Volkswagen of America (VWoA) opened its Battery Engineering Lab (BEL) in Chattanooga, to check and optimize batteries for all electrical autos within the American market. By creating crucial battery experience in-house, the $22-million, 32,000 sq. ft facility will allow Volkswagen to achieve a aggressive edge within the push to electrical mobility.
Coupled with the $800-million manufacturing unit electrification in Chattanooga, the opening of the BEL is the most recent step in Volkswagen’s $7.1-billion dedication to spice up its product portfolio, R&D, and manufacturing capabilities within the North American area. The primary American-assembled Volkswagen EV, the ID.4 compact SUV, is poised to roll off the meeting line in 2022.
The BEL is the primary facility of its type for Volkswagen of America and one in every of 4 strategically situated models within the Volkswagen Group globally, with one in Germany (Braunschweig) and two in China (Shanghai, Changchun). Engineers will initially deal with batteries and battery packs for Volkswagen’s MEB automobile platform, with the potential to include numerous sorts for all automobile manufacturers throughout the Volkswagen Group.
Going ahead, Volkswagen goals to have a look at rising battery applied sciences and get an early understanding of how new ideas and prototypes can face up to the corporate’s inflexible specs. These insights are essential know-how, as battery applied sciences proceed to enhance by way of vitality density, weight and value, and form the traits of an electrical automobile.
Volkswagen of America’s native engineering group in Chattanooga consists of greater than 100 devoted engineers in numerous roles, from chassis to driving efficiency, inside and digital applied sciences. With the BEL, Volkswagen is including extra highly-qualified jobs. Engaged on-site or distant through cloud entry, a brand new group of 30 engineers will deal with numerous climatic, mechanical, electrical, and corrosion exams of battery cells and battery packs.
They will replicate each climatic setting on this planet and scale between excessive settings nicely past what a typical buyer would put a automobile via. That is particularly vital in international locations such because the US—and much more so for the North American continent—with its local weather variations, from arctic chilly to abandon warmth.
Constructing the Battery Engineering Lab from the bottom up allowed Volkswagen to put in extremely specialised tools comparable to {the electrical} Multi-Axial Shaker Desk (eMAST). This distinctive machine permits for excessive vibration exams to simulate one common 12 months of driving (15,000 km or about 9,321 mi) in only one week. That’s the equal of driving from Orlando to Seattle 3 times in seven days.
Different major exams embody a drive-in local weather chamber that may match a bigger SUV mannequin, and the power to set temperature ranges between -70° to 130° Celsius (-94° to 266° F) to reflect lots of of attainable local weather situations.
The BEL can also be outfitted with thermal-shock chambers that quickly expose battery packs to altering cold and hot environments to emphasize their welds and fasteners, sturdiness exams with licensed, super-fine “Arizona” mud so as to add abrasive components and check the sealing of battery packs, and water immersion tanks to simulate water ingress situations.
The BEL’s deal with sustainability goes past its work, encompassing the power’s operation. When batteries are discharged throughout testing, the vitality produced might be transferred again into the constructing, and native public grid and scrapped supplies might be recycled.
Volkswagen has invested greater than $800 million to arrange its Chattanooga plant for the native meeting of the ID.4 SUV in 2022, together with devoted amenities for automobile and battery pack meeting. Since 2019, Volkswagen has already reworked 4 of its international factories to assemble these MEB-specific battery packs, with websites in Germany, Czech Republic and two in China; Chattanooga is the fifth one. Volkswagen employs greater than 4,000 individuals at its manufacturing unit, and goals to rent 1,000 new manufacturing group members via 2022, to assist meet buyer demand for the Volkswagen Atlas, Atlas Cross Sport, and upcoming ID.4.
