South Carolina offers $1.3 billion to SUV maker

South Carolina’s governor said Monday he is going to ask lawmakers to approve nearly $1.3 billion to bring to the state a new electric vehicle plant by a Volkswagen Group-backed group trying to revive a brand that was a 1960s forerunner to today’s SUVs.

Scout Motors Inc. and South Carolina officials announced plans to start building new Scout vehicles, powered this time by electricity, for the first time since 1980. They hope to hire 4,000 workers for its $2 billion plant.

Scout is banking on nostalgia combined with an expected boom in electric vehicles. International Harvester made gas-powered

Scout vehicles in the 1960s and 1970s. Their shape and features continue to influence modern SUVs, and Scouts have had a niche fanbase of collectors ever since.

In the competitive fight to land electric vehicle plants, South Carolina is trying to join its neighbors providing billions of dollars in taxpayer help.

Georgia offered Hyundai Motor Group $1.8 billion in incentives for its first U.S. electric vehicle plant near Savannah. North Carolina appears to be offering Vietnamese automaker VinFast more than $1 billion in help for its first North American electric vehicle plant.

South Carolina is determined to be a big player in the electric vehicle industry and all the things that go along with it, like making batteries.

Gov. Henry McMaster signed an executive order in October asking the state Commerce Department to aggressively court businesses involved in the industry and give them one point of contact.

That appeared to work on Scout. Company officials said they wanted to act fast. They reached out to 74 potential sites across the country and South Carolina sealed the deal in two months, Scout Motors President Scott Keogh said.

“Some states were still shuffling paperwork after 60 days. This state had action,” said Keogh, who also is CEO of the independent company headquartered in Virginia and backed by German automaker Volkswagen.

Scout’s new plant would be built north of Columbia along Interstate 77. Groundbreaking and site work could begin this summer and the company hopes to have 4,000 workers and vehicles rolling off the assembly line by 2026, Keogh said.

When fully running, Scout Motors hopes to be making 200,000 vehicles a year, exporting them around the world.

The $1.3 billion in state help would go toward building a new interchange for the plant on I-77 and a railroad bridge over the highway. There would be other improvements to sewer, power and roads as well as grants the company could use for whatever it wishes to get the venture off the ground, South Carolina Commerce Secretary Harry Lightsey said.