The Volkswagen ID.4 compact SUV recently made its debut in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as the company’s first electric car to be produced in the United States. It was already imported from Germany, but now American Volkswagen dealers will sell American-built cars to eager buyers who now pay a lot for gas.
“We have just started writing a new chapter for Volkswagen in America, and it is primarily an American story,” said Thomas Schäfer, chairman of the global Volkswagen brand. “When we promised to bring Volkswagen’s EVs for millions, there were always American workers building those EVs right there in Chattanooga. We couldn’t be prouder to see that vision realized today with our ID.4 electric flagship rolling off the line. This is another milestone in Volkswagen’s ambitious electrification strategy for the US market and globally.”
The ID.4 is by far the most popular all-electric model in the Volkswagen Group, and has sold 190,000 units to customers around the world since its introduction in 2021. Later this year, Volkswagen plans to ramp up production of the ID.4 in Chattanooga to 7,000 vehicles per month, with the goal of increasing output even further through 2023. Consumers can expect their cars as early as October 2022. The American-built ID.4 will initially be offered in two battery configurations, a rear-wheel drive version with an 82 kWh battery and a four-wheel drive model with a 62 kWh battery. A rear-wheel drive version with a 62 kWh battery will be added to the lineup in 2023.
To enable the production of ID.4, Volkswagen is actively hiring more than 1,000 new team members at the Chattanooga plant until 2022. is what led to the beginning of production. The Tennessee plant is now the sixth site in the world to build cars for Volkswagen’s electric lineup.
“Thousands of VW Chattanooga employees have gone to great lengths to bring this vision to life,” said Chris Glover, President and CEO of Volkswagen Chattanooga Operations, LLC. “I would like to thank all of our highly motivated team members and the extensive Chattanooga community for their support in beginning the assembly of the ID.4 for the North American market.”
The German-designed ID.4, the flagship of the electric SUV line, will be made largely from components and materials made in North America, particularly the United States. Steel from Alabama and Ohio, to interior components in Indiana and South Carolina, and electronic components in Kentucky and North Carolina are among the materials and components assembled in this vehicle. The EV battery comes from SK Innovation’s factory in Georgia.
My thoughts
In a way, this reflects the experience of other foreign automakers who brought electric vehicle production to the United States. For example, Nissan’s LEAF vehicles initially all came from Japan, but later opened a plant in Tennessee to produce the cars. Now, Volkswagen is following a similar pattern, with global production starting outside the United States and then moving into local manufacturing and local supply chains.
This is a great step for the company and a great step for the clean industrial base in the United States.
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