Audi plans to spend $4 billion on its first U.S. factory in Georgia. Donald Trump shared the plan at a rally, while state officials put the site's future output at 200,000 cars per year.
The new plant will sit south of Macon. Crews will start work on the land well before the factory reaches full output in 2031. Gernot Döllner, Audi's chief, says SUVs will roll out of the site.
For Volkswagen, the parent firm, making more cars in America could ease a real cost issue. Trump's 25% tariff hits imported cars and auto parts. Every Audi sold in the U.S. comes from Europe or Mexico, which leaves the brand open to those fees.
Trump says the import taxes drove the move. He also hinted that firms making cars on U.S. soil could get better terms from his team. Whether Volkswagen gets any such relief is still up in the air.
BMW and Mercedes-Benz took the U.S. factory route long ago. BMW builds SUVs in South Carolina, while Mercedes makes them in Alabama. Audi is set to join that group, though its new site is years from full use.
Volkswagen does have a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Yet the Atlas SUV is its sole model from that site. Most of the brand's other U.S. cars arrive from abroad, with Mexico serving as a key source.
Cox Automotive puts the group's U.S. sales drop at nearly 10% for the quarter, with Audi and Porsche among the. Its share of the market stands at just 3.4%. Pretty small for a firm that ranks second in global car sales, behind Toyota.
America has long been a market Volkswagen wants to crack. One draw is the lack of Chinese car brands, which face import taxes above 100%. That means Volkswagen faces less direct pressure from firms such as BYD and Geely than it does in Europe.
There's also Scout. Volkswagen is building another South Carolina plant to make pickups and SUVs under that name. It expects those models to start rolling out before the Georgia site reaches full use.
But more factories come with risk. Volkswagen already has plants that make far fewer cars than they can, and that hurts profit. As Chinese brands take sales from it in Europe, the German firm may shut or sell four sites there.
For Audi, the Georgia bet means more U.S. output and less need to ship cars from abroad. Yet it also means a high new cost at a point when its parent group is trying to fill the plants it has.
The new plant will sit south of Macon. Crews will start work on the land well before the factory reaches full output in 2031. Gernot Döllner, Audi's chief, says SUVs will roll out of the site.
For Volkswagen, the parent firm, making more cars in America could ease a real cost issue. Trump's 25% tariff hits imported cars and auto parts. Every Audi sold in the U.S. comes from Europe or Mexico, which leaves the brand open to those fees.
Trump says the import taxes drove the move. He also hinted that firms making cars on U.S. soil could get better terms from his team. Whether Volkswagen gets any such relief is still up in the air.
BMW and Mercedes-Benz took the U.S. factory route long ago. BMW builds SUVs in South Carolina, while Mercedes makes them in Alabama. Audi is set to join that group, though its new site is years from full use.
Volkswagen does have a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Yet the Atlas SUV is its sole model from that site. Most of the brand's other U.S. cars arrive from abroad, with Mexico serving as a key source.
Cox Automotive puts the group's U.S. sales drop at nearly 10% for the quarter, with Audi and Porsche among the. Its share of the market stands at just 3.4%. Pretty small for a firm that ranks second in global car sales, behind Toyota.
America has long been a market Volkswagen wants to crack. One draw is the lack of Chinese car brands, which face import taxes above 100%. That means Volkswagen faces less direct pressure from firms such as BYD and Geely than it does in Europe.
There's also Scout. Volkswagen is building another South Carolina plant to make pickups and SUVs under that name. It expects those models to start rolling out before the Georgia site reaches full use.
But more factories come with risk. Volkswagen already has plants that make far fewer cars than they can, and that hurts profit. As Chinese brands take sales from it in Europe, the German firm may shut or sell four sites there.
For Audi, the Georgia bet means more U.S. output and less need to ship cars from abroad. Yet it also means a high new cost at a point when its parent group is trying to fill the plants it has.
