Volkswagen to invest $800 million in new Chattanooga electric vehicle plant
Chattanooga, Tennessee will be home to a Volkswagen electric vehicle manufacturing plant. It will be the first manufacturing facility in North America to make vehicles using Volkswagen’s modular electric toolkit chassis. The $800 million investment will add 1,000 new jobs. Volkswagen says that it will build a new 7-seater electric SUV and will also offer the ID. BUZZ1 in North America, an electric concept version of the classic VW bus. Chattanooga is already home to a Volkswagen facility. In 2011, that plant became the first and only LEED Platinum automobile manufacturing plant in the world. Volkswagen expects the first electric vehicles to roll out of the new plant in 2022.
70-year-old Pennsylvania marathon world record holder learns time won’t count
Gene Dykes, the 70-year-old Pennsylvania resident who set the marathon age group world record at the Jacksonville marathon with a time of 2:54:23 (a pace of 6:39 per mile) has learned that his performance won’t count as a record. The Jacksonville marathon course where he set the record was certified by USA Track and Field (USATF) but not sanctioned by it. According to USATF, only races that are certified and sanctioned qualify for national and age group records. If Dykes’ time won’t count, the record will continue to be held by Canadian runner Ed Whitlock who, at age 73, set the world record by running a 2:54:48 marathon.
New study finds Antarctic ice is melting six times faster than it did in the 80’s
A new study has found that the ice in Antarctica is melting six times faster than it did 40 years ago. Authors of the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say the melted ice has caused sea levels to rise a half an inch since 1979. While that doesn’t sound like much, scientists warn that it is a preview of things to come. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak,” lead author of the study Eric Rignot told USA Today. “As the Antarctic ice sheet continues to melt away, we expect multi-meter sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries,” Rignot says a 10-foot rise alone is possible in this century.
