Scout, Volkswagen’s newly revived electrical off-road automobile spinoff, has formally discovered a house for its manufacturing facility. In a tweet, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster introduced that Scout will break floor on an all-new plant in his state.
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Gov. McMaster mentioned the $2-billion plant in Blythewood, South Carolina will deliver round 4,000 jobs to the palmetto state. According to Reuters, the manufacturing unit needs to be able to producing about 200,000 Scout EVs per yr when it’s totally up and working. The new manufacturing unit, constructed on 1,100 acres of land, shall be situated about 350 miles from Volkswagen’s present plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The outlet stories that groundbreaking is deliberate to begin in the course of 2023, and the power needs to be up and working for Scout manufacturing by the tip of 2026.
Last May, VW shocked the world by asserting it will re-introduce the Scout model, which was used on International Harvester 4x4s and pickup vans from 1960 to 1980. The new Scout will solely construct all-electric SUVs as a part of Volkswagen’s flip to full electrification. It would additionally present a brand new vary of utility autos for VW Group: As Reuters explains, SUVs now account for roughly 80 p.c of U.S. gross sales for VW and Audi. Volkswagen has not had a pickup truck in its lineup for the reason that Rabbit-based Caddy was discontinued within the Nineteen Eighties.
“We’re reimagining Scout’s original ingenuity and electrifying its future,” Scott Keogh, Scout Chief Executive, advised Reuters.
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TechCrunch explains that South Carolina made sense for VW for a few causes: the Inflation Reduction Act and incentives from South Carolina’s authorities itself. Back in October of 2022, Governor McMaster signed an government order that prioritizes constructing EV infrastructure, making ready state staff for these kinds of producing jobs or organizing EV planning underneath a centralized working group. With BMW’s Spartanburg plant and greater than 500 different automotive-related corporations using greater than 75,000 individuals within the state, South Carolina is changing into a hub of U.S. auto manufacturing.
Source: jalopnik.com