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Company

Volkswagen drives bigger to fight the COVID-19 outbreak

Across America and around the world, Volkswagen has rolled out several new efforts to help customers and communities fight the coronavirus. Last week, Volkswagen of America and fabrics supplier Faurecia announced a collaborative effort to manufacture Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) items, with the first batch shipped to New York City’s Javits Center and other area hospitals. Working with Volkswagen strategy and logistics, Faurecia was able to quickly convert one of its factories to be

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Community

#TBT: The Petersen Museum on The Thing

Welcome to #ThrowbackThursday, a new weekly series exploring the far reaches of Volkswagen history. Please enjoy this story on the Type 181 (a.k.a. "The Thing") courtesy of the Petersen Museum. The first thing one might ask about this car is “what is it?” The simple answer is “it’s a Thing.” This was only true in the United States and Europe, however. In Mexico and South America, the simply shaped vehicle was known as the Safari, and in the United Kingdom it was sold as the Trekker. It was

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Company

Women leaders at Volkswagen talk about the road ahead

March is Women’s History Month and offers an opportunity to look at the progress women have made in the automotive industry and the challenges that remain. We asked four leading women from Volkswagen of America to share their insights about breaking into a male-dominated industry, their role models, and where they want to take their careers in the future. How would you describe your role and responsibilities at Volkswagen? Shani Jayant, Principal UX designer, Innovation and Engineerin

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Company

Volkswagen brings augmented reality to life along the factory line

In just the past few years, augmented reality has gone from a science-fiction idea to apps that lets you see how clothes fit, where to put your new home appliance or even to test how well you could have piloted the Apollo lunar lander. Now Volkswagen has put augmented reality to work in its U.S. factory. As the Chattanooga factory ramps up production of the new Atlas Cross Sport, and lays groundwork for assembling the next generation of Volkswagen electric vehicles planned to begin in 2022,

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Vehicles

The next electric revolution from Volkswagen begins with the ID.4 SUV

Electric vehicles for millions, not just millionaires. That’s been a goal for Volkswagen Group since its commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change last year, driving its aim to be carbon neutral across its fleet, production and administration globally by 2050. Here’s the first big step toward making that goals a reality in the United States: the near-production version of the ID.4 electric SUV that is anticipated to go on sale in the next 12 months. Based on the ID.CROZZ concept, th

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Special Event

Volkswagen celebrates world debut of mobility research as contributor to exhibit at Guggenheim Museum

In an effort to reframe the global debate about what urbanism means today, Volkswagen experts have teamed up with architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas, and AMO, an internationally acclaimed research and design studio for the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), to collaborate on a project that reveals the radical changes and transformations being made to the world’s countryside. This month marks the public opening of the rotunda exhibition, “Countryside, The Future,” at the Guggenheim

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Philanthropy

Helping train the next generation of auto technicians

Volkswagen recognizes the need for vehicles to be in the hands of students to help educate and equip tomorrow’s technicians with the tools necessary for future employment. Over the next few months, Volkswagen will donate 31 Atlas SUVs and diagnostics equipment to trade schools and career centers across the country. The goal? To help address the growing need for trained automotive technicians who understand both the hardware and the increasingly complex software in modern vehicles. With

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Company

Science fiction becomes real as Volkswagen puts quantum computing to work

Chances are, if you didn’t use your smartphone to navigate traffic today, you will soon. Millions of people rely on their navigation apps to not just point them in the right direction, but plot out a route around traffic on the road. These systems all work well, but they’re limited in their ability to map only individual vehicles rather than taking the entire system into account. What if a more powerful computing system could provide navigation that anticipated where traffic was building up a

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Community

Megan Rapinoe goes from soccer hero to Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year

It was impossible to ignore soccer superstar and social activist Megan Rapinoe in 2019. She led the U.S Women's National Soccer Team to a monumental world championship victory in July and made repeated headlines for her unapologetic stance against gender discrimination and racism. And now she can add one more honor to her banner year: Being named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year, the fourth woman in the award’s 66-year history to win it unaccompanied. Rapinoe is the only woman

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Company

Volkswagen teams with The Conservation Fund to increase the Cherokee National Forest

From fresh drinking water and wildlife habitats, to helping fight climate change and providing natural resources, American forests play an essential role in our daily lives. To help protect forests in the United States from development and fragmentation, Volkswagen, through a sponsorship of The Conservation Fund, will donate $1.2 million to help increase the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee by roughly 1,500 acres and support other woodlands projects. “We are excited about our partnership

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Vehicles

70 years after first landing in America, Volkswagen holds a family reunion

The first time a Volkswagen Beetle came to America was nearly the last. A private importer, Ben Pon, thought the small, odd-looking cars that were popular in Europe in 1949 could find the same audience here. Early that year, Pon shipped two Beetles to the United States and tried to recruit dealers. By all accounts, the reception was a cold one; Pon sold both with no fanfare, and lore has it one had to cover his hotel bill. But Pon had the right idea. The Beetle did catch on, as did the Bu

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Atlas Cross Sport

With Atlas Cross Sport R concept, Volkswagen races to the 2020 Baja 1000

More than 50 years ago, a loose band of hot-rodders decided to run their motorcycles – and eventually the first Volkswagen-based dune buggies -- through hundreds of miles of Mexican desert, practically inventing the field of Baja desert racing. Today, Volkswagen revealed its homage to that history – the Atlas Cross Sport R – and its plan to go racing in the 2020 SCORE Baja 1000. Built from a variety of Volkswagen and custom racing components, including a 480-hp, 2-liter turbo four-cylinder, t

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Vehicles

The Volkswagen ID. SPACE VIZZION concept previews a sleek electric crossover for America

For more than a decade, Volkswagen vehicles have been known worldwide for a variety of timeless designs built from a single common chassis. The MQB platform that forms the basic pieces of the Golf compact hatchback also underpins the seven-seat Volkswagen Atlas, and almost every other Volkswagen in between. At the Los Angeles Auto Show this week, Volkswagen revealed another example of how it will take that same approach with electric vehicles, with the ID. SPACE VIZZION -- a sleek concept cro

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Chattanooga

Mentoring the next generation of auto workers

The United States faces a serious skills gap, especially in manufacturing and information technology, which has pushed employers to find new ways of recruiting, training and retaining highly skilled talent. One solution: Paid apprenticeships, which combine classroom instruction with hands-on learning for skilled workers. Since 2010, the Volkswagen Group Academy’s Apprenticeship Program at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant has mentored, coached and trained nearly 100 apprentices. The Academy cur

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Vehicles

Volkswagen launches plant expansion to assemble electric vehicles in America

It’s been less than nine years since the first Passat rolled out of the then-new Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tenn. Since then, the factory has assembled hundreds of thousands of Passat vehicles and Atlas SUVs, and just last month began assembling its third model, the Atlas Cross Sport five-seater SUV. Today, Volkswagen and government officials marked the start of the process that will end with the fourth new vehicle rolling out of Chattanooga – and the first long-range electric vehicle

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Chattanooga

Four Volkswagen Chattanooga employees share spotlight in new campaign

Assembling the Atlas, Passat and upcoming Atlas Cross Sport in Chattanooga, Tenn., takes thousands of people working closely together. For the next several weeks, Volkswagen will highlight four of these employees in a new advertising campaign that demonstrates their passion for their work. From engineering and paint to assembly and final inspection, each worker introduced in the series shares insight into their life and how dedicated they are to their role in the assembly process. “I take so

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Vehicles

One letter that stands for performance: Volkswagen R

The story of VW R begins, as many things do at Volkswagen, with the VW Beetle. In the early 1970s, European fans of the Beetle prevailed on the company to create a limited-edition version for rallying, with upgraded suspensions and brakes. Volkswagen painted the cars in a special yellow-and-black livery and called them the Beetle GSR, or “Gelb Schwarz Renner” – German for “yellow-black racer.” Today, the spirit of that GSR and other Volkswagen motorsports efforts lives on in the Volksw

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Owners

‘It’s always about the kids’: Celebrating Kimberly Tuttle on World Teacher’s Day

https://youtu.be/dG2WFyTvk7g To mark World Teachers’ Day, an international celebration of educators, Volkswagen is celebrating Kimberly Tuttle and the positive impact she has had on her students’ lives. “This is my 21st year teaching,” Tuttle says, “and it is truly a dream.” A native of Blacksburg, Va., Tuttle teaches 11th grade English honors and advanced placement language and composition in Charlotte, N.C. Her excellence was recognized early on in her career by her peers and communit

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Vehicles

How plaid became part of Volkswagen Golf GTI history

No car has a claim to fame on a day to celebrate all things plaid quite like the Volkswagen Golf GTI – thanks to one woman’s pioneering choices that over the past four decades have become a symbol of driving enthusiasts worldwide. The Volkswagen Golf GTI’s debut in 1976 caused a sensation. Even though only a few details distinguished it visually from the original Golf, Volkswagen—influenced by one of the company’s first female designers—succeeded in transforming the compact car into an af

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Innovation

The next generation of connected cars arrives with Volkswagen Car-Net for model year 2020

For model year 2020, Volkswagen’s Car-Net® relaunches with new technology and a new approach. Many Car-Net features now come standard with the purchase of most 2020 model year vehicles for the first five years of ownership. A new Internet-of-Things architecture can allow future upgrades, like voice commands and package delivery. And via Car-Net, most 2020 Volkswagen models will offer available Wi-Fi capability. “Next generation Car-Net creates the ability for the car to become part of our cus

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Partnerships

Preserving a piece of civil rights history: The Jenkins’ Bus

Most vehicles that sit outside unattended for four decades aren’t destined to ever move again. But this 1966 Volkswagen Type 2 Deluxe Station Wagon isn’t just any Bus – it’s a piece of civil-rights history, and a memory of a family that spent decades working to make the country a better place. Esau and Janie B. Jenkins spent several decades fighting to improve the lives of their neighbors on Johns Island, S.C.  From the 1940s through the early 1970s, the Jenkins family built a network of

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Company

Watch the electric ID.R set a record on one of the most beautiful roads in the world

It’s known as “Heaven’s Gate” – the world’s highest naturally formed arch, with an opening some 430 feet tall and 190 feet wide, about 5,000 feet up China’s Tianmen mountain. A hallowed and scenic site for centuries, visitors can reach the gate on a road that ranks among the most scenic, and twisting, of any in the world, with 99 sharp switchbacks. Earlier this month, the Volkswagen ID.R team went to the Tianmen Mountain Big Gate Road to set the first benchmark there of any kind for a perform

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Company

Watch the Volkswagen ID. R take on its latest speed challenge – a racing drone

From Pikes Peak to the Nürburgring and Goodwood, Volkswagen’s electric ID. R race car has set records around the world, showing how electric power can transform vehicle performance. Its latest challenge isn’t a famous track, but another type of breakthrough technology – a racing drone. Launched earlier this decade, drone racing now sports thousands of players worldwide and several professional leagues. All feature tiny, remote-controlled aircraft capable of reaching speeds of 85 mph or mo

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Special Event

Flint brings back its historic Soap Box Derby, with a little push from Volkswagen Group of America

As the cradle of the American automobile industry, Flint, Mich., has always been a playground for four-wheeled innovation. In the boom times of 1936, the town held its first Soap Box Derby for children and adults to home-build their own gravity-powered racers. Thousands of fans and even the occasional national political leader would attend the events, which were held until 1995. Since then, a lack of resources has kept the event on hiatus – until this summer, when Volkswagen Group of America

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