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by WILL FOLKS
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The bad news just keeps coming for crony capitalist carmaker Scout Motors – a subsidiary of über-woke German-based Volkswagen (and for the fiscally liberal, corporate welfare-supporting “Republicans” in South Carolina who keep throwing money at the company).
According to a new report from Der Spiegel, the paper of record in Das Vaterland, the launch of Scout’s United States operations – which are centered around a heavily taxpayer-subsidized facility in Blythewood, S.C. – have been delayed once again. The latest problems will add another year (at least) onto the company’s launch schedule – which has now been pushed deep into 2028.
According to reporter Alexander Demling, the latest delay is due to a combination of “technical issues” and financial problems at the company.
Scout was originally scheduled to start producing all-electric vehicles this year – although that date was later pushed back to 2027 as the company has had to renege on its initial all-electric pledge.
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“Scout was originally branded as an all-electric revival of the SUV of the same name produced by International Harvester from the early 1960s until about 1980,” Byron Hurd of The Drive noted in response to the news. “A rapidly changing political and economic climate has forced Scout to backtrack on its initial all-electric pledge. Now, it seems likely that the majority of Scout’s trucks and SUVs will be range-extended models equipped with onboard gasoline generators.”
According to Hurd, the company “has not shared any timing or product update announcements” in the aftermath of the Der Spiegel bombshell.
“Scout Motors is building on multiple fronts – we’re building a factory, we’re developing vehicles, and we’re building a company,” a company spokesman told FITSNews. “We’re making great progress on all of those fronts.”
Scout’s latest problems come as South Carolina lawmakers have been scrambling to appropriate additional taxpayer funding toward the company’s much-maligned Blythewood facility. Despite receiving $1.3 billion in incentives three years ago – a package rushed through the S.C. General Assembly in record time – lawmakers are now seeking another $200 million on Scout’s behalf to cover “cost overruns” at its massive manufacturing complex.
News of the latest bailout request was exclusively reported by FITSNews last month.
Lame duck governor Henry McMaster is also continuing to seek an additional $100 million in recurring annual funding for EV industry scholarships from the S.C. Education Lottery.
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Many state lawmakers have bristled at these latest bailout requests, but sources familiar with the budget-writing process say “Republican” leaders – including speaker Murrell Smith and ways and means chairman Bruce Bannister – have bowed to pressure from McMaster, and are seeking to funnel all manner of taxpayer appropriations toward Scout’s Blythewood plant in the upcoming fiscal year 2026-2027 budget.
“They are taking money from everywhere to give it to Scout,” a source tracking the budget negotiations told us, citing “lots of arm-twisting” by legislative leaders.
Some of these appropriations will be “exceedingly well hidden,” another source added – referring to conservation projects and unrelated agency appropriations that will be “repurposed” for Scout’s facility and its various environmental offsets. This is in addition to $50 million in funding for the S.C. Department of Commerce (SCDOC) that is reportedly tied directly to the struggling carmaker’s cost overruns.
Just last month, we reported that a “stream mitigation” project in the Sumter National Forest was being subsidized by taxpayers as an environmental offset for Scout’s massive, unfinished Blythewood plant. Commerce secretary Harry Lightsey also referenced taxpayer dollars tied to Scout’s environmental mitigation costs going toward the development of 5,000 acres of state-owned property along the Congaree River.
“The goal is to build a new state park,” Lightsey said.
A discussion of these additional bailout requests reportedly led to a knock-down, drag-out battle during this week’s closed-door meeting of the S.C. House “Republican” caucus – with many rank-and-file GOP lawmakers (who must face voters this spring) pushing back against leaders who support the handouts.
To recap: South Carolina made its massive investment in Scout at a time when the EV market was already showing signs of collapse – which is probably why no other state seriously entertained the project (save Mississippi, which offered a comparatively small $150 million in total incentives to the company).
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RELATED | SCOUT MOTORS’ BOONDOGGLE ROLLS ON
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Scout insists it is “not requesting the $200 million.” In fact, the company claimed it is not seeking any additional taxpayer handouts beyond the massive $1.3 billion previously provided.
“Scout Motors has not requested any additional incentives from the State of South Carolina,” company spokesman Jamie Lovegrove told us. “Period.”
According to Lovegrove, Scout has hired more than 1,300 employees to date and is “fully into the heart of the construction process… which remains on track.”
Scout has pledged to bring 4,600 new jobs and $3 billion in capital investment to the Palmetto State, but ongoing delays, cost overruns and broader pressures on the EV market are calling those lofty projections into question.
To say nothing of the efficacy of South Carolina’s massive investment…
Three months ago, Scout announced its intention to locate its new corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina – bringing an estimated 1,200 high-paying, corporate jobs and $200 million in capital investment to the Queen City. Scout chose Charlotte for its headquarters over Charleston, S.C. – an abject humiliation for McMaster and a slap in the face to the Palmetto State politicians who ponied up so much of the people’s money on the manufacturing plant.
FITSNews has consistently rebuked corporate welfare as a matter of principle – rejecting market-distorting crony capitalist subsidies and South Carolina’s escalating use of them to reward favored corporations at the expense of small businesses and taxpayers.
Instead, we have called on politicians to effectuate broad-based tax relief, not more bait-and-switch tax bills that provide a pittance of relief (and actually raise taxes on broad swaths of the citizenry).
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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3 comments
Cyrus Hall McCormick and William Deering (the founders of International Harvester) and Ted Ornas (the designer of the Scout and the Travelall) are probably rolling over in their graves to see what has happened to their once great name. An iconic ‘Merican brand now being slogged by an effete, woke, western European conglomerate of vehicle manufacturers who build effete, woke “automobiles”.
One of my biggest “vehicle” regrets was selling my Travelall in high school. Four people could easily sleep in the back on camping trips. It would haul as many 4×8 sheets of plywood and 2x4s as you could stack in the back – and it was a bunch, I once built a 8×8 shed with just one load (‘course the roof rack was hollering ‘uncle’).
The ’61 Scout 80 was “too cool” and too small for me back then, but I’d love to have one now.
Any form of wealth redistribution by civil government is shear folly. SC Repub party lacks any principles but Dems are far worse. This all goes back to We the People that have put these clowns into power.
Well the House budget has spoken, not a single dime more to Scout Motors. So Scout can figure out where to find $150,000,000 for the project overrun. I still say they’ll never produce a single vehicle at this plant. EV consumer sales are in the toilet. Might as well start revamping the assembly line for buses and garbage trucks.