Missing the mark

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Scott61

New member
Oct 31, 2024
1
0
East Texas
Congratulations Volkswagen for bring back the Scout after a 40+ year absence, and for killing this return simultaneously. Your choice to only make electric vehicles shows that you’re not paying attention to the culture of your market, nor do you care about the average hard working middle class American that cannot afford an electric vehicle and wouldn’t buy one in the first place.
 
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Congratulations Volkswagen for bring back the Scout after a 40+ year absence, and for killing this return simultaneously. Your choice to only make electric vehicles shows that you’re not paying attention to the culture of your market, nor do you care about the average hard working middle class American that cannot afford an electric vehicle and wouldn’t buy one in the first place.
Thanks for sharing. Now prepare for the forum members to hammer your opinion. Many folks here are Scout owners or have been. Great to get your opinion but while open minded-this crowd is very supportive of the current SM plans.
Welcome aboard!
 
The Scout enthusiast culture is a fraction of the vehicle buying public in general so they have to do what makes financial sense to market the vehicle to a broader audience though and this is the way things are trending, away from pure ICE, whether that is good or bad.

And it offers enough of a difference to the long dedicated Jeep and Ford and Toyota and Landrover crowds to lure some over
 
Congratulations Volkswagen for bring back the Scout after a 40+ year absence, and for killing this return simultaneously. Your choice to only make electric vehicles shows that you’re not paying attention to the culture of your market, nor do you care about the average hard working middle class American that cannot afford an electric vehicle and wouldn’t buy one in the first place.
Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing your opinion.
 
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Congratulations Volkswagen for bring back the Scout after a 40+ year absence, and for killing this return simultaneously. Your choice to only make electric vehicles shows that you’re not paying attention to the culture of your market, nor do you care about the average hard working middle class American that cannot afford an electric vehicle and wouldn’t buy one in the first place.
Welcome to the forum. You're entitled to your opinion but most of us here are going to disagree with it. To say Scout Motors isn't paying attention to the culture of the market...well....if they weren't paying attention would they have altered their original plans with bringing the Harvester (EV+gas) option about? Would they be offering a solid rear axle with actual front and rear lockers? Would they be offering a sway bar disconnect? To me and many here, it's clear that Scout Motors is listening to the community and market. It's been no secret the Scout would be revived as an EV.

As far as stating they don't care about the average hard working middle class American and they cannot afford an EV and wouldn't buy one in the first place....well if they wouldn't buy one in the first place why worry about whether they can afford it or not? :unsure:
 
Sure, I would like it to cost less - I expect most vehicle purchasers feel the same, with the exception of a small group that wish it would cost more to weed out the masses and give it an elite status.

That said, they sized it as a full sized SUV. I suspect it is also in the price range of full sized SUV's. For instance, the base Tahoe starts at 56k. Now in all fairness, it might be discounted. Abet the last time I tried to buy a base vehicle I found it hard to find any - so discounting was not really a question. I did find a single base Xterra - then they cut my trade in down by 5k. So much for discounts.
 
If there was a gas or diesel option I would be all-in.

An EV or even EV with a gas generator to replenish some of the battery simply won't work for me and the travel I do. I don't have time to wait for it to recharge when it takes 5 minutes to fill up the tank and get back on the road.

Ford is pausing production of their EV F150 and scrapped plans for another EV: https://www.reuters.com/business/au...htning-ev-pickup-trucks-six-weeks-2024-10-31/
 
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I feel your pain OP. I am very much an ICE guy, especially V8s and diesels. My first vehicle was a 1979 Scout II with the 345 V8. I was originally going to pass on the new Scout because of the EV only situation, but am going to give this one a try with the harvester option. These folks have done an amazing job on this Scout revival and I am not going to miss out on it. Aside from long trips or towing applications (which I do frequently), the EV Scout should work just fine. I expect it will be my daily driver without issue. I also have a pretty hefty solar setup at home so can charge it for basically nothing. I kind of like that. If this was going to be my only vehicle I would not go with an EV though. I do too many long road trips up into the mountains in winter as well as towing.

Edit: Op, you also mentioned cost. If these come in close to what they are saying (60k without incentives - I am not counting on getting that). they should be no more expensive than anything similar with ICE.
 
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If there was a gas or diesel option I would be all-in.

An EV or even EV with a gas generator to replenish some of the battery simply won't work for me and the travel I do. I don't have time to wait for it to recharge when it takes 5 minutes to fill up the tank and get back on the road.

Ford is pausing production of their EV F150 and scrapped plans for another EV: https://www.reuters.com/business/au...htning-ev-pickup-trucks-six-weeks-2024-10-31/
We max out at about 700 miles a day on a road trip. But we’re ready for a meal break before 500 miles so I think we’ll be o.k. with a 40 min charging/eating break.

Our favorite campsite is 350 miles away. If it’s possible to run the Harvester to replenish the battery at camp I might not need to find an EV charger at all. This seems like it could be a game-changer compared vehicles like the F150 Lightning.

Scouts lead the way - I expect Jeep, Ford and others will follow.
 
We max out at about 700 miles a day on a road trip. But we’re ready for a meal break before 500 miles so I think we’ll be o.k. with a 40 min charging/eating break.

Our favorite campsite is 350 miles away. If it’s possible to run the Harvester to replenish the battery at camp I might not need to find an EV charger at all. This seems like it could be a game-changer compared vehicles like the F150 Lightning.

Scouts lead the way - I expect Jeep, Ford and others will follow.

We try and limit windshield time to 600 miles a day, most of the time just stopping for gas & to walk around a tad/potty breaks and fully 2/3rds of the hotels we stay at do not have charging stations

Now I’ve never seen or even looked for charging stations at the truck stops we frequent (outside of Buc-ees who has lots) but I’m going to start looking
 
We max out at about 700 miles a day on a road trip. But we’re ready for a meal break before 500 miles so I think we’ll be o.k. with a 40 min charging/eating break.

Our favorite campsite is 350 miles away. If it’s possible to run the Harvester to replenish the battery at camp I might not need to find an EV charger at all. This seems like it could be a game-changer compared vehicles like the F150 Lightning.

Scouts lead the way - I expect Jeep, Ford and others will follow.
We typically have 1-2 long road trips a year like that where stopping for up to an hour is needed. There are about a dozen times a year when we would max out the range and be in a very remote area with no/limited power for 2-3 days then drive home. On those trips, I can't waste that much time recharging.
EV works fine for a lot of people and 80% of the time would work fine for me, but those 20% it doesn't work at all so I can't go down that road.
 
An EV or even EV with a gas generator to replenish some of the battery simply won't work for me and the travel I do. I don't have time to wait for it to recharge when it takes 5 minutes to fill up the tank and get back on the road.

We don't have enough details to confirm how it will work, but I really expect that with the Range Extender version, you will be able to just stop for 5 minutes, fill it with gas and get back on the road.
 
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If there was a gas or diesel option I would be all-in.

An EV or even EV with a gas generator to replenish some of the battery simply won't work for me and the travel I do. I don't have time to wait for it to recharge when it takes 5 minutes to fill up the tank and get back on the road.

Ford is pausing production of their EV F150 and scrapped plans for another EV: https://www.reuters.com/business/au...htning-ev-pickup-trucks-six-weeks-2024-10-31/
There's still a lot of info needed on when/how the Harvester engine will recharge the battery but my understanding currently is that you won't need to sit and wait for the engine to recharge the battery. You refuel and off you go like in a normal ICE vehicle. What we DON'T know how is much mileage you'll see after you refuel. Another 350 miles? Another 150 miles? We don't know that yet but we do know you won't have to sit and wait for the generator engine to recharge the battery.
 
If there was a gas or diesel option I would be all-in.

An EV or even EV with a gas generator to replenish some of the battery simply won't work for me and the travel I do. I don't have time to wait for it to recharge when it takes 5 minutes to fill up the tank and get back on the road.

Ford is pausing production of their EV F150 and scrapped plans for another EV: https://www.reuters.com/business/au...htning-ev-pickup-trucks-six-weeks-2024-10-31/
That’s true, but don’t assume that this implies that they’re in any way “giving up” on EVs. They are investing heavily in the next generation of ev manufacturing, reducing cost, improving tech and design, etc. I’ve listened to a number of interviews with ford ceo Jim Farley and he really gets it. He realizes that if ford doesn’t figure out how to effectively build and sell EVs, it’s destined to become a niche manufacturer with a very limited market. They’re looking at what Tesla and Chinese manufacturers are doing and learning from it. It takes time, and there’s fits and starts along the way, but we need to figure it out if we want American manufacturing.

In some ways, I think that’s what VW is trying to do with Scout, freeing them up from legacy constraints and allowing them to figure out the best way forward.
 
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Congratulations Volkswagen for bring back the Scout after a 40+ year absence, and for killing this return simultaneously. Your choice to only make electric vehicles shows that you’re not paying attention to the culture of your market, nor do you care about the average hard working middle class American that cannot afford an electric vehicle and wouldn’t buy one in the first place.
Okay, so go buy another vehicle. Plenty of non-electric options. I'm happy Scout is returning as an EV.
 
Congratulations Volkswagen for bring back the Scout after a 40+ year absence, and for killing this return simultaneously. Your choice to only make electric vehicles shows that you’re not paying attention to the culture of your market, nor do you care about the average hard working middle class American that cannot afford an electric vehicle and wouldn’t buy one in the first place.

Can you please elaborate more on “not paying attention to the culture of your market?” For the record, you have made a post to a message board that is moderated by employees of Scout Motors.

I’m also curious to know if you could please cite statistics regarding the comment on “killing this return instantly” because it seems to have generated some buzz, at least in the niche car communities online, and based on ad-hoc reports from this web forum, there appear to be a few hundred pre-orders.

🎤
 
That’s true, but don’t assume that this implies that they’re in any way “giving up” on EVs. They are investing heavily in the next generation of ev manufacturing, reducing cost, improving tech and design, etc. I’ve listened to a number of interviews with ford ceo Jim Farley and he really gets it. He realizes that if ford doesn’t figure out how to effectively build and sell EVs, it’s destined to become a niche manufacturer with a very limited market. They’re looking at what Tesla and Chinese manufacturers are doing and learning from it. It takes time, and there’s fits and starts along the way, but we need to figure it out if we want American manufacturing.

In some ways, I think that’s what VW is trying to do with Scout, freeing them up from legacy constraints and allowing them to figure out the best way forward.
That’s exactly it and that was stated time and time again at the reveal event and even a logistics guy from SM I spoke with buys into that approach. It’s definitely engrained in the company culture
 
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Congratulations Volkswagen for bring back the Scout after a 40+ year absence, and for killing this return simultaneously. Your choice to only make electric vehicles shows that you’re not paying attention to the culture of your market, nor do you care about the average hard working middle class American that cannot afford an electric vehicle and wouldn’t buy one in the first place.
I understand your sentiment, but what non-electric vehicle with similar capabilities costs that much less than the target price Scout is setting for the Terra and Traveler? Have you seen the price of the F-150 Raptor, TRX, Wrangler, Gladiator, Bronco/Raptor? Those are not cheap and with dealer markups, EV prices for a vehicle like the Terra/Traveler will be comparable.

If you mean they should be making more affordable models, then I agree that's a fair point. Doesn't mean they have to but it does make it more accessible. The trend for new manufacturers to release vehicles is to release high end, low volume models first, then release more affordable, high volume models. We'll see where Scout's roadmap is as things evolve. They did apparently tease a smaller SUV (Aristocrat?) and what looks like a 2-door versions of the Traveler and Terra during the reveal event.
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