Scout Motors says it has started welding, painting, and assembling validation vehicles at its Production Center in Blythewood, South Carolina, a step toward production of the Scout Traveler SUV and Scout Terra truck. The company announced the milestone on November 12, 2026, and said customer deliveries of new Scout vehicles are expected to begin in 2028.
Scout says the validation builds let it check vehicle engineering, buildability, and parts maturity while confirming that newly installed equipment works as expected. Construction at the site is in its final phase and most manufacturing equipment is installed, according to the company. Validation builds will continue into 2027 as Scout prepares for its next phase of pre-production vehicle builds.
In the factory’s Body Shop, about 160 individual parts come together to form each vehicle body, and more than 750 robots support the operation. Each completed body contains about 5,000 weld points, and Scout uses AI-supported weld monitoring and measurement systems to check weld performance and dimensional accuracy. The Body Shop is designed to process about 40 vehicles per hour at full capacity, and the plant also has an electrified Paint Shop.
Scout is investing more than $2 billion in the Production Center, which is expected to create more than 4,000 jobs. “What we are building in Blythewood is no longer a promise on paper,” said Scott Keogh, Scout Motors president and CEO. “Our equipment is coming to life, and our teams are building our first validation vehicles right here in the factory.”
The Traveler and Terra will be offered as pure electric models and as extended-range models with an onboard generator. On its Traveler page, Scout says pure electric models are projected to offer up to 350 miles of range and extended-range models 500 miles or more.