With electric vehicle sales surging, Volkswagen Chattanooga is starting up a new training program that will focus on battery-powered autos to create a contingent of employees versed in the entire system.
“EVs are more sophisticated, have more control units, a higher degree of electrical connections,” said Burkhard Ulrich, senior vice president of human resources at VW Chattanooga. “We need employees who know the whole system.”
The move is one part of a scaling up of the Volkswagen Academy’s apprentice training efforts in which it’s aiming to recruit 48 new people to fill open slots, up sharply from its typical 16-person cohort, according to VW.
The academy is seeking 36 apprentices in its existing Robotronics Program, in addition to the 12 for the new EV initiative. Both are two-year training programs.
Ulrich said in an online interview that robotronics training is mainly focused on equipment and the many robots that operate in the production plant where the ID.4 electric SUV is assembled along with the conventionally powered Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport SUVs.