Volkswagen will be building its reborn, all-electric Scout off-roader in South Carolina, which means the new Scout will be Made in the USA!
Executives at the new, Volkswagen-owned off-road brand Scout Motors said on Friday that they intended to invest more than $2 billion in a new electric car manufacturing plant near Columbia, South Carolina. The new plant would build Scout-branded pickups and SUVs, and could potentially create more than 4,000 high-paying, permanent US jobs.
Volkswagen will need all those new workers, too – the company plans to build more than 200,000 all-electric Scout vehicles (but not, crucially, VW-branded vehicles) annually at the new South Carolina facility!
The groundbreaking for the new factory is scheduled for this summer, with production slated to begin in earnest in 2026.
The “Scout” brand invokes the old International-brand SUV nameplate, but will be operated as an independent American company that “just happens to be owned by” the German Volkswagen Group that also owns the Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Ducati brands.
Volkswagen is currently evaluating the potential for outside investment in the new Scout company, which should just be read as “SPAC merger,” at this point in 2023. “We’re reimagining Scout’s original ingenuity and electrifying its future,” said Scout Chief Executive Scott Keogh.
Volkswagen has moved away from cars in the United States as it adds more electric models. SUVs now account for about 80% of the US sales of the group’s VW and Audi brands. VW last sold a pickup in the United States in the early 1980s.
SOURCE: REUTERS.
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2 Responses
Please make the new Scout rust proof! My late 70’s US-made scout turned out to be a ‘rust bucket.’
Hope it has great operating range as ‘current bushes’ don’t grow everywhere in the woods!
I’ll do what I can.