Skip to main content
Saturday, October 31, 2026Oct 31

This story is exclusive to subscribers.

Opinion: Weekend Dialogue – Don’t plan your Chattanooga-made Audi A-5 buy just yet

AP File Photo/Matthias Schrader / The logo of the German car manufacturer Audi is pictured on a Audi e-tron prior to a press conference in Ingolstadt, Germany, on March 14, 2019.
AP File Photo/Matthias Schrader / The logo of the German car manufacturer Audi is pictured on a Audi e-tron prior to a press conference in Ingolstadt, Germany, on March 14, 2019. AP File Photo/Matthias Schrader / The logo of the German car manufacturer Audi is pictured on a Audi e-tron prior to a press conference in Ingolstadt, Germany, on March 14, 2019.

An Audi future possibility?

Potential automotive workers probably shouldn’t start lining up in front of Volkswagen yet, but just a mention in a German automotive publication of a possible Audi production plant here — not the first time such a hint was dropped, according to Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp — is exciting news.

The publication suggests a twin plant to the VW facility at Enterprise South could be built that would turn out 150,000-200,000 cars per year.

Enhancing the possibility, surely, is the recent trade deal between the United States and the European Union that puts a 15% tariff on most European goods. Audi currently has no production plant in the U.S., but having one would eliminate the tariffs.

(Of course, by the time a plant could be built and cars roll off it, tariff-happy President Donald Trump will be at the end of his four-year term, and his successor may have a different view of tariffs.)