VW Chattanooga plant, where ID.4 is made, votes to unionize in historic move
VW’s Chattanooga Assembly Plant has voted to join UAW, in a historic move on the back of several recent union wins in the US.
The UAW have had quite a year, launching an unprecedented strike against all three major US automakers at the same time last September. The tactic worked, and six weeks later the UAW had made a deal with all three automakers, winning big pay increases and other assurances from each of them.
The win didn’t just help UAW workers, though, as soon after the strikes closed, several other companies announced big pay increases. Workers at VW, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda and Tesla all earned pay increases of about 10% or more as companies recognized the need to compete for skilled workers with better packages.
UAW President Shawn Fain called this “the UAW bump,” and said UAW stands for “U Are Welcome,” highlighting to non-union workers that strong unions help workers across the economy, not just at their own respective shops.
After these wins, the UAW announced their intention to unionize all other US automakers at the same time – an idea which President Biden lent his support to. UAW encouraged employees from other plants to signal their intent to join up by signing a union card through the website uaw.org/join/.
Fain even said that when the newly-negotiated contracts with the “Big Three” come up for renegotiation (on May 1, 2028 – International Workers’ Day), that this time the negotiations “won’t just be with a Big Three, but with a Big Five or Big Six” – meaning that the UAW plan to have unionized other automakers by that timeframe.
And today, they’ve got their first big win.
Today’s VW vote was the first test of UAW’s strategy, and while votes are still being counted, 2,300 workers have voted yes out of around 4,300 eligible workers, meaning that even if all remaining votes are “no” votes, the measure would still pass with a majority.
Chattanooga’s vote makes history in several ways. It’s the first time in over 50 years that an automaker has newly unionized in the US, the first unionized auto plant in the US South, and the first time a plant owned by a foreign automaker has unionized in the US.
Prior to the vote, Chattanooga was actually VW’s only non-union plant worldwide. In fact, in VW’s home country of Germany, every company over a certain size must have worker representation, generally in the form of union representatives, on the company board.
The plant had conducted other union votes in the past, in both 2014 and 2019, but both failed by slim margins. But the plant has more than doubled in employment since 2019, along with more union momentum now than there was then.
Past votes lost at least partially due to opposition from republican state government officials who oppose worker representation. Today’s vote was opposed by Tennessee’s republican governor, Bill Lee, and republican governors from other nearby states.
Past votes were also affected by corruption scandals that left UAW’s former appointed presidents in prison. Current UAW President Fain is the first elected UAW president, as opposed to previous presidents that had all been appointed.
VW’s Chattanooga plant currently produces the VW ID.4 and the VW Atlas. The ID.4 was brought to Chattanooga in order to gain access to the US EV tax credit, and VW has considered bringing production of other EVs to the plant.
This was the first success of UAW’s new strategy, but it may not be the last. There is already another vote scheduled for next month at Mercedes’ plant in Alabama (a state where republican lawmakers recently passed a law to try to limit worker representation). That vote will occur from May 13-17, and if successful, would mean nearly 10,000 unionized autoworkers in the South over the course of just a few weeks.
Electrek’s Take
Unions are having a bit of a moment in the US, in recent years reaching their highest popularity ever since surveys started asking about them.
Much of union popularity has been driven by COVID-19-related disruptions across the economy, with workers becoming unsatisfied due to mistreatment (labeling everyone “essential,” companies ending work-from-home) and with the labor market getting tighter with over 1 million Americans dead from the virus and another 2-4 million out of work due to long COVID.
Unions have seized on this dissatisfaction to build momentum in the labor movement, with successful strikes across many industries and organizers starting to organize workforces that had previously been non-union.
However, union membership has been down over several decades in the US. As a result, pay hasn’t kept pace with worker productivity, and income distribution has become more unequal over time. It’s really not hard to see this influence when you plot these trends against each other.
It’s quite clear that lower union membership has resulted in lower inflation-adjusted compensation for workers, even as productivity has skyrocketed. As workers have produced more and more value for their companies, those earnings have gone more and more to their bosses rather than to the workers who produce that value. It all began in the ’80s, around the time of Reagan – a timeline that should be familiar to those who study social ills in America.
All of this isn’t just true in the US but also internationally. If you look at other countries with high levels of labor organization, they tend to have more fair wealth distribution across the economy and more ability for workers to get their fair share.
We’re seeing this in Sweden right now, as Tesla workers are still striking for better conditions. Since Sweden has 90% collective bargaining coverage, it tends to have a happy and well-paid workforce, and it seems clear that these two things are correlated. That strike is still continuing, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk – who just fired 14,000 people while holding the company hostage and begging for a $55 billion payday for himself – is seemingly uninterested in negotiating.
These are all reasons why, as I’ve mentioned in many of these UAW-related articles, I’m pro-union. And I think everyone should be – it only makes sense that people should have their interests collectively represented and that people should be able to join together to support each other and exercise their power collectively instead of individually.
This is precisely what companies do with industry organizations, lobby organizations, chambers of commerce, and so on. And it’s what people do when sorting themselves into local, state, or national governments. So naturally, workers should do the same. It’s just fair.
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![Genesis GV90 leaks as breathtaking ultra-luxe SUV with coach doors [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/11/Genesis-GV90-leak-coach-doors.jpeg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Genesis is gearing up to launch the stunning new flagship SUV. Ahead of its official debut, the GV90 leaked during an internal presentation, revealing our first look at the ultra-luxe electric SUV.
Genesis GV90 leak reveals coach doors and more
The GV90 is arriving as the largest, most luxurious Genesis SUV to date. Based on the Neolun Concept, the new flagship SUV will sit above the GV80 as Genesis expands into new segments.
As Genesis calls it, the “ultra-luxe, state-of-the-art SUV” stole the spotlight at the New York Auto Show last March.
It wasn’t the stunning, reductive design inspired by Korea’s moon-shaped porcelain jars or the premium Royal Indigo and Purple silk materials that caught most people’s attention at the event, but the B-pillarless coach doors.
The SUV was showcased with Rolls-Royce-like coach doors, offering a new level of luxury for Genesis. Although we’ve seen the GV90 spotted out in public testing a few times now with coach doors, we wondered if they would make it to the production model.
After the full-size SUV reportedly leaked during an internal presentation, it looks like we’ve found our answer. The Genesis GV90 leak reveals two versions: a standard model and a coach-door model.
The leaked images from our friends at ShortsCar offer our first look at the production version in full. Earlier this month, a GV90 prototype was spotted out in public with the coach doors wide open, providing a sneak peek of the interior.
From what was shown, the cabin will feature a similar layout to the concept, with high-end purple and indigo materials. The GV90 was also caught with an all-black interior, which is expected to be the standard version.
A new video from the folks over at HealerTV offers a closer look at the breathtaking interior ahead of its official debut.
The GV90 appears to retain the gear selector located near the top of the steering wheel from the Neolun concept.
Another report, from TheKoreanCarBlog, confirms the new gear selector after the first interior spy shots surfaced.
From what we’ve seen so far, the GV90 is shaping up to be a near replica of the ultra-luxe Neolun concept. Genesis has yet to announce a launch date for the GV90, but it is expected to make an official debut by the end of the year with sales starting in mid-2026.
Prices and final specs, like driving range, will be revealed closer to launch, but the Genesis GV90 is rumoured to be the first vehicle to ride on Hyundai’s new eM platform.
Hyundai said the new platform will deliver a 50% improvement in range compared to its current E-GMP-based EVs, such as the IONIQ 5. It’s also expected to offer Level 3 autonomous driving as well as other advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) features.
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Turning cheap daytime solar into electricity you can actually use at night just got a lot cheaper. A new analysis from energy think tank Ember shows that utility-scale battery storage costs have fallen to $65 per megawatt-hour (MWh) as of October 2025 in markets outside China and the US. At that level, pairing solar with batteries to deliver power when it’s needed is now economically viable.
Battery storage costs have fallen dramatically over the past two years, and the decline continues. Following a steep decline in 2024, Ember’s analysis indicates that prices continued to fall sharply again in 2025.
The findings are based on real-world data from recent battery and solar-plus-storage auctions in Italy, Saudi Arabia, and India, as well as interviews with active developers across global markets.
According to Ember, the cost of a whole, grid-connected utility-scale battery storage system for long-duration projects (four hours or more) is now about $125 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) as of October 2025. That figure applies to projects outside China and the US. Core battery equipment delivered from China costs around $75/kWh, while installation and grid connection typically add another $50/kWh.
Those lower upfront costs have pushed down the levelized cost of storage (LCOS) to just $65/MWh. Ember’s calculation reflects real-world assumptions around financing costs, system lifetime, efficiency, and battery degradation.
Cheaper hardware isn’t the only reason storage costs are falling. Longer battery lifetimes, higher efficiencies, and lower financing costs, helped by clearer revenue models such as auctions, have all contributed to the sharp drop in LCOS. Ember has published a live calculator alongside the report, allowing users to estimate LCOS using their own assumptions.
Why this matters comes down to how solar is actually used. Most solar power is generated during the day, so only a portion needs to be stored to make it dispatchable. Ember estimates that if half of daytime solar generation is shifted to nighttime, the $65/MWh storage cost adds about $33/MWh to the cost of solar electricity.
With the global average price of solar at $43/MWh in 2024, adding storage would bring the total cost to about $76/MWh, delivering power in a way that better matches real demand.
As Ember global electricity analyst Kostantsa Rangelova put it, after a 40% drop in battery equipment costs in 2024, the industry is now on track for another major fall in 2025. The economics of battery storage, she said, are “unrecognizable,” and the industry is still adjusting to this new reality.
“Solar is no longer just cheap daytime electricity; now it’s anytime dispatchable electricity. This is a game-changer for countries with fast-growing demand and strong solar resources,” Rangelova added.
Together, solar and battery storage are increasingly emerging as a scalable, secure, and affordable foundation for future power systems.
Read more: EIA: Solar + storage soar as fossil fuels stall through September 2025
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In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss a very telling Tesla Optimus fail, Rivian’s AI/Autonomy day, Mercedes GLB EV, and more.
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