Is South Carolina Ready for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs)?

• Self-driving cars now carry paying riders in more than ten U.S. cities. Is South Carolina ready for autonomous vehicles?

• Who is testing across the state line, and who is already working inside it?

• Are South Carolina’s OEMs, universities, and cities ready for the shift?

Is South Carolina ready for autonomous vehicles? This is a question that begs an answer.

Here is where things stand in November 2026. No company runs a public driverless taxi service in South Carolina yet. But Waymo is testing driverless cars in Charlotte, a short drive from the state line. Tesla appears to be preparing there too. South Carolina’s car plants are changing what they build. Clemson researchers are pushing self-driving work in a direction few people expect. And the state still has no full set of rules for driverless cars.

Why the Car Industry Matters So Much Here

South Carolina keeps growing. According to a 2023 moveBuddha study, it was the most popular state in the country to move to that year, with more than two people moving in for every one moving out. Lower living costs, mild weather, outdoor life and job growth all play a part. One of the biggest job engines is the car industry.

A February 2026 study from the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business, prepared for SC Manufacturers & Commerce, found that automotive manufacturing generates about $64.6 billion in yearly economic impact and supports nearly 120,000 jobs.

Trade tells a similar story. State export sales reached $38.5 billion in 2025, a seven-year high. BMW, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Michelin and hundreds of suppliers, along with a skilled workforce, have made South Carolina a hub for building cars. When it comes to manufacturing vehicles, few states do it better.

What Has Changed at South Carolina’s Car Plants

Scout Motors

Scout Motors, backed by Volkswagen, is still building its $2 billion plant in Blythewood, near Columbia. In July 2026 the company welded its first test Scout Traveler body at the site. It now points to customer deliveries in 2028. Its website had listed 2027 for the start of production, and an outside forecaster put the Traveler’s start between March and September 2028.

At full capacity the plant can build up to 200,000 vehicles a year. A $300 million supplier park sits on the same site. The ripple effect is already showing. In October 2026, seven Upstate suppliers said they would invest $82 million and add 200 jobs to serve Scout. Brose Sitech also announced a $29.5 million plant and 330 jobs in Richland County.

BMW

BMW’s Spartanburg plant is spending $1.7 billion on electrification, split between a $1 billion upgrade of Spartanburg and a $700 million battery assembly plant in Woodruff.

There was a scare along the way. In June 2025, battery maker AESC paused construction on a cell factory in Florence, South Carolina. In January 2026, BMW said it still expected to start building fully electric vehicles in Spartanburg by the end of 2026, with no risk of a cell shortage. The first model is expected to be the electric X5, called the iX5. The iX7 follows later.

Volvo

Volvo’s Ridgeville plant outside Charleston builds the EX90 and the Polestar 3. It will add the XC60 in late 2026, after about $1.3 billion in investment over a decade. Volvo has also said a next-generation hybrid built for the U.S. will join the line before 2030.

Redwood Materials

Redwood Materials began operations at its $3.5 billion Berkeley County site in November 2025. It can recover 20,000 metric tons of critical minerals a year, but it is not running at full capacity and has not given a ramp-up timeline.

Plans have shifted. The company no longer plans copper foil production in South Carolina, and most of its nickel and cobalt now goes to customers outside the EV industry.

What are Self-Driving Cars (Autonomous Vehicles)?

Autonomous Vehicles, also known as Self-Driving Cars, are defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) through a taxonomy that classifies the levels of driving automation. These levels range from Level 0 (No Driving Automation) to Level 5 (Full Driving Automation). Here’s the breakdown:

Level 0: No automation. The human driver performs all driving tasks.

Level 1: Driver Assistance. The vehicle can control either steering or acceleration/deceleration using information about the driving environment, with the human driver performing all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task.

Level 2: Partial Automation. The vehicle has combined automated functions like acceleration and steering, but the human driver must remain engaged with the driving task and monitor the environment at all times.

Level 3: Conditional Automation. The vehicle can perform all aspects of the driving task under certain conditions. The human driver must be ready to take back control when requested by the vehicle.

Level 4: High Automation. The vehicle can perform all driving tasks and monitor the driving environment in certain circumstances. The human driver has the option to control the vehicle.

Level 5: Full Automation. The vehicle is capable of performing all driving tasks, under all conditions, without any human intervention.

These definitions are part of the SAE J3016 standard, which provides a clear description of the roles of the human driver and the automated driving systems at each level of automation. The standard is designed to provide consistent terminology for the industry and help the public understand the capabilities and limitations of autonomous vehicles.

The Current State of the Self-Driving Industry

Waymo, owned by Alphabet, now carries public riders in more than ten U.S. cities. It opened to the public in Nashville on April 7, 2026, and it works with Uber in Atlanta, in neighboring Georgia. It is also testing in Chicago and Charlotte.

Tesla launched a paid Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025, at first with safety monitors on board. In April 2026, Elon Musk said Tesla had started producing its two-seat Cybercab. Tesla’s latest list of next cities, posted in October 2026, names Las Vegas, Jacksonville, Phoenix and San Antonio. No South Carolina city is on it.

Zoox, owned by Amazon, builds its own robotaxi with no driver’s seat. It offers rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Autonomous trucking giant, Aurora Innovation, operates in North Carolina and has planned future operations extending to South Carolina. Aurora Innovation and Volvo Autonomous Solutions are establishing an operational hub and regional headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, with plans to deploy a fleet of over 300 self-driving tractor-trailers in the state by 2027. South Carolina is listed among the future driverless expansion corridors planned by the company across the U.S. Sun Belt.

Safety is still the big question. Waymo says its service has cut serious injuries by 92%. One independent review found a large per-mile safety benefit for Waymo in three of the four metro areas studied, with Austin the exception. The same review said those results cannot be extended to Tesla, Zoox or any other operator. And WRAL has reported that federal investigators looked into Waymo vehicles not stopping properly for school buses. The technology is improving. It is not finished.

Who Is Pushing Toward South Carolina?

The honest answer is that the “party” is next door, not yet inside the state [yet].

Waymo began testing in Charlotte in late February 2026. By July it had finished mapping the city, and its cars were driving themselves with a specialist behind the wheel. The next steps are rides with no driver for employees, then public riders. As of September, Waymo had given no launch date. For comparison, Atlanta took 14 months from early testing to public launch. An industry analyst told the Charlotte Observer that a new city usually takes six to 12 months from first work to first customers.

Tesla looks interested too. In July 2026, Axios reported photos of 14 Cybercabs and 14 Model Ys with Texas plates in a Charlotte-area lot, along with job postings for test operators. Tesla did not comment, and its earnings report did not name Charlotte.

Why does this matter to South Carolina? Parts of the Charlotte metro area sit on our side of the line, including Fort Mill and Rock Hill. Once driverless service starts in Charlotte, South Carolina will have to decide how it feels about driverless cars crossing the border.

As of November 2026, I found no announcement from Waymo, Tesla or Zoox about testing or service inside South Carolina.

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Are South Carolina’s Car Makers Catching Up?

The truth is, South Carolina’s OEMs are catching up on electric cars first. On self-driving, they are playing a different game from Waymo.

Volvo, BMW and Mercedes-Benz all sell cars with Level 2 driver assistance, where the human must stay alert. Mercedes was the first to offer a Level 3 eyes-off system in the U.S., but it paused that rollout in 2026 and moved to a Level 2 system. Electrive reported in February 2026 that BMW also plans to drop its Level 3 Personal Pilot and focus on Level 2+. One 2026 review says Volvo has not sought Level 3 approval for any U.S. model.

Here’s my take. The plants in South Carolina will build cars with smarter driver assistance. The jump to driverless taxis will come from tech companies, not from the car makers here. That gives South Carolina a clear role for now. The state builds the vehicles. Others develop most of the driving software.

Where Is the Research Happening?

Most of the research about autonomous vehicles in South Carolina is happening in Greenville, at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR). The campus covers 250 acres and brings together universities, industry and government. Clemson also now offers the undergraduate automotive engineering degree, the first of its kind in the country.

Clemson has a partnership with the U.S. Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center, backed by $18 million in government funding. It is called VIPR-GS, and it builds virtual tools for testing self-driving ground vehicles before they ever touch real terrain.

In August 2025, Clemson graduate students unveiled Deep Orange 16. It is a semi-autonomous off-road vehicle built for emergencies. It can carry a pallet of supplies to a disaster area, map the terrain on the way, and drive itself back so the driver can stay and help. In 2026, a VIPR-GS paper on helping vehicles recover when they get stuck in soft off-road ground was voted best paper at a major ground vehicle symposium.

Clemson students also built the university’s first self-driving passenger prototype, Deep Orange 10, with guidance from Ford engineers. It was displayed at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport.

Does South Carolina Have Smart Cities Ready to Embrace Autonomous Vehicles (AVs)?

A smart city, according to IBM, is an urban area where technology and data help improve quality of life and make city operations more efficient. The U.S. Department of Transportation describes three hallmarks. They are networks of sensors that gather data, connectivity that lets officials talk to residents and manage infrastructure, and an open data approach that shares planning information with the public.

Fun fact: Waymo runs in cities by relying on its own sensors, maps and software, not on special city equipment. Smart roads help with safety and traffic flow. They are not a requirement.

Here is what South Carolina has been building.

Greenville

The city partnered with Sprint on a 5G-enabled network with the Curiosity IoT platform, which could support traffic management and vehicle communication. Years ago, Greenville County also won a $4 million federal grant to run driverless taxis at CU-ICAR, with up to $2 million more from the Global Autonomous Vehicle Partnership. I could not confirm that it grew into a public service.

Charleston

The city received a federal smart city grant and sought bids for a system along its Calhoun Street corridor, including Courtenay Drive. The bid documents say the system must send and receive vehicle-to-everything messages, which let cars and traffic signals talk to each other, and must support connected vehicles and future self-driving cars.

The State

SCDOT’s 2023 statewide traffic management plan lists connected and automated vehicle deployment among its strategies. Charleston and Columbia run their own traffic management centers.

The Rules Gap

This is where South Carolina is furthest behind.

No law in South Carolina bans self-driving cars. But the state still has no full set of rules for testing or operating them. Lawmakers introduced autonomous vehicle bills in 2013 and 2014, and they died in committee. The main AV-related law on the books is a 2017 exemption that lets commercial trucks using automated technology travel in tight groups, known as platooning.

The state did pass one law that matters for road safety. The Hands-Free and Distracted Driving Act took effect September 1, 2025, making South Carolina the 33rd state with such a law. It targets human drivers, not machines.

Other states have moved faster. In 2024, Alabama, Kentucky and South Dakota passed laws allowing fully driverless operation. Kentucky requires owners to file a safety and communication plan that police can use, and to carry at least $1 million in liability insurance per vehicle. In 2025, Arizona, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada and Washington, D.C. enacted their own rules.

What South Carolina Needs To Do Next

First, write the rules. A clear framework for testing, operation, insurance and liability would tell companies what is expected. It would also tell first responders what to do when a driverless car is at a crash scene. Companies will not invest where the rules are blank.

Second, build connected roads where they will do the most good. Vehicle-to-everything systems let cars talk to signals and signs. Charleston’s corridor is a start. More cities will need similar projects, and federal smart city grants can help pay for them.

Third, improve the basics. Self-driving cars read lane lines, signs and road edges. Potholes and faded paint make that harder. High-definition maps and better GPS accuracy matter too.

Fourth, plan for power. Fleets of electric driverless cars need charging, and the grid must be ready.

Fifth, start small. A report on two North Carolina pilots found that low-speed AV shuttles were not ready to run as regular transit. The lesson is to pick narrow, well-defined routes and measure the results before promising more.

Sixth, keep building partnerships. Government, universities, tech companies, consulting firms and automakers all hold a piece of this. Clemson’s work with the Army shows what that can look like. Tax breaks and other incentives can help bring AV companies to the state.

Freight may move first. The port-to-plant routes along I-26 and I-85 carry containers and parts every day, which makes them a natural test. I found no confirmed driverless truck pilot there yet.

Last, bring the public along. People need to hear about the benefits and the limits. Trust is built with honest information.

Conclusion

Autonomous vehicles are not in South Carolina yet. But they are no longer far away. Waymo is driving itself around Charlotte, Tesla appears to be circling, and every month brings another city onto the map.

South Carolina has real strengths. It has car plants with new models coming, a university doing serious autonomy research, and cities laying early groundwork for connected roads. It also has a clear weakness. The rules are missing, and rules are what companies and residents will look for first.

The potential is huge. National statistics show that drunk driving accounted for about 32% of U.S. traffic deaths in 2022. Researchers say driverless cars could take impaired driving out of the picture, but only if people ride in them instead of driving themselves. Driverless cars could also give independence to people who are blind, disabled, too young or too old to drive. Remote monitoring could flag maintenance problems before they cause a breakdown.

Today’s drivers will become tomorrow’s passengers. South Carolina builds the cars the world drives. It should not be the last place to decide how they drive themselves.

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