Day: March 4, 2023

• VW’s new Scout-branded vans and SUVs are scheduled for 2026, and now we all know they are going to be constructed within the Palmetto State.
  
• The $2 billion plant will create an estimated 4000 jobs and can have the ability to produce 200,00zero EVs a 12 months.
• At present, VW builds the ID.Four in Chattanooga and has plans to extend EV manufacturing there, however the South Carolina plan can be Scout-specific.

Volkswagen will construct electrical automobiles for its upcoming Scout Motors model in South Carolina, the corporate introduced this week. The EV plant can be VW’s second automobile manufacturing facility within the U.S., but it surely will not make something however Scout fashions.

VW’s board of administration has introduced that the corporate will construct a brand new meeting plant for Scout automobiles in Blythewood, South Carolina, at a price of $2 billion. The plant is predicted to start producing an electrical pickup truck and “rugged” SUVs with the Scout title in 2026. The brand new Scout EV plant will create an estimated 4000 jobs and have the ability to make over 200,00zero automobiles a 12 months when totally operational. These will all be Scout automobiles, not EVs for different VW manufacturers, a VW spokesperson instructed Automotive Information.

VW at present operates one manufacturing unit within the U.S., in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The corporate introduced final Could that it’s going to spend over $7 billion in North America over 5 years to “enhance its product portfolio, regional R&D, and manufacturing capabilities” within the area. Volkswagen began constructing the ID.4 in Chattanooga in July 2022, with plans to provide 7000 EVs a month. This quantity ought to enhance all through 2023. The automaker additionally began up a battery engineering laboratory in Chattanooga final 12 months and has mentioned it intends to “construct up” battery cell manufacturing within the U.S.

The brand new Scout plant suits in with different commitments VW made as a part of the $7.1 billion announcement from final Could. At the moment, VW mentioned it might launch not solely the American-assembled ID.Four in 2022 but in addition the ID. Buzz in 2024 and “new electrical SUVs from 2026.” VW additionally builds EVs in Europe and China and has talked a few new Canadian battery plant.

VW took management of the Scout model in 2021 when it acquired Navistar (which was the successor to Worldwide Harvester, which created the unique Scout). VW formally revived the model in 2022. Scout Motors CEO Scott Keogh, previously CEO and president of Volkswagen Group of America, wrote in regards to the plant on LinkedIn and mentioned that “What began in 1960 comes full circle right this moment. Scout is as soon as once more reimagining the adventures that an off-road automobile can ship – solely this time, it is with an all-electric platform. In the present day, we’re nearer than ever to placing an essential American icon on the street.”

Nowhere in these manufacturing unit bulletins did we be taught any particulars in regards to the automobiles themselves, however Keogh’s phrases trace at some all-electric outside enjoyable is on the way in which. “Scout has at all times been the automobile that takes your loved ones tenting and in addition reveals up on the job website each morning,” he wrote. “This isn’t altering. Scout’s versatility stays intact, and America’s love of driving can be revived.”