Skip to main content

Chattanooga Was Designed to Grow, Says VW CEO

Volkswagen wants to build more cars in North America in the near future and looks increasingly likely that the way it will achieve that is through the addition of another plant in the US.

Reports have long been published about VW’s desire to build electric cars in North America, but it would never commit to adding capacity to its American, Chattanooga plant, rather than its Mexican, Puebla plant.

New comments from VW’s CEO, Herbert Diess, made to Automotive News, though, suggest that the US production is primed to grow.

“We set up the plant in Chattanooga always with the idea to be able to grow it, to mirror it,” Diess said. “The plant is too small and we are considering different options; it might be electric cars, it might be a different derivative of the Atlas—it’s still open.”

The US plant has always seemed the likelier for this growth since it is a smaller plant and the company is trying to capture the US market. Additionally, on a recent trip to Puebla, we were told that the Mexican plant has very little physical space to grow.

Even with the departure of the Beetle, there won’t be much more room for production. The Beetle’s line—which was shared with the Tiguan—will simply be taken over by Tiguan production.

Volkswagen currently makes the Passat and the Atlas on the same line at its Chattanooga plant, though it had to be expanded for the Atlas to be able to join the line.

Volkswagen North America, under Hinrich Woebcken, was also clear that it wanted to build an Atlas variant, based on the Atlas Cross Sport concept. Woebcken, though, was replaced as CEO of Volkswagen Group North America by Scott Keogh (and kept on as an advisor). As was Matthias Erb, the North American region’s Chief Engineering Officer, who will be replaced by Wolfgang Demmelbauer-Ebner.

Whether or not the new executives will choose a different plan for the North American market, and its production sites, remains to be seen, but whatever the case, US production appears to be primed to grow.

[source: Automotive News]

The post Chattanooga Was Designed to Grow, Says VW CEO appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2zwXiK5
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waterfest Moves to Atco Dragway

Waterfest 24 will be held at Atco Dragway, in Atco, New Jersey. The summer event will take place at its new venue on July 21 and 22. Long held in Englishtown, New Jersey, the festival has been such a large part of the VW scene that the latest iteration of the Golf even comes with optional “Englishtown” wheels . The new venue, however, is an NHRA drag track a scant 52 miles southwest of Englishtown. The ¼ mile drag track opened in 1960, which makes it the oldest drag strip in New Jersey. The announcement came today on a social media post that announced the new location. Waterfest is North America’s largest VW/Audi show. As many 20,000 people show up for the annual show, making the second largest show in the world—with Worthersee being number one. 2018 will be Waterfest’s 24 th year in existence. The post Waterfest Moves to Atco Dragway appeared first on VWVortex . from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2GQjkuc via IFTTT
Post a Comment
Read more

Macau Gets Messy with 16-Car Pileup

The Macau Grand Prix is always good for an accident or two or 16— you may remember Audi’s race ending crash last year —and this year’s event didn’t disappoint. It didn’t take long for things to get messy on the tight road circuit. On the opening lap of the qualifying race a 16-car pileup caused the race to be suspended. Things kicked off when Daniel Juncadella hit a wall on the exit of Police bend, one of the tightest parts of the already tight circuit. The following car of Raffaele Marciello was able to avoid the carnage, but Laurens Vanthoor, who was in the upside-down Audi that ended the race last year, could not avoid Juncadella and together they blocked up the road pretty much completely. “I couldn’t see him [Juncadella] at first. Then I saw the car standing still,” Vanthoor told Motorsport. “I tried to brake but it was just understeering and I couldn’t do anything. There’s room for one car there and you’re blind.” Fourteen more cars would eventually crash into the corner c
Post a Comment
Read more

The First of its Kind: Integrated Engineering Releases Highly-Anticipated IE450T MK6 Golf R Turbo Kit

After two long years of development, the team at Integrated Engineering has finally announced the release of their IE450T kit for the MK6 Golf R. With their turbo kit bolted on right out of the box, the sport AWD hatch is transformed into a 450bhp monster, with hardly any noticeable increase in spool time. In fact, 435 ft-lbs of torque are achieved at all four wheels, at a mere 3300rpm! By now you are probably asking yourself how this is even possible on a 2.0L engine that made nearly half that power from the factory. By employing true twin-scroll technology into the cast turbo manifold and pairing it with a state-of-the-art BorgWarner EFR turbocharger, IE was able to keep spool time at a minimum and bring the fastest-spooling big turbo setup to the market. “We wanted to offer a kit that would dramatically increase the power output without making the car lose its amazing street-friendly drivability,” mentioned one of the IE engineers. We are told the IE450T leaves the car driving jus
Post a Comment
Read more