Official: Scout EV SUV & Pickup debut w/ Gas Range Extender EREV, 4x4, BOF, Lockers, Sway Bar Disconnect -- All Specs, Wallpapers, Videos

[VandalSibs]

They say that dogs resemble their owners. The same could perhaps apply to CEOs of auto companies and their cars. One day, if RJ gets contract lenses, the front of the Rivians might resemble the Scout. That would be a big improvement, in my opinion. Ditch the spectacles!

Cars are designed to appeal to humankind's instinct to tame the beast. That's why the front of most of them look like saber-toothed tigers, cats, dogs, oxen, etc. The Scout headlights are narrow slits evocative of dominance. To me they look like horse pupils.They're not generally characters from Despicable Me or Minions.

Why do all cars have to be aggressive, primal beasts? Is there something wrong with wanting a vehicle to bring a feeling of joy and potentially happiness instead of a need to attack?

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[ksumnole]

This guy just eats too much red meat. Someone send him a yogurt or something…

 

[Administrator]

Scout Traveler Ghost Rallye Stripes Colors Previews

 

[Administrator]

Scout Traveler Displayed in Denver




March 2025 Scout Production Plant Construction Update

 

[Administrator]

Confirmed: Scout Range Extender Harvester EREV Engine is 4-Cylinder and Built in Mexico

 

[Administrator]

Cabana top opening in action (videos)

 

[Administrator]

Scout Concepts to be at 2025 IH Scout & Truck Nationals in Ohio (June 13-15)








April 2025 Scout Production Plant Construction Update







White Scout Traveler SUV Design Buck Prototype Photos

 

[Administrator]

Revealed: Green Scout Traveler Off-Road Concept

 

[theonetruestripes]

Traveler is bigger than an R1S which is already too big for me. I don't care anything about solid rear axles and locking differentials. And the gas extender thing... I'm really honestly not sure how I feel about that yet. More range, sure, but what does it do to battery pack size, complexity, and safety.

It doesn’t do anything to the battery pack size and complexity. As far as the battery pack is concerned it is another power input much like the existing power input for the region brakes.

As far as the overall vehicle yes it is a gas engine and they have a lot of parts and complexity compared to anything an EV normally has (except the computers). However if you make an engine from the ground up designed to be a generator engine you can avoid a lot of complexity, it only has to be efficient in a narrow RPM band. It is a little complexity for the BMS because from what I can tell it doesn’t generate as much power as the maximum the EV wants for it’s motors so for something like towing the BMS needs to call for the extra power well in advance. Say run the batteries down by a third and start the generator so pulling 50kW out per second and pouring only 35kW in per second ends up getting you to around out of gas and battery at the same time. Otherwise you might end up out of battery with the gas engine still chugging along but not giving you enough power to drive at full capacity, only to sit and charge or maybe drive 40MPH...

Even that is achievable, although their current solution is to have a “heavy duty use” physical toggle switch you should throw if you know you are going to want to tow more then say 150 miles...

...and I can already say I’m kind of interested in a range extender but basically only for long distance towing. Which I’m not sure I’ll really be doing enough to justify an expensive option (a stand along generator is $1k, I don’t trust VW to build it into an EV for less then $8k...and at that price I’m not sure I want to pay for it!).

They also said it tracks the one other complexity -- it estimates how old the oldest gas in the tank is, and makes you burn it off before it gets “too old”. They are talking about maybe measuring how much humidity is in it rather than just going with the age, which would be cool. I’ve owned hybrids before that do the age thing, if the tank has gas over a year old they force the system into “burn gas for electricity” mode early until they are sure “the old stuff” is gone. Generally it is no problem. If you really wanted to be stealthy it can be a minor issue. If you are on a very long trip and found a part of the country where you are between gas stations it could in theory be an issue, but in practice it won’t be (it starts early, it still gets the same number of kWh out of the gas, so you will get the same range out of the gas plus battery power you started with, it’ll just start burning the gas when the batteries are at say 75% not 20% or 30%....or whatever the default low battery when the generator autostarts is).

The generator will take cargo space from you though (in the BMW i2 or i3, whatever has one it basically takes the rear trunk space, or the sub trunk at least).

 

[theonetruestripes]

Looks nice, but it's just a concept at this point, and some of those features may not make it to production

VW especially seems to lose lot and lots of features between concept and execution. I still remember the VW.Buzz was going to have a flat rear area and removable rear seats (it doesn’t have any of that, the battery pack is largely above the floor in the rear! Bad for seating, bad for cargo, bad for handling). Plus a steering wheel that would retract all the way into the dash for self driving & for rest stops.

I didn’t like the retracting for FSD (if I’m in the driver’s seat I want to be able to take control in an emergency, not wait 3 seconds for the wheel to slowly extend out of the dash!), but it would be awesome for eating a meal during a charging stop!! Awesome, and unavailable. Removed feature probbably because the designers had FSD only in mind and the extra room during a rest stop was an after thought.

and their software apparently is so awful they are paying Rivian billions for software etc. If Scout succeeds, Rivian will succeed as well.

Well I can only assume Scout’ll have Rivian’s software, or at least Rivian’s software at the layers where it really really really matter. So I don’t think software is likely to hold the Scout back like it has for other VW EVs.

And that’s OK. 300M+ people in the US. It’s good to have options.

I think the heritage factor is attractive. The buttons is a big deal for many people.

Bingo! I really love EVs. My wife has been largely indifferent prior to the R1 which she loves (and to be fair it was a shock to her, she was like “it’s you car, I agreed because you were excited about it and it doesn’t really impact me...but...wow, I don’t normally love a car, and I love this one!”). Seeing the Scout she doesn’t like much about it, but she loves the buttons. Which is interesting because of all the things she has disliked about the HVAC on the last several vehicles the on screen controls aren’t really responsible for. Like she ends up with heat or cold she doesn’t want in her zone because of settings in one of the other zones.

She doesn’t like that, and it hasn’t been different in any of the prior cars with duel (or multi) zone we had before EVs and before touch screens. Like my ’99 Volvo bugged her because she could dial in heat on her side and still have cold because it runs the A/C when the driver side needs cooling and just adjusts the fan speed on the passenger speed. That car was all physical controls.

She still attributes that particular feature to screens.

I expect it mostly comes out to she doesn't trust the screens so physical controls she will know what she set and then can proceed to being pissed that duel zones don’t work the way she wants (and to be fair maybe the screen should tell her “you won’t get cooling until the driver’s target temperature is set below 70º” because it isn’t clear what is going on when it could be made clear...).

...and to be fair I’ll say I prefer physical controls for things that get commonly used, used while driving, and are not likely to need to be changed. So a “mute voice” switch should be physical. The majority of HVAC controls should be physical. A “dog mode” would be fine as an on screen control as would control over which power outlets are on, and a lot of the sound system can be on screen....

The Scouts, as similar as it may be, fill a slightly different market; some overlap, sure, but different enough imo.

Yep. Especially since the R1 with the air suspension can adapt to different roles a lot easier then the more traditional suspension in the Scout. The Scout will be an off road EV first, and everything else second.

Oh and the front bench is cool. I could see my dog really loving that middle spot.

My dog uses the center console as a bench until someone notices and tells her to “get in the back” (she is a 20lbs doxy cross, with a bit of minipin which is clear genetic encouragement to do what she wants not what she thinks we want her to do).

The range extender is a big negative for me. Better than a plug in hybrid I suppose, but still a lot of added complexity for very little benefit.

Different people have different needs. Towing long distances in a Rivian is kind of painful, you lose a lot of range to towing. So something like a range extender giving you 500 miles of range gives you a useful 250 mile range. If you can find extra space inside the Scout for an extended gas tank you might be able to radically improve that.

If you don’t tow, or don’t travel long distances, or don’t both tow and travel long distances I can see having a chunk of space taken by a generator you will rarely use as “not exciting”.

(or maybe it’ll be super exciting to some people as a V2H power source to run their house during extended power outages....again if you aren’t in an area that faces that, or have other solutions for outages, it isn’t exciting)

A standalone generator is not a lot of added complexity. A generator, a fuel tank, and connection to the battery likely through the existing onboard AC/DC converter. An added 150 miles, or ability to tow longer distances, or ability to use in areas without chargers are all obvious benefits with very real use cases.

Exactly. It isn’t going to make the Scout particularly more complex, and I believe it is an option, so if you don’t want it, don’t get it. In fact I’m going to guess it is a very expensive option. Like the generator standalone is maybe $1000 so the generator integrated in a vehicle by VW especially in an upscale EV is likely a $8000 option. So really really really don’t get that option if you don’t like it!

(Hell, I _do_ like it, and VW may price me out of it!)

To each their own. Those are all things I've never needed or wanted.

Nothing wrong with that.

Personally I don’t like red cars, so I won’t pay $2000 to get red paint on a car. My wife doesn’t like green cars, she won’t pay $2000 to get green paint on a car.

Neither of us however will decide not to buy an entire car model merely because one of the paint options is red or green.

I charge at work, so 150 mile battery would mean I have an EV for a daily driver, and an ICE for road trips. Seems like a good compromise.

If you stay at hotels, it’ll also be an EV for the first few hours after leaving the right hotels....

Also be prepared: after all the daily driving with quiet EV-ness having the noise and vibration of ICE charging your battery might bug you on road trips. You might end up treating it as an EV just to get those things back. You still have ICE to handle places where there are big gaps in charging infrastructure, or any place a charger didn’t work where you had planned on using one. You get a built in emergency backup plan!

Also I go skiing 200 miles from me a lot... So ICE up the mountain, ski all day , gas up and EV home down the mountain....

Is it’e EV range really under 200 miles? I would have thought you would EV up and then regain brake all the way down...

Plus the sky resort close to me (Jay Peak) has free L2 EV charging. So EV up and EV back for me (I’m well under 200 miles though).

Gas tank needs to be sized like a normal pickup truck, or you are going to be stopping quite frequently while towing

Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that, the BMW range extender is a tiny 2G tank and only gets you like 200 miles.

Even so I would say it would sometimes be worth it because gas stations tend to be far more tow friendly then EV chargers.

Also don’t get the nostalgia angle for a brand that only loved for 19 years and died 44 years ago.

VW may be over indexing on nostalgia since it worked so well for them with the VW Bug. On paper 44 years is about the right time period for kids who loved the ones their parents had to be ready to splurge on a big purchase that helps them reconnect to their childhood.

On paper Scout was the first SUV and SUVs are a huge market in the US.

So maybe on paper Scout is a brilliant brand to invest in.

In reality, yep it died in 1980 and lots of people have lived a whole life never having seen it let alone longed for it.

So maybe the nostalgia bump will be minor. Then again it is still a pretty hot market segment. “Big manly SUV” (hopefully their marketing department knows that most SUVs are actually bought by women though, and they manage the marketing message carefully and don’t alienate them!)

 

[mkhuffman]

VW especially seems to lose lot and lots of features between concept and execution. I still remember the VW.Buzz was going to have a flat rear area and removable rear seats (it doesn’t have any of that, the battery pack is largely above the floor in the rear! Bad for seating, bad for cargo, bad for handling). Plus a steering wheel that would retract all the way into the dash for self driving & for rest stops.

I didn’t like the retracting for FSD (if I’m in the driver’s seat I want to be able to take control in an emergency, not wait 3 seconds for the wheel to slowly extend out of the dash!), but it would be awesome for eating a meal during a charging stop!! Awesome, and unavailable. Removed feature probbably because the designers had FSD only in mind and the extra room during a rest stop was an after thought.



Well I can only assume Scout’ll have Rivian’s software, or at least Rivian’s software at the layers where it really really really matter. So I don’t think software is likely to hold the Scout back like it has for other VW EVs.



Bingo! I really love EVs. My wife has been largely indifferent prior to the R1 which she loves (and to be fair it was a shock to her, she was like “it’s you car, I agreed because you were excited about it and it doesn’t really impact me...but...wow, I don’t normally love a car, and I love this one!”). Seeing the Scout she doesn’t like much about it, but she loves the buttons. Which is interesting because of all the things she has disliked about the HVAC on the last several vehicles the on screen controls aren’t really responsible for. Like she ends up with heat or cold she doesn’t want in her zone because of settings in one of the other zones.

She doesn’t like that, and it hasn’t been different in any of the prior cars with duel (or multi) zone we had before EVs and before touch screens. Like my ’99 Volvo bugged her because she could dial in heat on her side and still have cold because it runs the A/C when the driver side needs cooling and just adjusts the fan speed on the passenger speed. That car was all physical controls.

She still attributes that particular feature to screens.

I expect it mostly comes out to she doesn't trust the screens so physical controls she will know what she set and then can proceed to being pissed that duel zones don’t work the way she wants (and to be fair maybe the screen should tell her “you won’t get cooling until the driver’s target temperature is set below 70º” because it isn’t clear what is going on when it could be made clear...).

...and to be fair I’ll say I prefer physical controls for things that get commonly used, used while driving, and are not likely to need to be changed. So a “mute voice” switch should be physical. The majority of HVAC controls should be physical. A “dog mode” would be fine as an on screen control as would control over which power outlets are on, and a lot of the sound system can be on screen....



Yep. Especially since the R1 with the air suspension can adapt to different roles a lot easier then the more traditional suspension in the Scout. The Scout will be an off road EV first, and everything else second.



My dog uses the center console as a bench until someone notices and tells her to “get in the back” (she is a 20lbs doxy cross, with a bit of minipin which is clear genetic encouragement to do what she wants not what she thinks we want her to do).



Different people have different needs. Towing long distances in a Rivian is kind of painful, you lose a lot of range to towing. So something like a range extender giving you 500 miles of range gives you a useful 250 mile range. If you can find extra space inside the Scout for an extended gas tank you might be able to radically improve that.

If you don’t tow, or don’t travel long distances, or don’t both tow and travel long distances I can see having a chunk of space taken by a generator you will rarely use as “not exciting”.

(or maybe it’ll be super exciting to some people as a V2H power source to run their house during extended power outages....again if you aren’t in an area that faces that, or have other solutions for outages, it isn’t exciting)



Exactly. It isn’t going to make the Scout particularly more complex, and I believe it is an option, so if you don’t want it, don’t get it. In fact I’m going to guess it is a very expensive option. Like the generator standalone is maybe $1000 so the generator integrated in a vehicle by VW especially in an upscale EV is likely a $8000 option. So really really really don’t get that option if you don’t like it!

(Hell, I _do_ like it, and VW may price me out of it!)



Nothing wrong with that.

Personally I don’t like red cars, so I won’t pay $2000 to get red paint on a car. My wife doesn’t like green cars, she won’t pay $2000 to get green paint on a car.

Neither of us however will decide not to buy an entire car model merely because one of the paint options is red or green.




If you stay at hotels, it’ll also be an EV for the first few hours after leaving the right hotels....

Also be prepared: after all the daily driving with quiet EV-ness having the noise and vibration of ICE charging your battery might bug you on road trips. You might end up treating it as an EV just to get those things back. You still have ICE to handle places where there are big gaps in charging infrastructure, or any place a charger didn’t work where you had planned on using one. You get a built in emergency backup plan!



Is it’e EV range really under 200 miles? I would have thought you would EV up and then regain brake all the way down...

Plus the sky resort close to me (Jay Peak) has free L2 EV charging. So EV up and EV back for me (I’m well under 200 miles though).



Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that, the BMW range extender is a tiny 2G tank and only gets you like 200 miles.

Even so I would say it would sometimes be worth it because gas stations tend to be far more tow friendly then EV chargers.



VW may be over indexing on nostalgia since it worked so well for them with the VW Bug. On paper 44 years is about the right time period for kids who loved the ones their parents had to be ready to splurge on a big purchase that helps them reconnect to their childhood.

On paper Scout was the first SUV and SUVs are a huge market in the US.

So maybe on paper Scout is a brilliant brand to invest in.

In reality, yep it died in 1980 and lots of people have lived a whole life never having seen it let alone longed for it.

So maybe the nostalgia bump will be minor. Then again it is still a pretty hot market segment. “Big manly SUV” (hopefully their marketing department knows that most SUVs are actually bought by women though, and they manage the marketing message carefully and don’t alienate them!)

Holy guacamole.

 

[Administrator]

Scout Terra pickup in new Silo Green Metallic color and on 37" tires

https://www.scoutevforum.com/forum/threads/scout-terra-in-new-silo-green-metallic-color.14763/

 

[KRIV_ian]

Some cool new accessories shown off at the LA auto show.

 

[Shavaloo]

500 miles range for an erev where the gas range is 350 doesn’t really translate directly into 250 mile usable range when towing—except for the start of the trip, and unless you fill up both the battery and the gas tank. Think about it. Take off towing with a full tank and full battery with 175 range from gas and 75 from battery. Take assume you won’t want to go down below 20% and that’s even less battery range, but ignore that for simplicity. Burn through the battery and gas and then fill up the tank and you end up with another 175 miles of range. Assuming you don’t want to sit and charge, then you’re basically stuck with a tow vehicle with 175 miles of range for the rest of your trip unless you charge up the battery. I’ve towed across country with 200 miles of usable range and it makes for a lot of stops. Doable, but a diesel would be way better. Contrast that with the BEV version that will have towing range of 175 as well. Yes, the erev will make for shorter stops, but it’s not like it will be some amazing tow vehicle. All in all a diesel still makes a lot more sense for long trips.

 

[mkhuffman]

500 miles range for an erev where the gas range is 350 doesn’t really translate directly into 250 mile usable range when towing—except for the start of the trip, and unless you fill up both the battery and the gas tank. Think about it. Take off towing with a full tank and full battery with 175 range from gas and 75 from battery. Take assume you won’t want to go down below 20% and that’s even less battery range, but ignore that for simplicity. Burn through the battery and gas and then fill up the tank and you end up with another 175 miles of range. Assuming you don’t want to sit and charge, then you’re basically stuck with a tow vehicle with 175 miles of range for the rest of your trip unless you charge up the battery. I’ve towed across country with 200 miles of usable range and it makes for a lot of stops. Doable, but a diesel would be way better. Contrast that with the BEV version that will have towing range of 175 as well. Yes, the erev will make for shorter stops, but it’s not like it will be some amazing tow vehicle. All in all a diesel still makes a lot more sense for long trips.

I am pretty sure the gas engine will not generate enough energy to move the truck by itself. Or if it does, it won't move the truck when towing. I think the gas engine turns on when the battery gets down to some percentage, maybe 50%, and then keeps adding to the battery as long as gas is available. But if you are towing, the battery will most likely be depleted faster than the engine can charge it.

I am super interested to learn about the gas engine and how much power it produces, as that will have a huge impact on range and towing capacity. We do know it is small, because they fit it next to the rear axle. It isn't a large V6 or anything like that. What is it that can fit there?

Something like this thing Toyota developed?

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