The Chattanooga Volkswagen plant.Volkswagen has started hiring for its new Chattanooga-based engineering and planning center, which its officials say will be the only one of its kind in the South for an automaker.
The carmaker plans to hire about 130 engineers and technicians for the new center by 2017, said Dr. Matthias Erb, who is overseeing the facility for the German company.
The center will be temporarily located at a vacant building on Discovery Drive near the company’s plant at Enterprise South industrial park, he said today.
Starting around 2017, VW wants to operate the center in a new building it plans to build near the plant, Erb said. He said it was too early to say how big it may be or how much it would cost.
Plans eventually are to hire at least 200 engineers and technicians for the facility, which he hoped will centralize all of VW’s engineering and planning in North America.
“We’ll be moving over research and development functions,” Erb said during a press conference at the plant.
See more in Tuesday’s Times Free Press.