Scout Motors mounts an electric comeback with new SUV and truck concepts

Decades ago, Scout Motors helped introduce America to the “sport utility vehicle,” a quirky new automobile that would eventually come to dominate our roads. The brand went bust in 1980 — but now, it’s back, and it’s all-electric.

Scout, which is now an independent company under the Volkswagen Group, introduced its first new-concept vehicles today: the Terra truck and the Traveler SUV. Both vehicles are body-on-frame, sitting on top a brand-new EV platform unique to Scout. And both could start at under $60,000 (without incentives) when production begins in 2027.

But beyond the novelty of launching a new EV brand when sales are still struggling, and on the eve of a major election that could determine the future of the auto industry, Scout is trying to sell something that no one has really tried before: a genuine throwback that also feels modern and fresh.

“It’s sort of this simple concept, but tough to execute,” said Scout CEO Scott Keogh, defining it as “heritage meets ingenuity.”

Before we get to the story of Scout’s comeback, let’s run through the specs, because there are some real doozies here:

• Body-on-frame chassis, solid rear axle, and front and rear mechanical lockers for off-road performance
• Projected towing of over 7,000 pounds for the Scout Traveler and over 10,000 pounds for the Scout Terra, both with nearly 2,000 pounds of payload
• Estimated zero to 60mph acceleration in 3.5 seconds, made possible by an estimated 1,000 pound-feet of torque through the four-wheel-drive system
• Vehicle software built upon a modern zonal architecture, enabling over-the-air updates and remote diagnostics
• Bidirectional charging and vehicle-to-home capabilities
• One fully electric trim with up to 350 miles of range and an extended range model with more than 500 miles of range through a gas-powered range extender

There’s a lot more, including a removable cabana roof, optional bench seats in both the front and rear, and a lot of tactile touchpoints, like mechanical door handles, grab bars, and big, chunky dials and switches.

When I first spoke to Keogh earlier this year, he told me he didn’t want to make another hyperminimalist EV, festooned with touchscreens, glassy surfaces, and haptic buttons. He wanted to make something that was real and mechanical — something that you could grab and feel connected to.

“There’s definitely a large segment that wants to bring forth some of the heritage thing,” he said this week. “They don’t want to be isolated from the car… They want to have real switches. They want to have mechanical touch and feel.”

Keogh says the company is calling it the “Connection Machine” — a phrase it appears to be trying to trademark. The idea is that when you’re behind the wheel, tearing through some gravel or ripping up a 100 percent grade, you’re connected to the car through the physical act of driving but also your passengers, bumping up against each other on the same bench seat.

That said, there are plenty of design and engineering choices that prove that Scout has its sights set firmly on the horizon. The inclusion of a zonal architecture, rather than a domain-style electrical setup, will help ensure that the vehicles have a lot of “headroom” for future updates, Keogh said, reducing costs not only on the manufacturing side but also for owners through reduced maintenance costs.

Zonal architecture is still relatively niche in the auto industry. Tesla has been doing it for years, but most automakers use domain architectures, with dozens of electronic control units that control everything from power windows and airbags to braking.

Rivian recently switched to a zonal system when it launched the next-gen versions of its R1 vehicles. And VW (which owns Scout) made a big deal of licensing Rivian’s “zonal hardware design” when it announced its plan to invest $5 billion in the EV company.

Scout had the benefit of starting with a “clean sheet,” Keogh told me. “All these things sound quite minor but setting up your IT architecture without a legacy system — this is huge.”

Another thing that caught my attention was the news that the Terra and Traveler would be built on “an all-new and proprietary body-on-frame platform.”

The fact that Scout would develop its own platform, rather than borrow VW’s modular “MEB” electric vehicle platform, might strike some as strange considering how expensive and labor-intensive it is for a brand-new company to develop its own bespoke platform. Sharing platforms is very common, especially when trying to spin up an entirely new production line. (For example, the Audi RS E-tron GT is built on the same platform as the Porsche Taycan.)

To be sure, VW has been going through its own struggles around EVs. The company’s plug-in models are selling well, but its market share in North America is shrinking. And its software has been plagued by bugs and customer complaints.

But Keogh assured me that Scout wasn’t trying to ignore its advantages over some of its rivals. The company wants to maintain its individuality but will still share some components with its parent company, like drive units and other modules. Considering VW has never before competed in the off-road segment, Scout will take those components and piece them together into something that can tackle the roughest conditions.

“The last thing we want to do is to grab a 100 percent carryover platform with all the modules,” Keogh said, “because then we’d be a badge. And Scout won’t work as a badge at all.”

The inclusion of a gas-powered range extender is also sure to raise some eyebrows. At a time when car buyers are flocking to hybrids, Scout certainly could have gone that route and no one would have complained. Instead, the company opted to include a small gas-powered generator that charges the battery, rather than powering the engine.

The reason for this was twofold. First, electric trucks have historically struggled with range when carrying heavy payloads or towing large objects. Scout needs to convince truck shoppers that they can do all the truck stuff they love without sacrificing range. The other reason is that Keogh firmly believes that EVs are the future, and he wanted a vehicle that put battery power first, while still offering a smidge of fossil fuels to help quell range anxiety.

“It introduces the buyer to electrification on their American terms,” he said.

The look of the Terra and Traveler will be immediately recognizable to a lot of people. It successfully blends designs from Ram, Jeep, Range Rover, and Rivian (Scout’s chief designer hails from Stellantis and BMW), while also keeping the same iconic look and feel of the original International Harvester Scouts from the 1960s and ’70s.

Keogh said the goal was to land somewhere between avant-garde and safe. In other words, not too dystopian, like the Tesla Cybertruck, but not overly familiar, like the Ford F-150 Lightning.

“I think it’s got its own stance and its own world,” he said. “But of course, if you see little glimpses of Range Rover, little glimpses of Rivian, little glimpses of Ram, and a little bit of Scout, okay that sounds cool to me.”

Scout already has a storied history — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a fan — and now, it’s writing its next chapter.