Volvo Cars says it will begin building the XC60, its best-selling SUV, at its Ridgeville plant next year. A second plan, to make the Berkeley County factory the only one in the world building the Polestar 3 electric SUV, is in doubt after U.S. officials barred Polestar from selling new vehicles in the United States.

The XC60 would add work to a plant that has never come close to its capacity, The Post and Courier has reported. It arrives while the plant is run by an interim manager.

An Oct. 1 Volvo announcement identified Benjamin Van Landuyt as interim plant manager at Volvo Car U.S. Operations. The previous plant manager, Miguel Tavera, resigned in June after about nine months in the job, for reasons that were not disclosed, The Post and Courier reported. Volvo confirmed his departure June 17.

Nicolas Guibert, who oversees global manufacturing for Volvo, then stepped in temporarily “to ensure continuity in operations and execution during the transition,” a Volvo spokesperson told the newspaper in a written statement.

“Volvo Cars’ priorities and strategy remain unchanged,” the spokesperson said. “Our Charleston plant continues to be the foundation of our growth plans in the U.S., and we remain focused on supporting our employees and preparing for the successful launch of the XC60.”

The Oct. 1 release did not say when a permanent plant manager would be named.

The XC60 arrives next year

Volvo announced July 16, 2025, that it would add the XC60 to the Ridgeville line, with production scheduled to start in late 2026. The company said it would build mild hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions.

The timeline has since shifted. Motor Illustrated, citing Automotive News, reported Aug. 4 that XC60 production was expected to start in January 2027. Volvo’s Oct. 1 release says the company will “officially introduce” the XC60 to the line next year, alongside the EX90.

Volvo’s president for the Americas said the XC60 would raise the plant’s output by about 20,000 vehicles at first, Motor Illustrated reported, citing Automotive News. The outlet put the plant’s current output at about 30,000 vehicles and said the added work would require at least one more full shift.

Volvo says the plant can build up to 150,000 cars a year. The company says it has invested more than $1.3 billion in its South Carolina operations since breaking ground in 2015.

The Post and Courier reported in September 2025 that the plant was turning out about 100 vehicles a day, or about 26,000 a year.

Polestar 3 plans in flux

Volvo said March 31 that it and Polestar plan to consolidate Polestar 3 production in Ridgeville, which already builds the EX90 on the same vehicle architecture. When Volvo announced the plan, the Polestar 3 was also being built in Chengdu, China.

A Volvo spokesperson told WardsAuto the consolidation “is planned to take place from the fourth quarter of 2026, onwards.”

Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson said in the March release that the move would create efficiencies for both companies and showed confidence in the plant.

That plan has since been clouded. In late June, Polestar said the U.S. Commerce Department had denied it authorization to sell vehicles in the United States starting with the 2027 model year, under a rule aimed at connected vehicles from companies tied to China or Russia, CNN reported. Polestar is majority owned by China’s Geely, which also owns Volvo. Volvo was granted a waiver in May, according to CNN.

Polestar said it would not appeal and would focus on markets where demand for electric vehicles is stronger, The Post and Courier reported Aug. 2, describing the company’s South Carolina expansion plans as in flux. Europe accounts for about 80% of Polestar’s sales and the United States about 6%, the company said, according to the newspaper.

Volvo’s Oct. 1 release does not mention the Polestar 3. Volvo also says it plans to add a next-generation hybrid model, designed for U.S. buyers, to the Ridgeville line before 2030.

Jobs and training

The Post and Courier reported in September 2025 that the plant employed about 2,000 people and that Volvo planned to grow that number to 4,000 as production rises. Starting pay was $23 an hour, plant staff told the newspaper.

In June, the paper reported that employment was expected to double to about 4,000 under the expansion.

In May 2025, Volvo said it would lay off about 125 workers, or about 5% of the workforce. A company spokesperson told The Post and Courier the cuts were “part of our announced shift to regionalization and in response to challenging macro conditions.”

Volvo is now courting future workers. Its first Factory Fridays program invites graduating high school seniors from the Charleston area to tour the plant, test their technical skills and meet members of the operations team on four Fridays beginning Oct. 9, the company said.

“As South Carolina’s manufacturing industry continues to grow, so does the need for a skilled workforce,” Van Landuyt said in the release.

Volvo is also taking applications for its Volvo Accelerator Program, a separate workforce readiness program for graduating seniors. It is held over four Saturdays, with a final assessment in the spring semester, according to the company.

Why now: tariffs

Volvo’s leaders have linked the push to fill the plant to U.S. tariffs on imported cars.

“What we are doing is first of all, we want to fill our factory we have in South Carolina. It should be the strategic asset it was intended to be,” Samuelsson told CNBC in July 2025. He added that with tariffs in place, it made sense to bring in a high-volume model, the XC60.

At a Ridgeville event in September 2025, Samuelsson said tariffs had sped up the company’s production plans, The Post and Courier reported. “To have faster deliveries, we need to build where we sell,” he said.

Building the XC60 in South Carolina will not shield Volvo from tariffs entirely, Motor Illustrated reported, because the company will still import parts from Europe.

How full the plant could get

Volvo’s chief industrial operations officer, Francesca Gamboni, said in September 2025 that the XC60 should bring the plant to about 50% to 60% of its capacity, The Post and Courier reported. She said the planned hybrid would take it to 100%.

An earlier version of this story did not report that Polestar is barred from selling new vehicles in the United States starting with the 2027 model year, or how that affects the Polestar 3 plan.