Audi Plans $4 Billion Georgia Plant With About 4,500 Jobs, but Final Approval Still Awaits Volkswagen Board

Audi plans to build its first assembly plant in the United States near Macon, Georgia, a project worth about $4 billion that the company says will create about 4,500 jobs and produce up to 200,000 SUVs a year. President Donald Trump announced the plan Saturday at a campaign rally in Perry, near Macon, with Audi chief executive Gernot Doellner standing alongside him.

The plant would sit at the Middle Georgia Megasite in Peach County and build Audi’s largest and most premium SUVs, Doellner said at the rally. Audi said construction is scheduled to begin next year, with production starting in the early 2030s. The state’s timeline is more specific: site grading in 2027, construction in 2028 and full production in 2031. A U.S. official told Reuters the plant is expected to assemble the Q7, Q8 and Q9 SUVs.

A Sunday defense, and a board vote still to come

Doellner defended the decision on Sunday, telling reporters the investment followed many months of planning and intense negotiations. “If the American president invites you, you accept the invitation. That is what respect for the office and for the country in which we invest demands,” he said. A final decision on the investment still has to be taken by Volkswagen’s supervisory board before the project can go ahead, Reuters reported.

The announcement drew criticism in Germany, where auto workers face job cuts and possible plant closures. A spokesperson for the IG Metall union said Doellner’s decision to stand with Trump during an election campaign was hard to understand, and said Trump wants to weaken the German economy, particularly its auto sector. Christiane Benner, the union’s head and Volkswagen’s deputy supervisory board chair, said it was right and necessary to improve the company’s position in the U.S. market, but that firm prospects for workers at all sites, particularly in Germany, must be clearly defined.

Tariffs and the Georgia races

Trump has pressed automakers to move production to the United States and has raised tariffs on autos, steel, aluminum and parts. Those tariffs cost Audi about 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) last year, the company has said, because it imports every vehicle it sells in the American market from Europe or Mexico. Critics of the tariffs say they have raised vehicle prices in the United States and delayed some automaker investments. Trump put the Georgia investment at $4.2 billion; Audi and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s office say about $4 billion.

The announcement lands 10 days before the November 3 midterm elections, in a state with competitive races for the U.S. Senate and governor. Trump has argued his tariffs are helping the U.S. economy, and Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio wrote on X that the Georgia plant would never have happened without tariffs. Reuters also reported that Audi plans to build 25,000 vehicles a year in neighboring South Carolina, at Volkswagen’s Scout Motors plant under construction in Blythewood, near Columbia.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.