。今天,Sandy和我要分享我们去德国的旅行经历。我们有机会参观了Gigaburlin,但时间很短。
We flew out on a Wednesday night at almost 11 pm, took the red eye, flew in the back of the plane, landed and got to Germany, Berlin at about 4.30 pm the next day on a Tuesday and had just enough time for dinner, then the next day was a full day and then we flew home on a Saturday. So short trip.
So Sandy, what was your first thought? First, the tight travel, the bad seats on the plane, everything. Yeah, so anyways, two of our friends in Berlin, Megates and thank you so much for all of the wonderful gifts and the wonderful time, the generosity.
I mean, kindness was just like overflowing and that's to the Austrian folks, the guys in the Austrian Tesla Club. There's a bit of an issue that I really feel bad about and that is that they brought us in and apparently they weren't supposed to and so they got in trouble. The Austrian, whatever. I mean, I'd really like to see them get reinstated.
They've been told that they can't go near any more of the Tesla, Berlin events. So somebody from Tesla has a look at this. This was an honest mistake. I'd really appreciate it if you could somehow turn things around there a little bit and let them back in. I don't think any malice was intended and certainly we didn't, we really don't want them to be ostracized. It's just, it's kind of like important to me to know that I haven't brekked their ability to get the job done and they do a good job.
If I might say we talked to the guys from the Swiss Club and many of the people from the Berlin Club and they say that the Austrian Club is by far the most advanced, the most influential, the most fun of all of the different Tesla groups in Europe. So hopefully they'll change their mind. Yeah. And they even drove up in an all electric bus.
Yeah, it is. It's just kind of cool. They could have flown in or you know use some other more polluting type of transportation, but they even stick to the clean energy. Kind of note there. Yeah. And everybody was the one guy that did drive up our fly up on, he was driving a Tesla as well. A Tesla Y.
We leave the, leave the airport, we get picked up by a guy named Berndi or Bernhardt. He goes by Berndi. Yeah. And he was driving a rental model Y and you took a second to walk around that and look at that because it was a German built model Y. It was really nice. It was in perfect shape.
I mean everything about it was brilliant. The build quality is as good as anybody's. There's nobody going to do something better than what I saw. Now this was a model that had been proud out a while ago, but not fairly recently. Yeah.
And then we wrote in that about 20, 25 minutes we got to essentially almost the center of Berlin. We were on the river. And we stayed at this hotel. It was pretty much brand new, but it was called the N-How. So the letter N and how. It kind of was like a cheap version of a hard rock hotel where they had like rock stars all over, but everything was pink and everything was pink.
So initially I thought, maybe this isn't something for me, but actually I mean, I loved the shower. The shower was fabulous. I looked at the architecture of the way they made that shower. I thought that was brilliant.
The little S curve thing there. It didn't flood. It had a tremendous amount of nice hot water. It was really hot. It's the hottest water I think of. It almost burned my hand when I went to shave. I turned it all the way to hot. I stuck my hand under. It had been 160, 170 degrees. I would guess. It was next to taking off the skin. So I had it basically on the other side of the center, on the cold side of the center, but hey, normally you have to wait a million years to get things to work. That one worked right away.
And the bed was the die for. I really enjoyed the night's sleep. In fact, one of the guys from the Austrian group struggled in at three in the morning and they gave him the wrong key. And apparently he kind of walked into my room, noticed I was there and tipped toad out.
So I didn't notice it at all. I was normally I'm pretty much into waking up if something happens. But between having allergies and all that other stuff, I slept right through it. So yeah.
So we get to the hotel. I went for a quick run and then I came back and we went to dinner. We walked to dinner. We took a wrong turn and cross this really cool bridge. Absolutely. They look like it had to have been at least 70, 100,000. This thing would have been done in the I'm thinking in the 1800s.
Yeah. Because the brickwork and the ironwork and the riveting and stuff like that. This is like old. It's a train bridge because you could see the train. Yeah. Still running over the top of it today. Yeah.
So I think that that that was kind of cool for me. I like architecture. I'm not too thrilled about the glass stumps that they put up nowadays. Mostly they don't have any character or anything at all. But in the olden days, I mean they put a lot of effort, time, skill, and artistic viewpoints on all of the products that they put up. And that bridge was just absolutely stunning the way it was put together.
And the other thing, everything in Berlin had been bombed out completely. That bridge looks like somehow it was saved or put back together or something. After you said that, I went and looked at some post-war photos. It wasn't like Dresden. Things were bombed out, but Dresden was burned in and nothing. A lot of those structures were still standing. You could tell a lot of damage. I went and looked to see if I could see an aerial image of that bridge. I couldn't really find where it was. But there was some stuff left. So I just was curious.
Are easily bridges are high on bombing lines. So we went to dinner with just just burnedy. And we had you had schnitzel and I had a steak. It was pretty good. We had some German beer. And we didn't have an early morning.
The next morning we started at 9.30. And we took the bus and did some sightseeing. We went to a lookout tower in East Berlin that looked over the city. I think it was built on top of an old rubber rubble pile. No, they moved the rubble from the city after it had been burned and blown up and went on. They took all the rubble and stuck it in one place, that place. And so you're on a hill. It's got to be several hundred feet. I don't know. I don't think it was a thousand feet, but several hundred feet anyway in the air.
And then they took a cable car and ran it up. And so you could get up without having to take the steps. You guys took the steps. I went with the fat bastards. They all the guys that were overweight and old. We all decided we were going to get into that. And the reason again, I have allergies and it makes it tough for me to breathe.
And I was sneezing and whatnot. So I didn't think anybody, I didn't want to die on the trip. I guess that's how it went. So we looked out over the city. And that was all right. And then we left and we drove to where the plant was. We drove by the plant. And then we went past it maybe a couple miles and ate it this kind of traditional restaurant.
It kind of reminded me of the Bavarian. It was a very Bavarian for the northern part of Germany that could add a nice home like a way further south and Munich or Stuttgart or something. That was the most traditional meal we had. Schnitzel, white asparagus with hollandesauks, potatoes, some meat potatoes asparagus. Yeah, white as paragus was to die for. We don't have that here. I don't know, guess we don't pay for it or something. But in Europe, especially Germany, white asparagus is to die. It's like everybody eats it. At this time of the year, it's when it's available.
So we do that. We end up driving, taking the bus to the plant and we get there. And we had to officially register. This was not some sort of secret covert operation. Sandy and I got forms and stuff from Tesla. We had to fill out and sign a privacy disclosure agreement. And we got our QR codes and we went to the shack and we got our little stickers and we went in.
But when we crossed through the gates, we quickly got separated. So there was the Germans speaking. There was two Germans speaking tour guides. And then they had like, they're supposed to have headphones because a group is so big. But we had an English speaking tour guide. And when we got there, he said, I wish you would have told us you were coming. You know, we would have loved it. There were no new were coming. And we're like, I assume they knew because we submitted our names.
I mean, our names and our email addresses. And I think I don't remember whether we put the company name down, but yeah, I think we did. So and we posted on Twitter that we're coming. Yeah, you know, a little bit kind of, you know, going to Germany for a plant tour. So I really feel bad about the Austrian Tesla Club kind of getting dinged for us tagging along. We appreciate it. But nonetheless, they let us sit and they could have turned us away. They could have said, see later.
So we get in and we do the same tour. And Sandy calls it a wide aisle tour. So we've been in other Tesla plants. So as for revelations, very few and far between. But we did see some.
We did see the, when you call it, fourth generation inverters. No, not in the driver. It was a drive unit. And what else do we see that we didn't see? Oh, and while we did see one kind of like a little bit of a flaw in the door, in the door, the gap is open. It's on the other side of the seal. So it doesn't really matter.
But we thought initially, or I thought initially that it might have something to do with crashworthiness or maybe venting the door. You know, sometimes you get steam or whatever inside. But it didn't turn out to be that way. We to add a little more context to that. The rear doors rear doors, they're aluminum.
And there's mold. It's a multi piece stamping. You have the outer skin. And then you have an inner piece. And then there's like an inner inner piece. And the inner inner piece mates up with it. And it's at an angle. You know, there's an angle in it. And the inner angle and the outer angle don't match. And it leaves a pretty substantial gap. I'd say it's like an eight, the quarter of an inch at one point. A couple of millimeters.
And we just happen to run into two Tesla engineers at the airport. They were flying, I think, to California. And we were in the airport. They walked up and talked to us and lo and behold, they were in body stamping. And we asked them. We said, Hey, you know, what is that? They were aware of it. And they said they were working on it. But it doesn't make any effect. It doesn't affect anything. Yeah.
And in fact, in one case, they do have a gap on purpose on purpose. And it's there for crash. Where are the NIS? Because the Corey, like, sorry, said it is the outer, the inner structural areas called the intrusion beam or the intrusion wall. And then you've got the one on the other side of that. And that's where your trim pieces snap into.
But I will tell you that I don't see that as a big deal. I mean, we, I can remember launching cars that had rad hulls. That real rat could get in. But it didn't affect the customer. The customer had never seen it.
Yeah. And things we did see. These, we saw four giga-cash machines that were up and running. We walked down the center on the, the center where the furnaces were. So the orientation was backwards from Texas, in Texas. We were on the outside where we could see, I saw castings being pulled out and put on this giant metal conveyor belt where they were whacking off gates and runners and screws and stuff. We were, that was happening on the outside of this big room. And there was room for eight.
So they had four up and running and they had room for eight casting machines. And two additional ones were being installed. So two or three. So yeah. Cause that, for sure. Two for sure. I don't know. I think part of what we saw was maybe the melting furnace that, that you need for all these different machines. The other thing was some, they let us know that, that they reuse all of that aluminum.
And I thought maybe those cups that would have been at the top. I thought that that's where the scrap would have been like for the, the coating that you put on the inside of the mold. So things don't stick. And any kind of dirt that might have been in there. I thought that would go up and get the top cups that they use. The cups do two things.
One, they're going to get rid of any dirt that's in that mold. And secondly, they're going to act as a shutoff. That's the natural shutoff that they've got. As you push it through, you want to make sure all the air is vacated from that casting or from that die. And so the casting doesn't have any improper fill.
But we didn't get a chance to see that because they de-gate right there. They don't, they don't fool around. It's nothing, nothing is out any open like at the gigafactory in Austin. They've obviously improved that. So the, the degrading is done right after the product is shot so that they don't have to bring back the aluminum.
And talk about the plant in general was a much smaller field. Yeah, in Texas. They had a whole second floor for the whole plant. They had a mezzanine level where there was some offices. But there was not an entire second floor. And also walking was very easy. I mean, it was hundreds and hundreds of yards, not like a mile, like in Texas plant. So much smaller.
And still a lot of construction going on outside. They weren't done with parking lots or curbs and all sorts of stuff. And even some of the office space we walked through weren't even completely filled out.
And there was a transit issue that day. There was a strike for like train or so. Sorry, the Germans all went on strike. Apparently, they only have one union in Germany. And when that union goes on strike, nobody goes anywhere or does anything. It's really, I would scare the daylights out of me if I was the head guy for that country. I mean, if you got a couple of rabble rousers that wanted to destroy the economy, when dig them along with that kind of a situation. Yeah.
So in summary, I mean, we get to the end of the plant. We saw we saw final assembly, but not all of it. We saw where they were decking. We saw it's like with the decking as well. They have none of the they showed us nothing where they would be putting the 4680 batteries in with the seats on everything. All 2070s. Yeah, all 2170s and all the seats and everything else goes through the doors. So that was kind of different. And in the cycle time, what the cycle time I counted at the Austin plant was 43 seconds. I tried it twice, kept stopping, but my guess is that it would be around 65 seconds.
When we walked in, our tour guide said 45 seconds. What the plant was built for. Yeah, what it was built for, but they're ramping up. They're not at they're not at that right now. Yeah. The other thing we got a chance to see was a cushion room. We didn't see that before where they make up the seats. That was like a tough job. The guy that was doing it was, you know, his hands. He was pulling the cover over the over the seat and clipping stuff in and man, doing that all day. No way.
You rotate those kind of people, but it's probably better than the old bag style. It should pull them down on. That was ridiculous. In fact, when when I was at Ford, we came up with an idea to do the backs using a robot. In an essence, what we did was the smart thing. We just held the bag and then took the seat back with a robot and stuff that inside. You were done in no time. But what they're doing is putting everything on with these strips. That's a tough job. You get carpal tunnel doing that kind of stuff. Yeah.
So after we saw final assembly, we went through the body shop, went through stamping, went through casting. We go to where they drive the vehicles off the line. And what really struck me was it makes a hard right turn right after the light tunnel. You know, the light tunnel. And it's a hard right turn. And I'm like man, they couldn't have thought to put the garage door just straight. I really don't understand it. Who am I and I'm like, I don't get it. I don't know why they did that. I've never seen it before. I've been in and they certainly don't do it in the Austin plant. I don't know why they did that. That's just like not. I can't imagine working there all day, every day in there hearing because it's on smooth cement, hearing the tires, you know, it's kind of screech every time the car leaves. At least you'll hear the car coming.
They we weren't allowed to take photos or videos, but they did a lot. They did take our picture with my phone of Sandy and I standing in front of that end of line thing. And I I posted that up on on Twitter when real live retweeted that. So it was us standing there with our little smug mugs. And that's why we brought these. They actually gave us these. This is the going away present. As a what do you call a souvenir? Yeah, take mine off. On the back it says Gigaburlin, Brandenburg or whatever. Gigaburlin, Brandenburg. So I don't want these costs, the dollar or two. They don't cost much of anything. And actually after looking at this, I was thinking, you know, we were trying to figure out what to do and we've got tours and whatnot. I think it'd be a good idea if we crank something out like this.
Maybe we'll put it in, we don't have to have orange. We could we could make it whatever color we want. And so when people come through with the tours, it's kind of like they can have them on the way out. I don't think they cost much. And I to tell you the other got truth with the silver thing on and whatnot, if you're a runner or a bicycleist, it's not a bad deal to be noticed. Yeah, my running gear that I wear at night has reflective all over it. My shoes and my jacket. And night I don't run. So drink beer and watch TV.
Essentially we're recapping a I'd say a rather uneventful 36 hour round trip to Germany. Well, it was uneventful maybe so much in the plant. But I thought the the guy's really too. So I brought back some of the stuff that they gave us.
We brought back about 200 t-shirts. Everybody's given his t-shirts and you're all too small for me. So here's the beer. We were videoed or I was videoed drinking this beer. This stuff costs 30 bucks a bottle according to the one guy. 30 bucks a bottle. Now is it good? It's fine, but 30 bucks. I don't think I'd buy a case of that. It's like a pilsner I think.
Anyway, and the other thing which we got for nothing, both Corian got one of these, both Corianna. From Berndy, right? Yeah. This is really snappy. This is really nice. It's a flask full of peach nops.
What? Do you mean snappy? Snappy? Yeah. There you go. Okay. Thanks Corianna. So anyway, it's all in there. I didn't drink any of it yet. And it's got a cool deal here where you've got the little cups. And look at that. For when you start shaking or you're getting old and shaky. So you can pour it in there and you won't spill a drop. I love this thing. It's really spectacular. I doubt very much. I'll buy some of this stuff in the where I can my favorite liquor store and try it out there, but I'm probably not going to open this up and ruin it. I'll try those. Maybe Siu and I'll, when we're sitting in the backyard watching Sand Hill cranes do their thing.
But we got so many cool things and they were so kind to us. I mean, those guys were really generous with their time and just generous all the way around. I think that about wraps it up. I do. Yeah. So anyhow, I'd like to again thank all the people from the Austria Tesla Club. And actually, I'd like to thank the guys at the Berlin Tesla factory for letting us in. There was a lot of people that yelled out and said hi and whatnot. I just wish that maybe the outcome would have been a little less painful at the end.
Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that the Austrian Club is not allowed to come to the Berlin factory anymore. Yeah. That's really, that was really a big damper for me. Yeah.
是的。听说奥地利俱乐部不再被允许来柏林工厂,我很遗憾。是的。这对我来说真的是一个很大的打击。
So also we have the Monroe Live podcast, which just launched a few days ago. Subscribers are growing there. So if you're subscribed to Monroe Live, consider subscribing to that channel as well. We're doing our long form podcast on that. We're actually in our podcast studio. This is going to be on Monroe Live. Yeah. It's an agnostic room, but looking forward to a lot of really good content coming on that. Eric has been really working really hard. I get that thing up and going. It's a place where we can create really higher quality audio content that will also be available on all of your favorite podcasts, consumables stations. So Apple, Spotify, etc.
Yeah. The other thing that maybe we could bring up is the executive workshop, the one day workshop that I'm going to be doing about halfway home now. Unless there's about a week in a bit. There's about 20 spots left. Yeah. So they're going quickly. Yeah. It's a $599. We can put the link in the description. You can do a full day of training with Sandy and Row.
Our lean design, hearts and minds training. So if you want, and it also includes, I think a light breakfast launch. Yeah. A little refreshments. Yeah. Drink Saturday. Things over. The other thing is you get a chance to wander around a bit and look at what goes on at Monroe. There may be a couple of black walls that are up where we're doing some new product development or something, but you'll get a chance to see an awful lot of what's going on here at Monroe.
我们的精益设计、心灵培训。如果您想参加,它也包括,我认为是一个轻松的早餐启动。是的,一些点心。是的,星期六喝饮料。事情结束了。另一件事是你有机会四处逛逛,看看在 Monroe 发生了什么。可能会有一些黑墙,我们正在进行一些新产品的开发或其他事情,但你会有机会看到 Monroe 这里发生了很多事情。
So it, I mean, well, I should tell you that when the Model S was being designed, the folks that were designing it were they were in Detroit. They were in Detroit, engineering firm, and they all took this training. The long version, not the one day, but you'll get enough to understand how you can reduce the number of parts, make things higher quality. You'll definitely walk away with a different mindset when it comes to how things are made. And by the way, it's not just cars. I'm going to be talking about aircraft, medical devices, even some defense stuff.