Volkswagen is expanding its factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee to manufacture electric vehicle cells and battery packs while also assembling electric vehicles, including the ID.4 crossover.
The German carmaker noted in a press release that the Chattanooga site will soon feature a state-of-the-art voltage laboratory designed to develop and test electric vehicle cells and battery packs for upcoming models assembled in the United States.
This facility will feature cutting-edge equipment including pressure testers, explosion-rated climate chambers and a custom multi-axis shaker table (MAST) designed to test the integrity of vehicle components, in particular the batteries. The MAST will be the second-largest of its kind in the United States and have supports buried 12 feet under the lab’s floor and buttressed with concrete.
Read More: VW Begins Expanding Chattanooga Plant, Will Build ID.4 In 2022
“The battery is not only shaking; it is going through a series of harsh conditions to test its durability in a variety of possible environments, from the South Pole to the Sahara,” director of electrical development at Volkswagen, Jason Swager, said in a statement. “We needed to build a MAST that could withstand the immense force and frequency that we need to test these batteries.”
The battery cells to be used by VW’s electric vehicles built at the Chattanooga site will be manufactured by SKI in Georgia. Volkswagen wants the updated facilities in Tennessee to be up and running by spring 2021.
“There are two ways that auto companies approach the development of electric vehicle batteries,” vice president of engineering at Volkswagen of America, Wolfgang Maluche, said in a statement. “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.”
