2003 Volkswagen Bettle on 2040-cars

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Skoda unveils Volkswagen Up!-based Citigo

This is the all-new Skoda Citigo, and if you're thinking that it looks rather familiar, that's because its Volkswagen-badged kin recently debuted at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. That's right, the long-rumored Skoda version of Volkswagen's new Up! city car has finally arrived.
Buyers will have a choice of two 1.0-liter three-cylinder engines - one with 59 horsepower, the other with a 74 hp and a blistering 106 mph top speed - both mated to a five-speed manual transmission. Powerful they are not, but these three-bangers should prove to be extremely efficient, with Skoda quoting fuel economy numbers of 62.8 and 60.1 miles per gallon, respectively (on the European cycle).
Being a Skoda, the Citigo will go on sale in its home market of the Czech Republic this fall, with the rest of Europe getting the car next summer. Follow the jump for Skoda's official release.

VW V-Charge is clever automated EV parking, charging tech

Automated parking is another niche that Volkswagen wants to rule, so the German carmaker has teamed up with five technology partners to develop its V-Charge system. In short, V-Charge allows an owner to use a smartphone app to send his car to find a parking space and return when requested. If it's an electric car, it will search for an open inductive charging spot, and when fully charged it won't squat over the charger, but will move to find a conventional parking spot. Valet Charge uses four wide-angle cameras, three stereo cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and car-to-infrastructure protocols to avoid obstacles as it finds its way around, including areas like parking garages where GPS won't work. VW says it's been careful to use off-the-shelf sensors and technologies that are already installed in current cars, since it has an eye on near-term implementation of V-Charge. It's impossible to know what "near-term" means, but the sooner we can avoid the valet and trust our car to fetch a spot and come back to us like a faithful pet, the better. The video above shows it at work, the press release below has all the details. 'V-Charge': Volkswagen pushes development of automated parking and charging of electric vehicles - Parking spaces driven to fully automatically - Electric vehicles charged automatically - V-Charge places only minor demands on car park infrastructure - Intelligent form of valet parking Volkswagen aspires to holding the leading position in the field of automated parking. A look into the near future of automated parking is given by 'V-Charge', an EU research project, in which six national and international partners are jointly developing new technologies. Its focus is on automating the search for a parking space and on the charging of electric vehicles. The best part about it is that the vehicle not only automatically looks for an empty parking space, but that it finds an empty space with charging infrastructure and inductively charges its battery. Once the charging process is finished, it automatically frees up the charging bay for another electric vehicle and looks for a conventional parking space. 'V-Charge' stands for Valet Charge and is pointing the way to the future of automated parking. Wolfsburg, 14 July 2015 - In the USA especially, convenient valet parking is a big hit: you pull up in your car right outside your destination, valet service personnel park it for you and have it brought around again as and when you need it.

VW Chattanooga plant very close to UAW representation

After months of fighting from both sides, it looks like the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, TN, might unionize under the United Auto Workers after all. According to a letter acquired by The Associated Press, VW and the UAW reportedly struck a deal last spring where the union agreed to stop its challenge of the organization vote with the National Labor Relations Board to help clear the way for the CrossBlue to be produced in Tennessee. In exchange, the automaker would recognize the UAW at the plant. Leaders of the Local 42 at the facility reportedly signed the letter.
It seems that such an agreement would clear the way for the factory to unionize after months of dispute. According to The Detroit News, under Tennessee law, workers aren't required to join the organization. Although, that might not be a problem. As of a few months ago, Local 42 already claimed to have signed around 700 of the plant's roughly 1,500 workers.
Controversy has constantly swirled around the possible unionization at the Chattanooga plant. The UAW held its official decision in February and lost 712 to 626. However, there were allegations of intense political pressure to make sure the ballot failed. A later report also found that VW was offered $300 million in incentives well before the vote to make sure things progressed to the "satisfaction of the State of Tennessee," but the deal was later retracted. In July, the UAW opened Local 42 on the campus in hopes of signing up a majority of the workforce by volunteering to be a part of it.