Volkswagen Investing $800M in Tennessee Factory for Electric Vehicles
Volkswagen invests $800 million to expand its Tennessee factory as its North American EV manufacturing base.
Volkswagen announces an $800 million investment to expand its Chattanooga, Tennessee factory for electric vehicle production. CEO Herbert Diess reveals the plan at the Detroit Auto Show, noting that the expansion creates 1,000 new jobs. This significant upgrade establishes the Tennessee facility as the company's dedicated North American manufacturing base for electric vehicles.
The factory utilizes Volkswagen's MEB modular electric toolkit chassis to build the vehicles. While physical production at the Chattanooga plant begins in 2022, VW offers its first MEB-based SUV, the series-production I.D. CROZZ, to US customers in 2020. The company also plans to introduce the nostalgic I.D. BUZZ concept vehicle to the market as part of this electric initiative.
This Tennessee expansion represents a major portion of VW Group's broader $50 billion commitment through 2023 toward EVs and digital services following the dieselgate scandal. The Chattanooga site joins a global network of MEB facilities located in Germany and China. Ultimately, the Volkswagen brand forecasts producing 150,000 electric vehicles by 2020 and scaling up to 1 million by 2025.