Audi could utilize Volkswagen Group’s U.S. plants — building alongside other brands — to avoid sweeping tariffs against all its vehicles.
In the landscape of “foreign automakers”, Audi is one of the relatively few brands that fully meets that description, as they currently don’t build any vehicles in the U.S. That’s a problem, as the Trump administration’s 25% tariff on new cars coming into America compelled Audi to hit the pause button on imports as it scrambles for a solution. Now, according to an Automobilwoche report, the brand may ramp up production in as many as three U.S. locations moving forward.
Before diving into the finer details, it’s worth noting that Audi has not confirmed details of these reported production shifts, at time of writing. Nevertheless, a spokesperson did divulge to Automotive News that it is “currently examining various scenarios” and that the company is confident it “will be able to decide on the specific details in consultation with the [VW] Group before the end of this year”.
“We want to increase our presence in the U.S.,” the spokesperson told the outlet.
Audi could use existing facilities to build up U.S. production
Unlike some smaller-volume manufacturers, Audi does have a potential ace up its sleeve, being part of Volkswagen Group. While Audi doesn’t currently build any cars in the U.S., VW does — and its Chattanooga plant could be one of Audi’s solutions to mitigating automotive tariffs. Chattanooga currently builds the Volkswagen ID.4 for the U.S. market as well as the Atlas SUV, employing 5,500 people in the process. Audi could build its Q4 e-tron, which rides on the same MEB platform for electric vehicles as the ID.4.
Volkswagen’s manufacturing facility in Tennessee is fairly new (coming online in 2011), but there’s another, even newer facility that Audi could also utilize. Scout Motors is currently building out a $2 billion facility near Columbia, South Carolina, with that plant aiming to produce the first vehicles under VW Group’s semi-autonomous Scout brand in 2027.
Sources told Automobilwoche that the company could — and, as none of this is confirmed yet, I have to further emphasize the word could — manufacture its Q8 e-tron SUV there, instead of in Mexico. Audi cancelled that model with the closure of the plant that built it in Brussels, Belgium (the Q8 e-tron, formerly known as just “Audi e-tron” until 2023, was imported to the U.S. from that facility). Since the Scout Motors plant is still finishing up construction though, it’s unclear where Audi could fit into the equation, and whether a potential decision to build a next-generation Q8 e-tron there could come in ahead of Scout production. There’s also the question of how bringing Audi in would affect Scout’s production timeline, if it affects that 2027 date or the new brand’s production ramp-up in the following years.
A supposed third site may produce the new Q6 e-tron model, which is currently built at its headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany. It’s unclear where the automaker would actually build it if it did decide to build models for the American market here, but it sounds like we’ll have more information on that in the coming months.
Rivals are better equipped to handle tariffs, at the moment
Unlike Audi, rival luxury automakers have been building vehicles in the U.S. for decades. BMW builds most of its SUVs, including its best-selling X3 and X5, at its Spartanburg, South Carolina plant. Mercedes-Benz has also been building SUVs outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama since 1997. As a result, they’re well equipped to weather 25% tariffs, while other companies build relatively few models here right now. Lexus, for its part, builds the ES in Kentucky and the new TX in Indiana. Volvo builds some cars outside Charleston, South Carolina, but most are still built overseas, and likely to be the hardest hit by these new tariffs.
