A basic title from automotive historical past was reborn yesterday when Scout Motors confirmed off its upcoming Scout Terra pickup and Scout Traveler SUV. Religious successors to the Worldwide Harvester Scout offered from 1960 to 1980; the brand new Scouts will arrive as pure electrical automobiles (EVs) or so-called extended-range EVs with a small gasoline engine onboard to recharge their batteries.
The brand new firm calls itself American. It designs its vehicles in Michigan and plans to construct them in South Carolina. However it’s a undertaking of Germany’s Volkswagen Group, which purchased the rights to the Scout title way back and determined to resurrect it pretty not too long ago.
You’ll not, nevertheless, be capable to purchase Scout automobiles at VW dealerships. The corporate plans a direct-to-consumer gross sales mannequin, very like Tesla makes use of.
On-line Gross sales Solely
Scout says each fashions will begin at costs beneath $60,000 and be accessible “as little as $50,000 with accessible incentives.” They may doubtless qualify for the federal authorities’s $7,500 EV tax credit score, although we gained’t know for sure till nearer to their launch date, anticipated in 2027.
Scout has already begun accepting $100 refundable reservations for the pair.
“From reservations and car gross sales to supply and repair, Scout Motors helps the buyer instantly,” Scout says. “One firm, one app, one login, one expertise.” The vehicles will promote at a set worth, the corporate says. “From the beginning, clients will know what they’re paying and may anticipate full worth transparency. Automobile buy transactions might be accomplished in minutes.”
Retail Facilities, Not Dealerships
The corporate says it would “construct devoted retail areas to have interaction clients in particular person.” However these is probably not conventional dealerships the place automobiles are offered.
Tesla takes an identical strategy. It operates its personal dealerships in some states. However many states ban firms from instantly working their very own dealerships. In these states, Tesla operates “galleries” the place clients can see vehicles and ask questions on them. However the firm doesn’t promote vehicles at galleries – clients are inspired to go residence and organize them on-line as a substitute.
In a handful of cases, Tesla operates dealerships on Native American tribal lands, that are principally exterior the authorized jurisdiction of the states that encompass them.
Tesla completes extra advanced repairs in service facilities and galleries. However, it sends distant technicians to restore vehicles at clients’ houses for easier repairs.
Startups like Lucid, Rivian, and now Scout have begun copying the gross sales mannequin. Scout believes that “roughly 80% of restore sorts might be accomplished exterior of a Scout Workshop, whether or not in a driveway or whereas adventuring.”
VW Sellers Sad
“Promoting automobiles direct to client has been a ache level for franchised sellers since Tesla disrupted the legacy mannequin,” explains business publication Automotive Information. Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian “have confronted fierce opposition from supplier commerce teams and state legislators.”
Scout might even see the identical. Reuters studies, “The Nationwide Car Sellers Affiliation mentioned it and state associations ‘will problem this and all makes an attempt to promote direct in courthouses and statehouses throughout the nation.’”
Auto Information studies that sellers “have made it clear that they wished to promote Scouts, with one retailer going as far as to say the community would beg for the chance to have such merchandise.”
Some longtime EV advocates, nevertheless, see the choice as a victory. Writing for InsideEVs, Kevin Williams calls the transfer “an enormous win for customers.”
He notes that off-road-ready fashions just like the Ford Bronco have proved fashionable sufficient to generate backlogs of orders, which leaves them topic to supplier markups. Scout, he predicts, may “be much more conservative” and “hold the pricing at sane, predictable ranges.”
