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Runtime: 12:26
0:00 Scout Surprises with EREV Option
1:36 VW Dealers Likely to Sue Scout
2:46 VW Labor Reps Could Scuttle Scout Plant
3:29 SAIC-GM Shows EREV-PHEV Powertrain
4:54 Bobby Allison Wins 1971 NASCAR Race
6:11 U.S. Ramps Up Lithium Mining Action
7:22 EU & China Still Negotiating Over EV Tariffs
8:05 Toyota Owners Keep Their Cars the Longest
9:02 AAA Tests Show AEB Improvements
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SCOUT SURPRISES WITH EREV OPTION
Scout finally showed off the SUV and pickup it’s going to come out with, even though they may not hit the market for another three years, sometime in 2027. Meet the Traveler SUV and the Terra truck. Featuring a body-on-frame construction with a solid rear axle and rear mechanical locker for heavy duty off-roading, the vehicles certainly look like modern versions of the International Harvester Scouts that went out of production 44 years ago. They will feature a centralized, zonal electronic architecture that almost undoubtedly is coming from Rivian. The new incarnations will be offered as pure BEVs but with–surprise, surprise–an optional piston-engine range extender. We’re guessing that will be a Volkswagen engine since Scout is owned by VW. The BEVs will offer 350 miles of range, while the EREV will have over 500. Both will be priced under $60,000, not including any incentives that may or may not be available in three years. The Traveler SUV is rated at 7,000 pounds for towing, while the Terra pickup is rated at over 10,000. Both can carry up to 2,000 pounds of cargo.
VW DEALERS LIKELY TO SUE SCOUT
Scout is going to sell the Traveler and Terra direct to consumers, and claims it can legally do so because even though it’s owned by Volkswagen, Scout is actually an independent company. But Automotive News reports that VW dealers will likely take legal action if they’re not provided with franchises to sell the vehicles. Franchise laws in the United States make it impossible for a car company that has used franchised dealers to suddenly start selling cars on its own. Companies that have never used dealers, such as Tesla, Rivian and Lucid, are not compelled to use franchised dealers, but many states have made it difficult for them to sell cars directly to customers anyway. So Scout’s claim that it is independent of Volkswagen and can sell cars direct will almost certainly be tested in court by the NADA, the National Auto Dealers Association. And every other legacy automaker will be closely watching the results of where that ends up…just in case they want to start an independent company and start selling directly, too.
VW LABOR REPS COULD SCUTTLE SCOUT PLANT
Here’s another thing we have to watch about Scout. It may be an independent company, but it’s still owned by VW, and Volkswagen is going through tough times. It’s even threatening to close several assembly plants in Germany, which has got German unions and labor reps on the Supervisory Board hopping mad. Are they going to allow VW to close plants in Germany while Scout is building a new assembly plant in the U.S.? Not if they can stop it. Because independent company or not, Scout is still fully funded by Volkswagen AG, and the Supervisory Board has a lot of clout when it comes to deciding where any investment goes.
SAIC-GM SHOWS EREV-PHEV POWERTRAIN
Several years ago General Motors decided to skip over hybrids and go all-in on BEVs. But the growth in BEV sales slowed dramatically, while hybrid sales are soaring. So GM is rushing to come out with hybrids, and the latest PHEV from SAIC-GM in China may give us an idea of where it’s going. They call it True Dragon, and it’s a series-parallel hybrid, meaning it acts like an extended range EV in most cases, but its 1.5-liter IC engine can also connect to the front wheels–just like the Chevrolet Volt did years ago. It uses a flat wire electric motor that has a peak efficiency rating of 97.8%. Its peak torque density is 14.4 Newton-meters per kilogram, and a power density of 7.8 kilowatts per kilogram, which SAIC-GM says it 30% better than the industry average. It also features a double-sided, water-cooled IGBT module with a conversion efficiency of 98.7%. Like other EREV systems, the IC engine runs on a Miller cycle and uses a high compression ratio, though we don’t have those specs yet, or when this powertrain will be available for sale.
BOBBY ALLISON WINS 1971 NASCAR RACE
In NASCAR news, Bobby Allison was declared the winner of the Myers Brothers Memorial 250 stock car race that ran in North Carolina…in 1971. You see, back then there was a stock car series called Grand American that competed against NASCAR and USAC. But NASCAR allowed the Grand American cars to run in some of its races, which is what Bobby Allison did, and he won the race in Winston-Salem North Carolina. But NASCAR never recognized him as the winner, even though they allowed him to race, because he was entered as a Grand American entry. Well, half a century later, all that was forgiven and the 86-year-old Allison was given a plaque officially recognizing him as the winner. By the way, that added win moves him into fourth place in NASCAR wins, behind Richard Petty, David Peason and Jeff Gordon.
U.S. RAMPS UP LITHIUM MINING ACTION
There’s been a lot of action with lithium mining in the U.S. recently. Last week, GM announced it’s investing another $625 million into a lithium mine in Nevada. Earlier this week, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that it discovered a massive lithium deposit in Arkansas. And now the Interior Department gave final approval to open a lithium mine in Nevada. The mine is run by Ioneer’s at a place called Rhyolite Ridge. Construction kicks-off next year and production starts in 2028, with enough lithium to supply 370,000 EVs annually. Ford and a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic have agreed to buy lithium from the mine. It took the company six-years to get approval for the mine because conservationists are fighting to protect an endangered flower in the area. A group called the Center for Biological Survey plans to sue the government to stop the mine, but the Interior Department says it doesn’t believe the mine will harm the flower and it says Ioneer has taken steps to protect it.
EU & CHINA STILL NEGOTIATING OVER EV TARIFFS
The European Union’s new tariffs on imported Chinese EVs is supposed to go into effect next week. But the two sides are still trying to hammer out a deal to avoid them. Some alternatives could include Chinese promising not to sell EVs below a certain price, or committing to make investments in Europe. Europe boosted tariffs on imported Chinese EVs up to 35% earlier this year because an investigation found that government subsidies were giving Chinese automakers an unfair advantage in the market. But don’t hold your breath for any deal to happen. The European Commission says there’s “significant remaining gaps.”
TOYOTA OWNERS KEEP THEIR CARS THE LONGEST
Toyota owners really love their vehicles. According to a new study from iSeeCars, Toyota dominates the list of owners keeping their vehicle for 15 or more years. Researchers analyzed 929,000 cars from model years 1981-2009 sold in the U.S. between January and September of this year, to find which older vehicles are most likely to be kept by their original owner. And Toyota has eight of the top 13 models, including Lexus. In fact, the top 5 were all Toyota; the Highlander Hybrid, Camry Hybrid, the non-hybrid Highlander, the Tacoma and the Prius. And among brands owners keep for 15 or more years, it’s all Asian automakers. Not surprisingly, Toyota is number one, followed by Honda, Lexus, Mazda, Hyundai and Subaru.
AAA TESTS SHOW AEB IMPROVEMENTS
Automated emergency braking has been around for years and is now mandated on every new passenger vehicle sold in the U.S. But back in 2017 and 2018 some of the earlier versions of AEB, as it’s called, were not exactly very good, as the AAA found in a series of tests it did with older versions of the technology. Early versions of AEB didn’t do bad at 12 miles an hour, and they stopped in time at 15 mph, but at 25 miles an hour, well, yikes!, the test car plowed right through the car in front of it. But that was then. Today’s AEB easily handles emergency braking at 25 miles an hour, and it shows how AEB is improving. Now we hope the industry can get it to start working at highway speeds.
And that wraps up this week’s worth of reports. And by the way, if you haven’t done so already, would you please consider subscribing to this channel or sign up for the daily email on our website. Thanks for watching and have a great weekend.
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cant wait to trade my cramped 4 door bronco in on one of these. everyone needs to bring back bench seats. sick of having consoles in front.
The Volt-like SAIC-GM powertrain sounds interesting. Done right, it should get close to the mpg of a regular hybrid on gas, and operate for a useful distance on battery only.
I remember Toyota Avalon was sold with a bench seat for a while. Can you still get a bench seat in big pickups and SUVs?
John, Maybe VW could avoid the problem by spinning off Scout as a truly separate company. Even better would be to sell it to TESLA, Rivian or Lucid for shares. That would reduce VW’s share of Scout to less than 50% while also giving it a share in another EV maker. The EV maker would benefit from from VW’s volume buying capabilities to help them become a major player as well. My bet would be that Lucid would be the best candidate, because they don’t having a competing product and it would give the Saudis a path to make a profit on Lucid without having to invest huge new amounts of money. What do you think? (My second choice would be one of VW’s Chinese partners)
Kit
You can still get bench seats in full size trucks. For silverado it is offered on the WT, Custom, and Custom trail boss trims. For Ford it is on the F150 XL and XLT trims. For Ram it is on the tradesman, big horn, warlock, & laramie trims. It is not available on the Tundra so that is likely why you rarely see those vehicles at job sites. Most contractors still want a truck with a bench seat to haul job crews around. Cheaper to haul 6 in 1 truck than 6 in 2 trucks to the job site.
I suspect that the VW unions are going to be out of luck. It makes zero financial sense to build a truck/suv that is exclusively being sold in the USA out of Germany. It is not like anyone in europe ever knew a company called international existed much less that they made passenger vehicles called the scout way back when. Also, Europeans are not pining for hard core off roaders in massive volume. Scout is never going to sell to a single vehicle in Europe meaning it would forever be an expensive export vehicle to the USA market. Thus sales will be very low in the USA and scout will have to close. Scout will never be a way to save union jobs in Germany no matter which way you slice it. Not even one job would be saved if scout was to be built in Germany.
I was surprised to see that Jeep Wrangler was not scoring high in the “Original owner after fifteen years” ranking.
VW needs to figure out what’s going on in the US in regard to selling anything direct when it comes to cars and trucks. The state by state prohibitions on auto manufacturers selling direct were put in place by legislatures that get big bucks from their local car dealers. And show me a court that would call Scout an independent company when it’s 100% funded by VW. No, if any one manufacturer controls Scout then it’s caught up in franchise Hell. Just ask Tesla about its experiences about trying to sell directly in Texas!
My RAM has bench seats; it is a 2016 with the SLT trim. The middle “seat back” does fold down to create a console when the center seat is not needed, but I have had 6 comfortably in there several times.
has anyone seen pictures of that beautiful bench seat in the vw/scout? someone did their homework theres actually room in that thing.
Not much into Nascar but fun to see Bobbie Allison finally getting recognized after all these years
VW should use their connections with SAIC and use that Volt-like powertrain in Scout. Either that, or drop the whole thing. Is there really a market for another Wrangler/Bronco that no one under 60-70 has heard of?
As far as International Harverster, they would be known globally, at least by older people. Farmall tractors were, and probably are still in regular use in some parts of the world.
It’s nice that Bobbie Allison got credit for the win. His family has sure had very happy times in racing and very tragic times,also.He even competed in the Indy 500 two times and won 5 NASCAR races driving for Roger Penske in a AMC Matador!
Regarding the Scout models, with imitation being the kindest form of flattering, if the R1T and R1S were human, they’d probably be blushing right now! LOL That is if they were male humans. If they were female humans, Rivian would be furious that Scout copied her and that they’re both wearing the same outfit! LOL Now the questions is: Who’s wearing it better!
…that said, having recently seen images of the old/original Scout model in Car and Driver, I now can more clearly see the connections between these new models. Yet, with younger folks not having seen the original Scouts, I would not be surprised if they see a greater visual connection with the Rivians and these new models.
Similar, but different from Kevin, above, the problems of unions, manufacturing plants, dealers versus direct sales, and after sales service are solvable by leveraging VW’s $15 billion investment in Rivian. Position Scout as a Rivian partner, and use Rivian’s infrastructure for direct sales, service, vendor sourcing, etc. In profile, the Scout p/u truck cab looks suspiciously like the R1-T already, so I suspect more “cooperation” to come between the two brands, on top of the software and electronics integration already announced.
Speaking of EVs, I read an article Motor Trend that Musk is now saying that the promised $25K EV is “silly” to pursue and does not work with Tesla’s goal of autonomous vehicle operation. It just seems to me that Musk does see AV working on a vehicle at that price point, but does see a future for an autonomous, Cybercab or robotaxi that cost $30K! I guess, in Elon’s mind, anyone who can’t afford a Model 3, the only vehicle Tesla plans to offer them is a ride in a self-driving taxi-cab.
If O.J. had been driving a Scout, the whole Scout project would have made more sense.
The Scouts look like expertly badge-engineered Rivians. Which would capitalize on Rivians’ unique headlight design. Hope the range extender is a diesel (fat chance, given the high additional cost and Volkswagen-specific stigma).
@Kit I’ve seen Int. Harvester Scouts in Switzerland’s agricultural hinterland.
Such an amazing efficiency of very close to 98% for relatively cheap electric motors and power conversion electronics remains impressive.
It seems that a useful crossover like the BYD Atto 3 sells for under $22K with a 61 kWh battery pack in China (twice that in the EU, according to insideevs).
If those motors are 98% efficient with varying loads, and 98% efficient generators are possible, series hybrids could be a viable alternative to today’s better series-parallel hybrids.
I’m no botanist but it seems that an endangered flower could simple be up rooted potted and even cloned to duplicate more of the species. Goes to show the environmentalists are never satisfied. Likely the same folks that would protesting the use of oil will now find reasons to stop mining for material used in EVs. Just seems there is always a group fighting against any form of progress.
VW labor reps could not only scuttle Scout plant they could essentially kill Scout all together. Preventing the Scout plant from being built in the US will do nothing toward helping what I suspect will be challenging sales for them to begin with.
The mid-sized off-road segment is a niche market already filled with a long history of Jeep Wrangler owners with three versions a 2 door, 4 door and pick-up. Also in the game is the Ford Bronco sport and bigger Ford Bronco, all of those starting in the 32k range. Add in the fact that the Scout was only made for 20 years 1960-1980 and although they made 500k vehicles that’s only about 26k a year. Keep in mind 9 out of 10 vehicles sold in 1970 were domestic and vehicles like The Buick Regal in 1978 were selling 225k vehicles a year. So International Scout was never a big seller or popular and now has been out of production for over 44 years.
It’s an old, not well-known brand that will not have much resonance with anyone under the age of 55 and is priced too high for anyone to leave the much more established Jeep and Ford stablemates. Add in the fact that it’s now owned by VW pushing away anyone that might view it as a historical American brand and trying to use direct sales no doubt will affect sales as some states refuse to allow like they have with Tesla and what your left with is just another high-priced BEV, REV with a very small interest. If this vehicle lasts for 4 years of production, I will be shocked.
Wasn’t the 2-door Olds Cutlass Supreme the top selling car in the US a few years in the ’70s?
I’m almost 50 and I know nothing about International or Scout. However, I know about VW, so I wouldn’t go near this.
The Rivian certainly does look a lot better without those stupid headlights though.