► The new Scout electric truck and SUV
► VW’s new rugged and electric brand
► Our scoop unmasks EV truck plans
The electric revolution is changing the face of the car industry at breakneck speed. The Volkswagen Group is at the forefront of the transformation – and here’s a new ace up its sleeve, the rugged Scout EV brand and its proposed electric pick-up and rugged SUV pairing.
Scout Motors, to give the brand its full name, has been slowly settling itself down in the US, appointing executives and planting production roots in South Carolina. The brand has also confirmed that its first production car will be revealed in the summer of 2024, and is releasing teasers of both of its planned models.
Our rendering, by computer artist Andrei Avarvarii and pictured below, uncovers the battery-powered truck on the drawing board. It’s aimed squarely at the likes of the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T: practical, puritanical utility vehicles that remove tailpipe emissions from the great outdoors.
Insiders at the VW Group have given a few details of the spec to whet our appetites: the Scout electric double-cab pick-up blueprint is built around a steel and aluminium monocoque with a dual-motor powertrain providing up to 469bhp of grunt and all-wheel drive to lug serious cargo in its flatbed loadbay.
Scout: reviving a hero brand
The International Harvester Scout (below) was one of the first SUVs – a cult classic in the ’70s and ’80s in North America and a name that still gets respect today. VW Group is reviving the name for a new brand of vehicle: the ‘rugged’ e-SUV and e-pick-up which will be designed, engineered, built and sold entirely in the region.
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Particularly in North America, the electric truck market is heating up fast. Rivian’s R1T, GMC’s Hummer EV and Ford’s F-150 Lightning are already on sale. Tesla has also recently launched its long-awaited Cybertruck.
VW thinks it can stop the American brands having the market to themselves by acting now.
Why Scout will launch an electric pick-up and SUV
The Scout EV brand, led by former VW North America head Scott Keogh, plans to include an SUV (codenamed SC416) as well as the pick-up truck (SC417).
The aim is to use the new PPE platform (above) that’ll be used in the coming years across myriad VW Group brands and products to make the initiative more cost-efficient.
In fact, former Audi boss Markus Duesmann had pondered ‘a bulletproof zero-emission premium pick-up tailor-made for the great outdoors’ for the Audi brand. Meanwhile, Audi’s head of design, Marc Lichte, has already confirmed that a rugged 4×4 Defender rival is coming.
Electric car reviews by CAR magazine