Volkswagen Chattanooga is on pace to hire 1,000 more workers in the next year to build the ID.4 electric SUV in the third quarter of 2022 and add a third shift, an official said Tuesday.

While hiring will ramp up at the plant and put it at more than 4,500 employees, the factory is in pre-production of the ID.4, the battery-powered vehicle that is spearheading the automaker’s electric future in America, according to the company.

“Chattanooga is our heart,” Johan de Nysschen, chief operating officer said to the group of journalists in the city to test drive Volkswagen’s ID.4 electric SUV and tour the plant’s expanded body shop and new battery assembly facility.

Next year, the 3.4-millionsquare-foot factory will start production of the ID.4, a vehicle that VW officials have said is the opening salvo in an SUV EV offensive in America. While now produced in Germany, ID.4 assembly in Chattanooga is expected to lead to another hiring surge at the factory that employs about 4,000 workers now.

VW is spending $800 million to expand the Chattanooga plant, which now builds the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport SUVs and Passat sedan. But VW officials have said that Volkswagen Chattanooga will cease assembly of the Passat sedan this winter as it readies for EV production in 2022.

Story by Mike Pare, Chattanooga Times Free Press