Volkswagen’s new electric vehicle battery plant is a big bet on EVs.
When electrical engineer Charles Abend opens the giant double doors to the temperature chamber, a new Volkswagen ID.4 emerges from a plume of ice-cold smoke. Tiny particles of snowy condensation flutter in the air above the car, just below the lights mounted in the chamber’s ceiling. As Abend describes it, temperatures inside this reinforced chamber can drop to -112°F to mimic the harshest winter conditions and to simulate the wear and tear of six years of Michigan winters in just six weeks’ time. It can also heat up to 356 °F to challenge the car and its battery under the most taxing summer or desert conditions. The set up almost feels like a space-age episode of “The Price Is Right.”