Saying that the United States "is and will remain one of the most important markets for Volkswagen," officials at Volkswagen announced that the Chattanooga, Tennessee plant will assemble the company's new midsize, seven-passenger SUV. About $600 million will be invested in new production, and 2,000 new jobs are expected to be added.
"This is also a strong signal for the US as an industrial and automobile production location," said Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, in a prepared statement.
Chattanooga is also going to receive a new National Research & Development and Planning Center of the Volkswagen Group of America for project coordination in the North American market. The independent center will create an additional 200 jobs.
From a media release: The objective is to identify customers’ feedback in the market and to integrate them more expeditiously into existing and planned vehicle models. This will lead to the creation of approximately 200 qualified engineers working in Chattanooga. This decision is another element in the investment program that the Volkswagen Group has launched in the region. From 2014 to 2018, the Volkswagen Group will be investing more than US$7 billion in the US and Mexico. It is Volkswagen’s goal to deliver 800,000 vehicles in the US by 2018.
Read the full release here.