At Scout Motors' big debut last night, the new designed-and-built-in-America subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group showed off how it hopes to deliver on some big promises. The Scout Terra and Scout Traveler are big, rugged, retro-inspired electric vehicles packed with off-road features, physical buttons and as much vintage charm as a battery-powered car can have.
While the truck and SUV both look striking, the event itself was much as we expected it to be—save for one big surprise. The Scout EVs will come with the option of a gasoline-powered range extender, an engine hopefully capable of boosting the trucks to an estimated 500 miles of range. Without the range extender, Scout is targeting its EVs to pack at least 350 miles.
That makes the Scout, at least in its "Harvester" trims, an extended-range electric vehicle, or EREV. It's a new and fast-growing class of vehicle that is built from the ground up like a purpose-built EV, but finds space for a gas engine that only recharges the battery. (Typically, these do not drive the vehicle's wheels at all, but merely act as a sort of generator.) Other EREVs include the original BMW i3, the upcoming 2025 Ram Ramcharger truck and planned new models from Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz.
In doing so, the automakers are turning to a time-tested friend—the internal combustion engine—to assuage fears customers have about range anxiety or getting stranded in a purely electric car. While that outcome is statistically very rare, helping customers beat their misconceptions is seen as key to EV adoption.
Moreover, since these vehicles are built as EVs, they allow automakers the flexibility to build up electric-specific platforms and batteries, with the option of perhaps moving on from the range extender entirely someday as charging networks get built out.
Gallery: Scout Traveler SUV And Terra Pickup Concepts
In that way, extended-range EVs are a kind of hedge on the future. Though EV sales have been rising steadily, they haven't taken off as quickly as automakers projected. And that situation may have raised eyebrows about Scout Motors' new, $2 billion factory in South Carolina, which was initially projected to only build EVs. "We've had some conversations on this front," said Scout Motors CEO Scott Keogh, referring to South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who attended the event last night.
Keogh and a company spokesperson confirmed that the decision to add a range extender was made fairly recently, in the last few months.
"I want to give the scout engineers a ton of credit," Keogh said. "It's pretty straightforward. Projected range over 500 miles, make the battery a little bit smaller, fill that space with the gas tank, and get the range that you see there."
Keough added that this makes the Scout platform and factory "future-proof" as the company should be able to adjust demand to the partially gas or all-electric cars as needed. That hedge may be necessary considering these vehicles won't arrive until at least 2027, and the market then is anyone's guess.
"It's still an EV," he said. "It's got the packaging of an EV. The battery will drive both of the axles and the engine will power the battery. So this gives you a proper EV experience with, of course, the generator."
It is unclear how much fuel the gas range extender will consume, but its carbon emissions are presumed to be better than an engine tasked with moving a vehicle as well.
What's also unclear for now is which engine will be used, or even what size will be able to do the job. However, a Scout spokesperson said that the obvious is very possible: that the company will dip into the vast Volkswagen Group parts bin for a motor suitable for range-extender duty.
This all could give Scout another edge over EV "startups," which the revived brand very much considers itself as opposed to just another VW Group label. The Scout truck and SUV could speak to buyers intrigued by EVs, but are still scared off by range concerns—something that purely electric competitors won't be able to offer.
Furthermore, developing an internal combustion engine in-house is extremely cost-prohibitive, so many startups outsourced them instead, like the old Fisker Karma's General Motors-derived powerplant.
As impressive as the Scout concepts seem to be, the word "Rivian" was on many people's lips last night. Besides the Scout trucks' obvious resemblance to the Rivian R1T and R1S, the California-based startup just inked a $5 billion deal with the VW Group to co-develop software and electrical architectures. It's an interesting partner to work with, considering that the VW Group is also ramping up its own outdoor-focused electric truck and SUV brand.
But Keogh added that Scout could benefit from that partnership too—not from any of Rivian's existing hardware or systems, but of the new technology being co-developed between the two entities.
"Rivian the car company, we have zero interaction, absolutely nothing," he said. However, "the joint venture company could potentially make the zonal architecture that is in this vehicle."
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
