Volkswagen's engineering and planning center in Chattanooga is helping the German automaker better understand American motorists as the company puts more decision-making into regional hands, an official said today.
"This has been an unbelievable shift in the culture" of the company, Dr. Matthias Erb, a Volkswagen Group of America executive vice president, told a group of journalists at the factory.
Erb, who oversees the innovative, 115-person center that opened a couple of years ago adjacent to the Enterprise South industrial park assembly plant, said the new setup offers "way more chances to get your ideas through."
Erb said he took part in a recent meeting at company headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, and the sentiment was "If you think it's right, do it."
In the wake of the diesel emission scandal, the giant automaker decided to decentralize the way it makes some of its decisions.
"We have to learn much more," Erb said. "We're still not there."
See more in Friday's Times Free Press.