Of all the cars built at Volkswagen's Chattanooga Assembly Plant in Tennessee, it's not hard to argue that the Volkswagen ID.4 is the one most important to the automaker's future. It's VW's first modern all-electric model—a symbol of what's to come as it eventually moves away from gasoline, aimed squarely at the ultra-important U.S. market. And now, it will soon be a union-made EV as well.
They were the product of a newly energized and rather militant UAW—a union infamous for corruption scandals, close ties to automakers and ineffectiveness—that is dead-set on reversing decades of membership losses. And in recent weeks alone, the union drive at VW Chattanooga had faced staunch opposition from Republican governors in the South, all of whom oppose unionization at the many car plants in their states. The union vote was a groundbreaking one on multiple fronts.