COLUMBIA — Scout Motors’ employee training facility is open and ready to prep its first 100 electric vehicle assembly workers for jobs on the factory floor.
All employees hired by the electric vehicle maker will go through hands-on instruction, using simulators and mock work stations, at the center located on Scout’s Blythewood manufacturing campus. The training is designed to get employees job ready, whether the person has past manufacturing experience or not.
“What happens a lot in America is there’s theoretical training and then a real job. That’s not what we’re doing here,” CEO Scott Keogh said. “The training is directly aligned to what the workers will be doing.
“It’ll give them confidence. It’ll give them know how. It’ll give them belief. It’ll give them credibility to get the job done right,” Keogh added.
Inside the training center for a tour Monday, Gov. Henry McMaster tried his hand at an electronic paint spraying simulator, which paint shop workers will use to build muscle memory and develop the proper rhythm to prevent drips, runs or cracks in the paint.
Beside the governor, other workers trained with flashlights and measuring tools on how to visually inspect paint jobs for flaws.
And nearby sat a driving simulator for employees who will eventually test drive the finished vehicles, listening for rattles and shakes that could indicate a problem.
Elsewhere in the building, workers began their training at stationary work tables to build up the fine motor skills it takes to bolt each part into place. It’s here they’re also taught to keep their stations organized so as to seamlessly repeat their assigned task without missing a step.
Eventually those workers will graduate to a mobile station that moves along the floor mimicking an actual assembly line.
The automaker will continue bringing employees on board gradually throughout the year. It expects to end the year with anywhere between 200 and 400 initial floor workers on staff.
That’s on top of 76 factory workers who have already signed on with Scout last year.
“I always wanted to work in manufacturing. I wanted to be a part of building something real, something lasting. But everywhere I looked, the answer was the same: you need experience,” said Tashay Bates, one of Scout’s recently hired assembly workers. “When you don’t have experience, doors tend to stay closed.”
Bates’ parents, after hearing a radio commercial, encouraged her to apply. Out of 18 people who went through the pre-hiring screening process together, Bates and one other applicant made it through.
“Instead of being handed a manual and told to message a supervisor if you need help, I’m being taught, supported and encouraged every step of the way,” she said.
Before coming to Scout, Bates was a temporary employee working remotely and conducting retail investigations of thefts from stores.
“It was interesting, but something was missing,” she said. “I missed the face-to-face interaction. I missed being a part of the team. Now I wake up every morning at 5:30 excited to come to work.”
Bates said Scout also has given her a schedule that allows her to be home each day for her daughter’s gymnastics lessons and her son’s football games.
“Scout Motors isn’t asking me to choose between my career and my family. They’re making room for both,” she said.
So far, more than 17,000 South Carolinians have submitted their names expressing interest in one of the more than 4,000 jobs Scout will offer as it ramps up production over the next few years, Keogh said.
The Volkswagen subsidiary is on schedule to roll its first round of test vehicles off the line by the end of the year. Testing will continue in phases throughout 2027. And the final vehicles are now expected to hit the market in 2028, Keogh said.
At full capacity, Scout plans to produce 200,000 vehicles annually. That will include a mix of fully electric and hybrid-like models the carmaker announced in October 2024 that it would offer.
Meanwhile, more than 170,000 people have signed up to buy the first Scout vehicles when they come out next year. Congressman Joe Wilson is among them. The South Carolina Republican, whose district curves out to cover Blythewood, put his $100 deposit down for the truck model that will contain a gas-powered engine to recharge the battery while on the road, giving it an extra 150 miles of range between plug ins.
The $150 million question
South Carolina economic development officials still have one problem to solve between now and then — how to pay for $150 million in cost overruns at the site.
Lawmakers, in March 2023, already agreed to spend $1.3 billion to bring Scout to the Palmetto State. In the agreement, the state Department of Commerce and Richland County agreed to contract and pay for all mass grading work at no cost to the company, as well as any associated environmental requirements.
Flattening the site required moving 26 million cubic yards of dirt, enough to fill Williams-Brice Stadium 12 times over, Keogh said. The state also is building an interstate interchange and a rail connection.
“That was part of the deal, that we would make the site ready,” McMaster told reporters. “We’ll do what we said we we’re going to do.”
But the governor does not control the purse strings. And so far, neither the House nor Senate budget writers have been willing to pony up the extra cash.
Senators are instead seeking rules in the budget to further investigate the overruns. They also want to prohibit Commerce from funneling future money from its standing annual budget allocations to pay the Scout-related bills.
The full Senate is scheduled to debate the annual spending plan this week. The budget then returns to the House, where members could reconsider the request with the stipulations the Senate is expected to put in place.
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