Detroit News reports that VW has narrowed its list of prospective sites for a new American plant to Michigan, Tennessee and Alabama. The planned factory, which is said to eventually produce vehicles based on VAG's MQB (Golf) platform, is an important measure for VW to fight profit losses due to the weak dollar. The factory should produce up to a quarter million Audis and Vee-Dubs annually, and will employ between 1k and 2k employees. VW will need to sell all of its increased production in order to meet its stated goal of tripling its US sales by 2018, and sell a million vehicles per year. The decision to base the new factory in the Midwest or South comes shortly after VW USA moved its headquarters from Michigan to Virginia, citing the fact that "its customers were concentrated on the East and West coasts." Will a Michigan plant make up for the slight? More importantly, will American production hurt or help VW's spotty reliability record? Expect more details when a final decision is announced sometime this summer.
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Michigan sure could use the jobs… But then again, who couldn’t these days?
I’m surprised that Michigan is on the short list, what with the union presence.
# CarShark :
April 24th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I’m surprised that Michigan is on the short list, what with the union presence.
It’s just probably lip service, VW would have to be suicidal to set up shop in the UAW’s backyard…
They could take over the St. Paul Ford plant, which will be shuttered in 2009 if I remember correctly. VW would have its own hydroelectric power from the mightly Mississippi and a bunch of cool abandoned silica caves underneath the plant.
I’d bet VW builds in Alabama or Tennessee – very small union workforce there.
New Stanton!
The last Volkswagen effort in the United States was in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. They chose the site because it had a lot of citizens with Germanic names (though of course, they did not publicize this fact). They were very chagrined to have Pennsylvania “force” them to bus black employees from cities to the plant in order to apply for work. Also, if I recall correctly, the UAW immediately set up shop and Volkswagen did not think they would have any more problems with the UAW than they did with the unions in Germany at the time.
Unfortunately for Michigan (my home state), which is not a “right to work state” I’m betting on Tennessee or Alabama. Besides, Volkswagen just LEFT Michigan (they had their HQ here).
Any idiot can take one look at the terrific operation that Hyundai has going near Montgomery, and say “Ja, ve can do zis, alzo.”
C’mon Chattanooga!!! Corner of I-75 and I-24 and state HWY 111 thrown in for good measure…
I’ll bet the Buga-palooza car show would get some corporate sponsorship even…
How does Michigan justify the “union shop” laws? WHY should I be required to join the damn union if I want to work somewhere? What happened to free America?
Hell, if I work there and the damn union wants to walk out and strike and I disagree – I’ll keep right on working thanks – at whatever there is left to work at. We’ve got the UAW at a plant here in town. Not a happy bunch over there. Management and the workers sort of tolerate each other it seems the few times I have been in the building on projects. And then there is the ~50 page union rules book for contractors they give you.
As someone who’s actually sympathetic to union concerns…I’ll be damned if Alabama didn’t need the jobs, unionized or screwionized.
Place it near Mobile, or do something really great and place it near Selma so the Black Belt can have a piece of the pie. You’ll get 10,000 applicants either way.
I’m a bit befuddled how Michigan made the short list.
Tennessee and Alabama make sense as you have cheaper labor and proximity to their likely supplier base.
I am surprised its only 1k-2k jobs. Don’t know car factory stats but would have thought 10 times that. Cool. Good number.
I remember reading post mortem on VW Westmoreland operation. They used existing US car industry assets including the people. Turnkey plant, almost. Veteran management people were at least as fatal as line UAW. Hence tufted vinyl door panels and seats and hideous carburetor setup with lengthy smog crap that “didn’t work, by design”.
I remember thinking A1 s**ked big time until I drove an older 1980 UK Golf a friend brought over, about 1986. Revelation. 1.6, top o’ the tach, nice clean light car. Gray with black/gray plaid seats and black minimalist interior. Hoo hoo. Now I get it. …Why can’t we buy VWs like that. Well it did finally rust its rear lid and it was noisy but it was a nice sound, especially the motor.
I wish Porsche well. Very well. Who knows. I love my A3 loaner…
Tenn has the edge, AL has already Honda, Hyundai, MB, and Toyota making labor scarce.
MI make no sense at all, UAW, the State is heavy in debt, too far away from VW supplier base. VNA just moved their HQ from MI to DC.
My guess is that the reason MI is on the list is that they have promised an absolutely enormous pile of incentives to VW. But I’d guess that VW will use this to extract larger concessions from a southern state and ultimately a right-to-work state will win.
If VW has any sense, that is. A long shot, I know…
Volkswagen, welcome to Knoxville. With all the benefits of a real city and very few of the drawbacks. Easy access to rail, I-40, 81, and I-75, and there you go. Be seeing ya.
It might have something to do with the fact that Michigan has a large and very experienced workforce in this industry, and lots of ’em are looking for jobs right now … you could have the cream of the crop.
omnivore
It might have something to do with the fact that Michigan has a large and very experienced workforce in this industry, and lots of ‘em are looking for jobs right now … you could have the cream of the crop.
Yeah, but Michigan comes with the UAW attached and they may not want to deal with that just yet.
Frank Williams:
Yeah, but Michigan comes with the UAW attached and they may not want to deal with that just yet.
As in ever.