VW to Hire 800 New Workers at its Chattanooga Plant to Meet Growing Demand for Passat

Business is going good for Volkswagen and its new Tennessee manufacturing facility, which builds the North American Passat. The company today announced that it would be adding 800 new jobs at the factory to meet rising customer demand for the mid-size sedan model.

This latest move comes on top of a previous announcement this year of 200 additional jobs at the Chattanooga plant, bringing the total new jobs in 2012 to 1,000 and the total workforce to 3,500 by year-end.

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Volkswagen Releases Pricing for UK Market Passat Alltrack

The new Volkswagen Passat Alltrack is now available for order in Britain with the first cars arriving in dealer lots on May 28. The high-riding, crossover version of the Passat Estate is offered in one trim level and a choice of two diesel engines, both of which are equipped with VW's 4MOTION four-wheel drive system as standard.

The base model is powered by a 2.0-liter TDI producing 138bhp (140PS) linked to a 6-speed manual gearbox and is priced at £28,475. It returns a combined fuel economy of 49.6mpg UK (41.3mpg US or 5.7lt/100km) with CO2 emissions of 150g/km.

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CPT's LC Super Hybrid Volkswagen Passat to Debut at the Geneva Motor Show

Zero emission vehicles are as "green" as you can get, but fuel cells are still a long way from mass production and EVs' limited range and high prices are a deterrent for a large percentage of new car buyers. Hybrids, while more affordable, still command a higher price than regular models.

And here's where UK-based Controlled Power Technologies (CPT) and U.S. Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC) come into the picture.

The two companies have teamed up to develop the LC Super Hybrid, which is a new technology that promises to lower a gasoline engine’s consumption to levels comparable to a diesel, but at a much lower cost that a traditional hybrid.

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