Volkwagen's Partnership With Chattanooga

On the eve of Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen's arrival for a trade mission to Germany Volkswagen officials give us a first hand look at the latest technologies they are bringing to the American driver.

Volkswagen has chosen Chattanooga to be a key component in their plans to become the world's leader in automotive sales by volume, as they want to surpass General Motors and Toyota by 2018. In order to do that the Wolfsburg, Germany based automaker has to sell more cars in the United States and that will require building up to 300,000 vehicles per year at the Chattanooga plant within ten years.

In Wolfsburg Tuesday VW officials tell us construction of the plant at the Enterprise South Industrial Park is moving forward as planned as engineers finalize the exact footprint of the nearly 2-million square foot auto assembly plant on the 1,350 acre site. Company officials said concrete will be poured for the foundation in November and that building the structure for the plant will follow during the winter and spring months as planned.

While the exact name of the first vehicle to be produced at the plant remains a secret Volkswagen executives say it will be a new four-door sedan engineered for the U.S. market.

Volkswagen has been instrumental in developing clean diesel engines that are fuel efficient while providing drivers with plenty of acceleration power and a smooth, quiet ride. They are also producing new transmissions with dual gear boxes that perform better that manual transmissions while getting better gas mileage.

Tuesday morning VW gave us the keys to a Golf-6, the latest generation Golf that is new to the European markets and is scheduled for release in the U.S. for the 2010 model year. We gave the car a test ride during a one-and-a-half hour drive to the company's race track in Oschersleben, near Berlin.

Once there we learned of the latest technology Volkswagen is bringing to the United States and how it is used in their rekindled commitment to Motorsport which is their name for racing teams at events around the world.

As we strapped into a TDI Jetta and Scirocco race drivers pushed the cars toward their limits in blistering runs at the raceway to demonstrate the technologies American drivers will have with cars produced in the future at Chattanooga.

Later Tuesday we took a tour of the AutoStadt, or car city that Volkswagen built in 2000 in Wolfsburg that has literally turned the city into a popular tourist destination. The AutoStadt showcases the history of cars, of course focusing on Volkswagens and the other brands the Volkwagen Group owns like Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, SEAT and Skoda. This is also where customers can take personal delivery of the VW's they have ordered.

Wolfsburg Mayor Rolf Schnellecke talked with us about the importance of Chattanooga in VW's future plans and how his city will form partnerships with people and companies in the Chattanooga region.

Wednesday we will tour VW's main auto assembly plant in Wolfsburg and learn more about the technologies that will be developed and produced in Chattanooga when the plant is on-line at the end of 2010.

And later Wednesday we will meet with Governor Bredesen and his delegation as they tour Germany to bring suppliers for VW to the Chattanooga region.

While we have been giving you a taste of the things we have been covering in Germany on this website and in our broadcasts, we will produce in-depth stories beginning next week about how Germans live and what Volkswagen has to offer to our region.