Good thing they aren't planning to build SUVs there.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

It's true. I was in Chattanooga today and heard all about it.
Check out the feature in their paper:
(link...)

Wouldn't it be great if they made an electric or at least hybrid vehicle here? The Germans have finally seen the electric light. Link for VW and here and here for BMW, who are actually testing some electric Minis!!!

No kidding. In related news, Toyota is going to build Prius in Mississippi, almost in TN:

(link...)

It is nothing short of remarkable how disingenuous some bloggers will be when commenting on a story (particularly in the largely unmoderated comments section on another site maintained by a local daily newspaper). The VW plant is a big win for Chattanooga (assuming they didn't mortgage the farm to win it) and will have positive economic benefits for the entire I-75 corridor, both north and south of Chattanooga.

Knox County does not have a suitable site and hasn't for many years. The VW plant will be located at the Enterprise South site, one of the few remaining megasites in the region.

From AutoBlog.com:

The company will build the facility in the Enterprise South Industrial Park, located 12 miles northeast of downtown Chattanooga. The 1,350-acre site is 100 percent owned by the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County and is certified as an industrial megasite by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Enterprise South is adjacent to Interstate 75. Initial production capacity for the facility is anticipated to be 150,000 vehicles, including a new midsize sedan designed specifically for the North American market. Production is scheduled to begin in early 2011

Dwight Van de Vate
Chief Administrative Officer
Knox County Mayor's Office

I will make a prediction.

Due to VW locating in Chattanooga, look for a mass exodus of air travelers going from Knoxville to Chattanooga as more than likely, airfares will be cheaper with more direct flights to major cities across the country. With Chattanooga's airport being on this side of town, the drive from Knoxville will not be bad at all.

Just a thought.

Meanwhile, Knoxville's airport will continue to struggle.

This is a plus for Knox County. The hard truth is there simply wasn't a suitable site in the immediate vicinity for a plant of this size. However, parts suppliers in this neck of the woods should have an opportunity to increase production and maybe even the numbers on their payroll. The impact conceivably could reach as far north of here as Morristown and Rogersville.

Larry Van Guilder

Knox County does not have a suitable site and hasn't for many years.

Not the Coster Shop? (I'm aware it's going to be a wonderful warehouse, or something.)

I feel real sorry for Dwight. He's become the fall guy for the Ragabe regime.

Perhaps Knoxville can land an WV auto show at its convention center. . . .

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

West Virginia? ;>)

which ended up in Tupelo, Mississippi and is under construction.

The folks in Hamilton County leadership had been on this for a number of years while our guys in Knox County continued to make excuses why we can't have something like that.

Land is just land and there is an abundance of it all over the county and if Ragsdale would quit playing games with the developers and trying to make them richer of land that nobody is going to build on, then we might get some economic progress going in this community. But nothing along the scale of VW in Chattanooga is ever going to happen in Knox County until you get rid of Mike Ragsdale and Mike Edwards, neither of which knows how to recruit business, real jobs, real wages, and a real corporate citizen. All they know how to do is line up strip centers and local developers and point at the new minimum wage jobs that moved from the old location to the new location.

Perhaps Knoxville can land an WV auto show at its convention center. . . .

LOL!

Larry Van Guilder

I bought a brand new shiny blue VW sedan in 1968. Back then Volkswagen dealers all over the country gave a paperback copy of Small Wonder: The Amazing Story of the Volkswagen by Walter Henry Nelson to everyone who bought a new car. I still have my copy.

After the war, the British took over the ruins of the factory at Wolfsburg and tried to revive it in order to give the locals a place to work. They tried several times to give it away but nobody wanted it. Heinz Nordhoff was placed in charge of the plant and started to make a go of it.

In 1948, a little more than two months after Nordhoff took charge, the British decided to make one last attempt to give the plant away, this time to Henry Ford II.

The meeting with Ford and his executives, still keenly remembered by Nordhoff*, took place in an "Allies-only" hotel in Cologne in March 1948, and he recalls needing special authorization to attend. [Ford advisor] Breech’s evaluation of the plant as "not worth a damn" saved the day.

By the early 1960s the Ford Motor Company would sorely regret that decision.

*My copy was printed in 1967. Heinz Nordhoff died in 1968.

Visit us at

The Home

A biggun', eh? I guess it would take some "reading" or other fact-checking to know that. There's a Knoxville geography buff who writes in The Metro Pulse who also might know this kind of stuff.

Wow, 1300 acres. Guess they need room to make the battery packs. Next, you'll say they're not making any BPEVs. Yeah, spoiler.

I live in Georgia just 3 miles from Chattanooga. Chattanooga has worked very hard over the last 15 years to develop and market Enterprise South. It is wonderful that after several disappointments something of this magnitude has happened. It is said that a rising tide lifts all boats, and we hope and expect this development will raise the "boats" of all the area including North Georgia and up the I-75 corridor all the way to Knoxville. The entire North Georgia and East Tennessee area should benefit from the development. We hope that this is just the beginning of the growth of good jobs in the entire area.