Volkswagen will invest $7.1 billion in North America over the next five years. The money will fund expansions to the product range, research and development, and manufacturing. The automaker's goal is for 55 percent of sales in the United States to be fully electric by 2030.
The investment into manufacturing will let VW begin building the ID.4 at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, facility in 2022. The automaker will also build the ID. Buzz in North America starting in 2024, and an unnamed electric crossover will begin production in the region in 2026.
Gallery: Volkswagen $7.1 Billion Investment Into North America
VW will begin phasing out the production of gasoline-powered vehicles in North America. It will completely stop offering them by the early 2030s.
The automaker will also invest in its Puebla and Silao factories in Mexico to give them the ability to manufacture electric vehicles and their necessary components like electric motors.
VW intends to build a battery cell production factory in the US. A final decision about it should come in 2022, according to this announcement.
In terms of R&D, body and interior engineering and design for vehicles aimed at North America will happen in this region by 2030. It will also invest $22 million into a battery engineering lab in Chattanooga where the company will test and validate batteries for models available in North America.
Elsewhere in the world, VW will invest €2 billion to build a new factory near its main plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. The site will build the electric model stemming from its Trinity project there. Construction will begin in spring 2023. When complete, the plant will allegedly be able to pump out a complete car in around 10 hours – about half the time of a current product.
There are only a few details available about Project Trinity at this time. According to the plan, it will be capable of level 4 autonomous driving and will have a new design language for the brand. The first model to make use of these innovations will have a projected cost of around €35,000. Charging is reportedly as quick as refueling a combustion engine.
