Volkswagen Breaks Ground on Chattanooga Plant Expansion; Battery Facility Incoming
Volkswagen’s investment into its U.S. manufacturing presence doesn’t end with an expansion of its only domestic assembly plant. The battery packs needed to power a new range of fully electric models will originate at the same site.
The automaker announced the kickoff of construction Wednesday, detailing how it plans to spend its $800 million.
The cash will support the construction of an electric vehicle production facility to supply Americans with future ID.-badged models. It will take the form of a 564,000-square-foot expansion of the existing Chattanooga, Tennessee body shop, in which both gas- and electric-powered models will be built on the same assembly line. Production begins in 2022, by which time the plant’s ranks should expand by 1,000 workers.
Along with the new plant space, VW intends to build a 198,000-square-foot facility tasked with making battery packs.
“This is a big, big moment for this company,” said Volkswagen Group of America CEO Scott Keogh during a splashy kickoff event. “Expanding local production sets the foundation for our sustainable growth in the U.S. Electric vehicles are the future of mobility and Volkswagen will build them for millions, not just millionaires. ”
The first VW electrics to reach U.S. buyers won’t hail from Chattanooga, however. The I.D. Crozz, a compact crossover slated to enter production in Zwickau, Germany late next year or in early 2021, will carry the ID.4 name when it enters U.S. showrooms. The country’s supply will switch to Chattanooga after things get up and running there. Follow-up models are expected.
An electric crossover isn’t the only near-term vehicle bound for the plant. Last month, VW began production of the Atlas Cross Sport, a two-row, sportified version of the Atlas that shares its birthplace with its (slightly) bigger brother and the Passat sedan.
[Image: Volkswagen]
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- Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
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- Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
- Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
- Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Off-road fluff on vehicles that should not be off road needs to die.
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I think these guys mean business. VW is the only mfr Tesla should worry about. Nobody else is close to this serious. BTW, note how much space they're adding vs how many more workers. Lots of automation = lots of volume potential.
I don’t think VW would enter the space unless they thought they could do it profitably. But these are the same guys who thought Cheat-ware was the answer to their problems and that didn’t work out so well. I hope they are successful.