Mercedes-Benz, German Engineering At It's Finest

One of the benefits of our study abroad program is the scheduled day trips around Germany. We were extremely fortunate to be able to tour the Mercedes-Benz factory located right here in Bremen, for which there is apparently a waiting-list over a year long. Our tour guide was an Irishman who had been living in Germany for the past couple of years, meaning that he spoke comprehensible english, a plus indeed. Before the start of the tour, I intended to follow it up with a blog entry about the engineering and other technical aspects that I observed, however, in this case I feel compelled to mention the personality of our tour guide as well. The man (who's name I forget) was extremely willing to impress upon us as much knowledge of the workings inside the factory as he possibly could, including such specific details as the torque of certain automated screwdrivers. But among the technical mumbojumbo came more cultural references in a short time frame that I have ever heard in my life. "Where is this red car going? Not Europe for sure, back to America. Home Sweet Home. Home Sweet Home Alabama, a good song. Who saw the Grammys? Coldplay won a bunch, you know Coldplay? Probably like you know U2? A good Irishman. My daughter's name is Caroline, you know, that song, bah bah bahh. Do you know what your name means Stephen?" Note: I'm pretty sure he didn't stop to breathe during that segment.
Anyways, back to the Mercedes Plant, things I noticed:
-Black and silver are the most popular colors, with white coming in third.
-There were very few tans, blues, and reds, and almost all of them were going to the U.S.
-Mercedes has a 0% tolerance when building cars, if there's a minor imperfection, it is thrown out.
-Efficency is everywhere. It takes too long to walk across the plant, so they ride bikes in the buildings.
-Mercedes loses 22.000,00 Euros for every minute the assembly line stops working
-Us Lafayetties accidentally stopped the assembly line for a minute.
-Oops.
-The assembly lines build multiple types of cars (sedans, SUVs, ect..) on the same assembly line at the same time.
-The robots are just amazing, they move very gracefully, and make the car assembly look effortless.
-We weren't allowed to take any photographs during the tour.
-I really wish we could have.
-There are cars, doors, and various other parts moving around in every direction you look, including a couple levels above the floor.
-It takes four days to make a car.
-The Bremen plant made about 1.000.000 cars last year.
-Everything is made there except the engines, which are made in Berlin.
-I'm not too sure about that last one, because the intro video was in German.