Volkswagen has begun expanding its Chattanooga factory to build a North American center for electric vehicles—not only for assembly, but for engineering the EVs of the future. To power those efforts, Volkswagen’s Engineering and Planning Center in Chattanooga will soon feature a high-voltage laboratory designed to develop and test electric vehicle cells and battery packs for upcoming models assembled in the United States. There are two ways that auto companies approach the development of electric vehicle batteries. A lot of them will farm out the development and testing of batteries to another company, and some will actually do the work of developing and testing in-house. We are doing the latter. —Wolfgang Maluche, Vice President of Engineering at Volkswagen of America The EPC plans to break ground on the lab soon, with the goal of being fully operational by spring 2021. It will feature advanced equipment, including pressure testers, explosion-rated […]