Two New Auto Assembly Plants in 16 Days, and Neither Is Built Around EVs

Audi and Honda announced brand-new U.S. auto assembly plants 16 days apart. Audi's plant in Georgia will be its first in the U.S. Honda's in Ohio is the first new U.S. assembly plant Honda has announced since it picked Greensburg, Ind., in June 2006.

New assembly plants are rare. Most automaker announcements retool plants that already exist. The most recent wave came during the EV build-out of 2021 to 2023 and included Hyundai's Metaplant near Savannah, Rivian's Georgia plant, VinFast in North Carolina and Scout Motors' $2 billion plant near Columbia, S.C., all pitched largely as EV plants. Several have since slipped. As of early 2025, Rivian had paused Georgia construction and was targeting production in 2028, and Ford had pushed vehicle production at its Tennessee EV campus to 2027, WardsAuto reported.

Add two expansions announced in the same stretch, by Hyundai in Montgomery and Toyota in Princeton, Ind., and four automakers committed about $7.5 billion and roughly 6,600 new jobs in 17 days. Single plants in the EV wave were announced at $4 billion to $7.4 billion each, so the dollar total is in line with recent years. The bigger change is in what the new plants will build and where three of the four chose to go.

Here is how the four compare, using each company's or state's announced figures:

Audi and Honda account for about $7 billion of the total and about 6,500 of the jobs. The other two are expansions inside plants that already employ thousands.

Only Audi is entering a new place. Honda's plant goes on land between two of its existing Ohio assembly plants, and the company names its nearby supplier base, its Ohio manufacturing and development operations and its L-H Battery joint venture with LG Energy Solution as reasons for the choice. Hyundai's and Toyota's projects sit inside existing plants. Montgomery employs 4,200, according to the Alabama governor's office, and Princeton employs nearly 8,000, according to the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

Staying put shortens supply lines and lets a company use permits, utilities and training programs that already exist. It also means new hiring draws on a labor market the company already fishes in. Honda's 2,000-plus jobs will come out of the same commuting area as its Marysville and East Liberty workforces, and the release does not say how many positions might be filled by current employees.

Honda framed its announcement as a hybrid investment. The release says the new plant can build hybrid, gasoline and battery-electric vehicles, and that Honda's hybrid powertrain capacity in Ohio will rise 250%. Hybrids make up about a third of Honda's U.S. sales, Bloomberg reported. Hyundai's Montgomery money is for engines used in hybrid and extended-range EV models, including hybrid versions of the Santa Fe and Tucson. Three weeks earlier, on Oct. 8, Georgia announced that Hyundai Transys would spend about $560 million and add 320 jobs in West Point to make electrified powertrains for Hyundai hybrids.

Audi has not said what powertrains its Georgia plant will build. Its release describes "premium SUVs tailored to North American customers," with production starting in the early 2030s.

The shift shows up in what was set aside. Honda had put a C$15 billion Canadian EV battery supply chain complex on indefinite hold in May and canceled three battery-electric models it planned to build in the U.S., according to Bloomberg. In Princeton, Toyota announced a $1.4 billion investment in 2024 to build an electric SUV there, then said in July 2025 that SUV assembly would move to Kentucky. The new Scion line is small by comparison, and neither Toyota nor the state has said how it relates to the 2024 commitment.

For communities holding battery and EV supplier sites, the practical read is that the near-term orders are for hybrid engines, transmissions and flexible lines, at plants that already exist.

Retooling an existing plant buys equipment more than headcount. Dividing each announced investment by announced jobs:

These are announced figures, not hires, and capital per job says nothing about wages. Hyundai's 53 positions average $30.03 an hour, per the Alabama release. The ratio matters most to whoever is weighing incentives, since a big capital number at an existing plant can come with very few new jobs.

Audi says Georgia offered "an investment-ready site, skilled workforce, established automotive supplier network and strong logistics infrastructure." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the state began assembling the roughly 2,400-acre Peach County site in 2022, long before it had a tenant, and kept marketing it while talks with Audi stalled. The AJC put the investment at $4.2 billion; Audi's own release says "around $4 billion," which is the figure used here.

Audi's release does not mention tariffs. It says local production will "reduce exposure to trade and currency risks." President Trump credited tariffs for the plant at a rally, the AJC reported. Honda says nearly 99% of the Honda and Acura vehicles it sold in the U.S. in 2025 were built in North America.

Sources: Audi; Honda and JobsOhio; Alabama Governor's Office; Georgia Governor's Office; Indiana Economic Development Corp.; Bloomberg via Transport Topics; Inside INdiana Business.