Scout Motor's EV Facility Will Employ Over 4,000
On a hill in Tennesee, Scout Motors executives unveiled their long-awaited electric and PHEV SUVs and pickup. The Terra truck and Traveler SUV both resemble the vehicles produced by Scout before the automaker was folded by its parent company International Harvester in 1980.
The Volkswagen Group picked up rights to the Scout brand in 2020. In 2022, the group announced that the Scout brand would be revived as an EV brand with an upcoming SUV and pickup lineup. During the event, we learned that there has been a slight change to that plan. The automaker also announced extended-range variants of its upcoming vehicles with gas-powered generators. Essentially, serial plug-in hybrids with ranges up to 500 miles.
The vehicles shown off by Scout seem to tick all the important boxes. The EVs will ship with up to 350 miles of range and are based on an 800-volt architecture. For those looking for a vehicle that's more about traditional utility (and actual knobs and buttons) than whiz-bang futuristic features that most drivers will use only once or twice, Scout seems to have you covered.
Scout is also navigating around the dealership model, going straight to customers for sales. We've seen this before from Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian. What's different from those three companies is that Scout (as part of the VW group) would likely still have access to the service stations at Volkswagon-branded dealerships. A reminder, dealerships are independently owned and operated and traditionally, not part of an automaker's business. The independent companies have been criticized for adding additional "market adjustment" or markup fees to new and in-demand vehicles. Some of these additional fees are in the tens of thousands of dollars above the vehicle's MSRP. By selling directly to consumers, there would be no market adjustment fees added to these vehicles.
As expected, dealerships are not happy about this plan and there will likely be court battles to settle this on a state-by-state basis.
In addition to vehicles, Scout Motors executives talked about the jobs it will be bringing to South Carolina. For those looking into employment in the world of sustainability, Scout states that it will target initial production at the Scout Motors Production Center near Columbia, South Carolina, in 2027. The facility is expected to generate over 4,000 jobs. This is in addition to the Scout Motors jobs created in Michigan.
By building in the United States, the vehicles should qualify for the full $7,500 EV credit which would take some of the sting out of the vehicles' $60,000 starting price.
Whether or not owning a Scout is in your future, for those in the Columbia, South Carolina region, it could be a future employer.