Reposting from my welding forum...have a look at this. Audi hand MIG welds the R8 chassis. Very cool (who doesn't need a jig that that in their garage?)

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/ultimate-factories/4544/Overview#tab-Videos/08007_00

Very cool. From their perspective, I wonder why they do it by hand? Or is aluminum just too difficult to weld with a robot? Audi's been doing the aluminum thing since '94 with the A8, so I'm guessing they've probably figured out some advantage this way.

Imagine taking one of these to Maaco...

Cool vid, Craig!

My guess on this one is that people are quicker (29 minutes for the front bulkhead). I was wondering why they would bother with the hand work as well. As I was watching it again, I noticed that they are loading two welders into the car to seam it up, while others work outside. Given the volume and the wicked cool jig that they've developed, I'm sure a skilled welder could knock it out almost as quickly (or even more quickly) as a robot...we have a few more degrees of freedom of motion.

Nice balance of high-tek and low-tek. Hard to believe they wheel the sub-sections around on a cart instead of a continuous line on a conveyor tho.

IIRC that was a Volvo innovation for the 240 assembly line. They had a fancy cart that would follow lines on the floor and would stop if it bumped into something. I think they found that diversity in the skills of the labour force increased job satisfaction. I still think of a person as a high tech piece of equipment when it comes to some manual tasks. Not to mention when the production run is over they can be changed over to do something else with ease.

I found an article on the R8 that states that repair facilities (i.e. not Macco) can buy each of the three sections of the car for repair. Sort of makes you wonder if you could assemble a chassis and have some fun...I'm sure that isn't allowed.