Antonio Pinto
› Job: Chief executive officer of Volkswagen in Chattanooga› 2018 distinction: Pinto has overseen the continued ramp up of production of the seven-seat Atlas SUV. Also, he is readying the plant for assembly of a five-seat version of the Atlas and a newly redesigned Passat sedan next year.
Antonio Pinto, chief executive officer of Volkswagen Chattanooga.Antonio Pinto, who heads Chattanooga's Volkswagen plant and its 3,500-person workforce, has high goals.
The longtime Volkswagen executive who came to Chattanooga more than a year ago is aiming to make the Enterprise South industrial park plant into one of the leading producers in the Southeast and help boost the German automaker's market share in America.
"We want to be one of the biggest [automotive] production plants in the U.S. and have market share like it should be compared to Toyota, GM and Ford," Pinto says. "We want to be similar to them."
The Atlas SUV has become one of the linchpins in VW's efforts to sell more cars in the United States. The five-seater is expected to bolster that effort along with the newly redesigned Passat.
"The plant has good momentum," says the native of Portugal. "We have all the products to compete in the USA market. I want this plant to produce 300,000 cars, more than double what we are now."
While nothing is finalized, there has been talk out of Germany that Chattanooga could produce electric vehicles in the future.
Pinto says that VW wants to be much more successful than electric vehicle producer Tesla in the long run.
"We would like to have electric cars here," he says. "We must be one of the first plants at VW in terms of cost, quality, the environment, all the aspects."