Audi announced Saturday that it will spend about $4 billion on its first factory in the United States, a plant expected to employ roughly 4,500 people in Peach County, Georgia. The company has not said what those jobs will pay, and state and local officials have not disclosed the value of the incentives behind the deal.
The plant will sit on the 1,474-acre Middle Georgia megasite along Georgia Highway 96, near Interstate 75. About 44% of Peach County’s residents are Black, according to census-based figures, and the project is a joint effort with neighboring Macon-Bibb County, where roughly 55% of residents are Black. Fort Valley, the Peach County seat, is home to Fort Valley State University, an HBCU.
President Donald Trump made the announcement first, at a rally in Perry, Georgia, on Saturday night, with Audi chief executive Gernot Döllner on stage. It came days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Gov. Brian Kemp and Döllner then announced the project formally.
“We are proud that Audi has selected Georgia as the home of their first U.S. manufacturing facility, delivering truly historic investment and jobs,” Kemp said. Döllner said, “Georgia will play a central role” in the company’s ambitions for Audi in America.
The timeline is long. Site grading begins in 2027, construction in 2028, and full production, up to 200,000 premium SUVs a year, is expected in 2031. Georgia Quick Start, the state’s workforce training program, will build a training center with the Technical College System of Georgia, with curriculum for assembly, maintenance and advanced manufacturing roles, and training will begin during construction.
On pay, the announcement says only that wages will be “competitive with other jobs in the local market.” It gives no ranges, no starting rate and no word on whether the plant will be unionized. The Mid-Georgia Gateway Joint Development Authority, the three-county body formed in May 2026 by Peach, Houston and Macon-Bibb counties, is behind the project. Macon-Bibb Mayor Lester Miller said the investment’s impact “will be felt for many decades.”
The deal arrives while Audi’s parent, Volkswagen, is cutting jobs at home in Germany and absorbing the cost of Trump’s tariffs on imported cars. Building in the US lets Audi sell vehicles made inside the tariff wall.
Whether the plant’s jobs reach the Black residents of the surrounding counties will depend on the hiring and pay terms, none of which have been published. The next public step is the grading work scheduled for 2027.
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