Though the seven-passenger SUV based upon the CrossBlue concept is ready to be built, Volkswagen is being pulled by incentive offers in the two locations fighting for the right to build the SUV: Mexico and Tennessee.
Reuters reports VW would have made its decision by now as to where the new product would be assembled, but sources close to the issue have said the automaker will likely announce the location by the end of June at the earliest. Though Tennessee originally offered $300 million for the SUV, the state government now has to match or better what Mexico offered once the original deal was abruptly pulled off the table in January 2014 ahead of a contentious organized labor election at VW’s Chattanooga factory.
In Mexico, VW invested $700 million toward refurbishing its 50-year-old Puebla plant for production of the new Golf, which will be made alongside the Jetta and Beetle already in production by the plant’s 15,000 employees. If the nation is chosen, the new SUV would be made there or in Audi’s San Jose Chiapa, where the Q5 will be built beginning in 2016.
As for what VW knows about Tennessee’s new incentive offer, the automaker remains silent on the issue beyond confirming they are talking to state officials.
Overall design looks SO FAMILIAR…
kinda like a JGC.
I was wondering when someone else would mention that.
Given VW’s history of delivering apples when American buyers preference is for oranges, I must conclude that there will be no “winner” in this contest. Would love to have the jobs go to American workers, but don’t want to see them go away in five years due to a poorly conceived product.
That sort of long-standing arrogance (you’ll take vat ve give you and you vill LIKE IT!) works for Porsche, purveyors of rolling status symbols with customers willing to follow them to the ends of the earth. Not so much when you’re a mainstream commodity provider smack dab in a market full of them.
Kinda like the Jeep, but with a perpetually glowing check engine light as standard.
That company is stone cold crazy investing that kind of money to cater to fickle US whims.
End Corporate Welfare
“Kinda like the Jeep, but with a perpetually glowing check engine light as standard.”
+1