The Transparent Factory

I'm relying on essential #3, atleast I won't talk about hobo's. Promise :)

Volkswagen announced this week that they will stop selling this car in the US starting february. It's called the VW Phaeton.

I'm sure it's a decent car considering it's a $60-90k Volkswagen competing with luxury cars from the likes of BMW, Mercedes, Audi... It looks like the old passat, which for that amount of money is a rip-off to say the least. There is a silver lining though.

Almost nothing about this car deserves notice, apart from the way it's built.

You could call it a sales and marketing gimmick, and it probably was, but there is some inherent honesty and incorruptibility in building such a big transparent assembly facility, quite literally, to assemble the car. The Transparent Factory is in Dresden, Germany. The walls in the factory are made up of glass. Anybody is welcome to visit, and car buyers get to see their car being built. Not a bad work environment either, I might add.

Like this small part of the plant, every other part has glass for walls, and plenty of nature for viewing pleasure. Sure VW didn't show as much transparency in the design process. And, the car will still be sold in Europe, where the sales are much better than here in North America.

Transparency in a mundane process you say? Nobody except maybe the car buyer wants to actually see how his car is made? I could say the same thing about something you'd like seen made in front of you. Medicine, Shoes? I'm not saying we need to build more glass buildings, but something along the lines of more transparency in any process even if as a way of marketing... is a great idea.

I am a self-proclaimed motoring dunderhead on weekdays, and a motorhead on some weekends. Those are the technical terms... It's been a satisfying religion to follow, to say the least. The new Top Gear season will get plenty of coverage on this blog, as soon as I get around to it...

Motoring - n. the act of driving an automobile
dunderhead - n. A stupid person; a dolt.
motorhead - n. a motor vehicle or cycle enthusiast; also, an enthusiast for working on motor vehicles; a mechanic