I think the VW ID.Buzz might end up being the poster child for everything wrong with Volkswagen’s thinking over the last few years. A true grey-space idea with a strong design and a lot of, well, buzz, that was doomed by poor execution, extensive delays, and a wrong-headed commitment to a single power source. Is Scout next?
The Morning Dump today is going to focus on the space in between a good idea and the final product, which is where Scout seems interminably stuck. There’s now a report out there indicating that Audi might end up building a fully gas-powered version on the same Scout platform, and maybe Porsche, all of which might delay an EV version.
Nissan is going the opposite way, having realized a little too late that it needs a hybrid and therefore rushing the Rogue Hybrid to market. If you want to buy one, be warned, they aren’t going to have a lot of them. Is that a better or worse strategy? Nissan and Honda were going to merge, but that didn’t happen, and now the two finally have found something to do together.
Gas prices are high, and with renewed trouble in Iran, may stay high for a while. There was a plan to lower fuel prices through “Freedom Fuel” stations, which is maybe a good idea, though it wasn’t clear how this lower-cost fuel was being subsidized. It sounds like one way this occurred was by not paying for the fuel. Genius!
Honestly, Maybe Just Never Build The BEV Scout
Here’s a crazy thought: Don’t build the fully-electric Scout. Maybe build it eventually, one day, when solid state batteries are a thing. Just don’t do it now. I don’t think that many people will buy it and Scout’s parent company, Volkswagen, has more important things to do.
If you haven’t been following the Scout saga, we’re coming up on five years of talking about the trucks without ever driving the trucks. I don’t even want to type out all the back-and-forth in paragraph form, so I’m just going to make a brief bullet-pointed list I can copy and paste into the future articles surely coming on this topic:
- May 2022: Volkswagen announces it’s bringing back Scout as an EV truck brand.
- October 2024: Volkswagen finally shows two vehicles, the Terra (a truck) and the Traveler (an SUV). They look incredible, honestly, and Scout confirms that they’ll offer both a BEV and a hybrid EREV. The company also says it will use a direct sales model.
- January 2025: Scout’s CEO admits that more people were pre-ordering the EREV option than the pure-BEV model.
- February 2025: It starts to dawn on people that these trucks wouldn’t be available until 2027 at the earliest (probably 2028), which they announced, but does bring up the question of how to maintain momentum.
- October 2025: VW, the parent company, is running short on cash, so the pure BEV-model is reportedly going to be delayed.
- November 2025: With tariffs in full swing, other VW Group companies start to wonder when they’re going to get a Scout, and if they can use the new Scout production facility. At the top of this list? Audi, which wants a Defender-fighter.
- January 2026: This has been an issue from the start, but the lawsuits start ramping up as car dealers get super mad that VW is finally building a product they think they can sell and… not allowing them to sell it.
- April 2026: VW CEO Oliver Blume tells Manager Magazin that the company is open to partnering on the Scout platform.
A lot of other things happened, so just take that as a quick gloss to catch you up with today’s news. As has been widely reported, VW of America is getting a new boss in the form of current Audi sales head Marco Schubert. An article about those changes from Automotive News contains this little tidbit about rumors of a pure combustion version:
A combustion engine version would potentially delay the Scout program further and raise questions about the economics of a vehicle program designed for a market undergoing a rapid powertrain transition.
Scout’s first models are currently expected to enter production at its new factory in Blythewood, South Carolina. The range-extender SUV is targeted for 2028, while the pickup could follow around 2030.
VW Group is investing roughly €3 billion in the plant. Using the facility for Audi vehicles as well could improve utilization and strengthen the business case for the investment.
Large Audi SUVs such as the Q7 and Q9 could potentially be built there, alongside Porsche derivatives including the Cayenne and a larger SUV expected to follow.
[Ed Note: Only one word comes to mind when I hear about the possibility of an ICE vehicle being built on the Scout’s platform: compromise. -DT].
When Scout was first considered, people were going insane for electric cars in theory, and automakers were rushing to get them to market. The reality has changed, so it does raise the question of whether or not the Scout brand makes sense at all. Will Americans embrace EREVs? Obviously, many of us here think it could be a good idea, but no one really knows.
Audi and Porsche are stuck because they don’t build any vehicles in the United States yet, at the same time, desperately need to be profitable in the US while somehow sidestepping tariffs. It’s a shitshow, and VW’s new Scout facility in South Carolina just makes sense. Also, almost no traditional OEM is making great margins on electric cars, whereas plenty of traditional OEMs are cashing them checks with large SUVs and trucks.
At this rate, what’s even the argument for making an all-electric truck? Lucid founder Peter Rawlinson, an expert in these things, has said it’s basically impossible to make a good, affordable, and profitable large EV truck given current technological constraints.
Having learned the hard lesson of constantly delaying a product in order to stick to a powertrain and concept with the ID.Buzz, perhaps VW can learn another lesson and just delay the BEV forever. Holistically, it’s better for the company as a whole for it to start building big Audi and Porsche SUVs in South Carolina than it probably is to make a pure-BEV Scout that’ll almost certainly lose money.
So, this is my bet. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think we’ll see a fully gas-powered Scout or Scout derivative on the market in significant numbers before we see a fully-BEV version.
Nissan Is Speeding Up The Rogue Hybrid Rollout
It’s rare that a company gets a car to market faster (see above), which makes Nissan’s move to rush the 2027 Nissan Rogue ePower hybrid all the more surprising. The company has been in a rough spot lately and lacks the resources of, say, a Toyota to make such a quick change.
At the same time, the Rogue is by far the most important product to Nissan and a hybrid option is sorely needed. How is it pulling this off? Again, from Automotive News:
The 2027 Rogue Hybrid, which Nissan initially will import from Japan, won’t transform the nameplate overnight. Each of the brand’s 1,050 U.S. dealerships will receive one or two in November. Supply is expected to increase to about 6,000 units by March as the hybrid lineup expands with two additional trims.
“If Nissan keeps the supply scarce, and the demand is strong, we’ll make money on them,” said Scott Smith, chairman of the Nissan National Dealer Advisory Board.
Localization of production will drive higher volumes and improved profitability. Assembly of the next-generation gasoline Rogue is scheduled to begin at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tenn., in summer 2027. Domestic production of the hybrid is planned by early 2028 and could expand the plant to three shifts, from two today. Nissan also is evaluating whether to produce e-Power hybrid components at its engine plant in nearby Decherd, Tenn.
That explains it. These early hybrids are imported and, probably, not going to be as profitable as the locally-built versions. With Nissan losing market share to hybrids from most other competitive automakers (CR-V and RAV4, especially), maybe better to have something than nothing.
Nissan And Honda Will Develop A Software-Defined Vehicle Platform Together
Nissan and Honda nearly merged in 2024 before the whole thing blew up, though I’m feeling a little more hopeful about Nissan’s prospects with its new CEO (the old CEO is pictured above). Something was bound to come out of the companies buddying up and, now, we know what it is.
From a Nissan press release:
Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. have entered into a joint development agreement to standardize multiple electronic control units (ECUs)* that form the core of next-generation software-defined vehicles (SDVs), along with the in-vehicle operating system and key parts of the middleware, and vehicle control software that run on these ECUs.
The E/E architecture incorporating the jointly developed ECUs and software is planned for application in both companies’ next-generation SDVs from fiscal year 2029 onward.
As part of their strategic partnership, Nissan and Honda continue to explore opportunities for collaboration across a range of areas to accelerate progress toward carbon neutrality and help realize a future with zero traffic fatalities involving their vehicles. In particular, the software domain centered on SDVs, which is key to vehicle intelligence and electrification, has been identified as an important area of collaboration, given the rapid pace of technological innovation and the need to strengthen competitiveness through improved R&D speed and investment efficiency.
Recognizing the need to strengthen competitiveness through faster development cycles and more efficient investment, the two companies have conducted extensive studies on potential collaboration in the software domain. As a result of these discussions, Nissan and Honda have agreed to jointly develop and standardize the core ECUs and software that underpin next-generation SDVs.
Cool. Or just merge, already.
Well, That’s One Way To Lower Fuel Prices
A new gas station network promoted by the Trump White House seemingly popped up out of nowhere, offering lower fuel prices than competitors. Gas prices have been a bit of a sore point for the Trump administration given that it spent a lot of time blaming the previous tenants for higher gas prices, only to have the exact same thing happen. Obviously, a seemingly never-ending conflict with Iran doesn’t help.
What no one could really answer is how the gas stations were offering cheaper prices. According to this report from The New York Times, there’s maybe a hint in a new lawsuit:
The lawsuit was filed by the Georgia-based Mansfield Energy against KRSM, a company based in New Jersey, and its president, Syed Kazmi. From May 21 to July 7, KRSM picked up 1.1 million gallons of fuel worth nearly $4 million from a fuel supply terminal in Pennsylvania, the suit claims.
Then, KRSM sold that fuel to gas stations that were part of the Freedom Fuel Network, which was able to sell gas at lower prices than its competitors did, the lawsuit claims.
“KRSM was able to sell such fuel for such low prices and garner such publicity because it never paid plaintiff for such fuel,” the lawsuit says.
For its part, KRSM says this is all just confusion, but has, according to the lawsuit, continued to not pay for the fuel it sold. If that ain’t a metaphor for life in 2026 I don’t know what is.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Andrew WK–yes, that bloody nose party hard guy–has quietly come out with an instrumental jazz record called Temptation To Exist. I am pleased to inform you that it’s very good. Here’s “Manhattan Beach,” one of the standouts from the album.
Tech Update
Remember when we relaunched our video player and it was kind of a disaster? Sorry about that. We’re going to try again today. Please let us know if something goes funky.
The Big Question
Place your wager, what comes first: Full BEV Scout or no-BEV Scout?
Top photo: Scout
Just FYI for members: We’ve been watching the video launch and think we have everything (mostly) buttoned up. It may take a minute to propogate to everyone, but if you reload the page it should do the following:
Members: No autoplay, no ads, no sticky player.
Non-members: Autoplay, ads, sticky player.
Non-members get all three?! Dang. Take that, plebes.
I (a member) am greeted with an upper and lower red Autopian TV frame and a blank light gray screen that has no active links. Oh well.
Same here.
Translation . . .
Members: Foot massages, bottomless mimosas, and an omelet station
Non-members: Paper cuts, shared armrests and candy corn.
Me: Easy on the bunions, refill please, double up on the Gruyere and porcini mushrooms.
Hey I love candy corn. I’ll trade a sip of my mimosa for a handful.
Am a member, so it’s not relevant to me – but autoplay and sticky players are some of the worst ways to serve content on the internet. I wouldn’t subject non-members to that cancer, personally.
Presumably the revenue comes from the ads anyway? Why the additional visual pollution?
Got a pop-up video (Autopian TV, but still, don’t want it to pop-up in the lower corner without me asking for it) Member so I shouldn’t be seeing that, right?
Mazda is going to bring back the rotary.
Scout is going to bring out EVs and EREVs and says to Mazda “Hold my beer”.
Seconded on the pop-up videos showing up as a member.
weird, I had no pop up videos until I refreshed this page. Now the video auto-plays and moves to the bottom right corner.
Same.
We are in the process of fixing this. It should be good if you refresh.
Thanks. You fixed it (for me anyway)…. now can you tell me why the cruise control isn’t working on my 91 Miata ?
🙂
PS- The popups that I can’t pause, stop nor close on at old jalopy site have now made it a non-starter for me. I won’t even bother clicking on it any longer. Long live theAutopian>
It’s fixed, thanks!
That Freedom Fuel logo is fucking hilarious, compounded only by their modus operandi.
It’s like the 4th Fast & Furious movie opening, only they didn’t have to hijack the tankers to steal the fuel.
If a logo looks like it’s for gas station erection pills but isn’t on a pack of gas station erection pills, you know exactly who their target demographic is.
[Ed Note: Only one word comes to mind when I hear about the possibility of an ICE vehicle being built on the Scout’s platform: compromise. -DT].
Two additional words come to my mind: heavy and Charger
“…it never paid plaintiff for…” – This has been his SOP for decades.
At this point, it may be an actual SOP with a document control number and everything.
Don’t forget the nda.
No Dollars Acquired?
That would never happen.
And an ISO-9001 certification
I think just sharing a factory that makes products that will be sold as a VW or Audi would be enough to get them to lose the lawsuit by the dealers and prevent direct to consumer sales, but if they get rebadged as a VW or Audi product too then I feel like it’s almost guaranteed they’ll be blocked. I hate these franchise rules probably more than anybody else, but dealership groups are some of the biggest political donors in this country so the laws heavily favor them over the consumer.
That’s 99.99% of the problem in this country. Who are the constituents that are supposed to be served by those elected – the people (consumers) or the donors (not the consumers)? “Of the people, by the people, for the people” my ass.
Check the balance sheets for the answer.
The Scout was a really cool, really flawed idea. Battery tech isn’t up to this use case yet, unless you want to make a 8000+ lb. land yacht like Riven or Hummer. I feel like going BEV out of the gate was always pie in the sky. It should have been a plug in hybrid that could grow to BEV when solid state is real. Small battery capable of powering a campout, or maybe 40 miles all eclectic, with an engine capable of charging said battery while on the trail the next day all while and getting 30+mpg. You would still get the added torque of the hybrid system to do truck type things.
Yeh agreed, at least to the extent that there is some subset of the customer base who’d be interested in actual rough roader/overlander going full BEV for this makes little sense for any sort of real overlanding back roads adventures-at least in the Western states.
Whatever choice VW makes about Scout, I expect it to be 3 years too late and wrong.
Turbo diesel Scout?
Probably Hydrogen powered hanging out with the Mirai marooned in middle America.
You could say that VW is Rushing this decision. As in “if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice”.
“No decision is, in itself, a decision”
William James
We will get the truck version of there ID Buzz. Too much money and too late to do any good for anyone.
*They’re are over there with their stuff.
My high school english teacher is looking at me very sternly right now.
Mr. Garvey?
I thought the same; it can only be!
3 years late, with disappointing specs, and a price too high even if the specs weren’t disappointing.
Nothing against Hardibro or Andrew WK, but I liked Gorillaz’ version better.
Does VW break out how much they make from Electrify America?
The per kilowatt prices on these fast chargers are pretty damn spendy as EA and Tesla are about the only rapid charging games in town where I live if you want to head out on the interstate for a road trip.
I imagine they are excited about getting more folks to use them on road trips instead of just tooling around the city. Double dipping on revenue has to be pretty darn tempting.
Vehicles like the scout and id buzz seem like they might be more geared for long trips which is why I’d guess they tried to push them. They are too damn expensive unfortunately.
Freedom Fuel, freed from the shackles of societies mores and customs, they can offer you cheaper fuel.
Re: Freedom Fuel – I can’t say I’m surprised. Any person with a basic understanding of economics should question how a gas station can undercut its competitor’s fuel prices by 10-20%. This makes sense.
Since I like to avoid politics on this site, I’ll refrain from making any comparison to business ventures that strategically use bankruptcy to profit by not paying bills (honestly, I find the five-finger discount approach [allegedly] used by Freedom Fuel refreshing by comparison).
I will also refrain from pointing out the irony that an administration that claims to hate anything socialist has no problem with a government-associated gas station network selling artificially discounted fuel.
Re: TBQ: ICE Scout will beat the BEV Scout. The Wrangler and Bronco are big sellers that make big profits. VW doesn’t have any big sellers at all, much less ones that make big profits (at least, none in the US). Not selling an ICE Scout would be corporate malpractice. I’m not mad – I just hope they end up selling a nice PHEV/EREV version at some point. Frankly, I question how well Scout will do without an ICE version.
I wonder how the fossil fuel lobby feels about the US invading their turf
Yeah, I am surprised Zohran MamDonald did something that appears to not be in the best interest of a major industry / political donor.
I don’t think the ID.Buzz and the Scout are comparable, as the former is mainly aimed at the European market and the latter mainly (or maybe even only, since the International Scout wasn’t sold here and the brand would be more or less completely unknown) at the U. S. market.
The ID.Buzz is moderately successful in Europe in spite of its insane price. I agree that mainly for reasons beyond VW’s control (see the “Freedom Fuel” fiasco as an example) delaying the EV Scout might make sense.
Yeah this is a very American-centric view.
I swear, nearly half the vans I saw on the road in Stockholm this summer were ID Buzz.
There’s one or two in my area of the US and I they are really cool up close. Want.
The Kia PV5 is also a great looking van to look out for. We are getting it in Canada, not sure about the US.
Yeh I was in Copenhagen a couple years ago and they were everywhere-many of them as base model work vans. Didn’t see as many in Oslo and Bergen but even there they had made an obviously bigger dent than in the USA.
Yup the base model short wheelbase versions look quite handy. I saw lots in livery.
Yeh that was my thought too “why did VW not bring the short wheelbase one here??” Granted I have a hard time picturing American contractors and commercial fleets buying an EV work van from VW…
I saw a lot of ID Buzz vans on Vancouver Island this month. A lot more than I see in MA.
ID.Buzz was poised to be the next big thing in EV’s, especially in the HollyWeird area of the world. it had the nostalgia factor for the hippies and the EV feels for the then predominant Ev push. but it was just not that good in the end. inadequate range, lackluster access to charging stations and the price put it into the top tier mostly, which if you know the bell curves then you know the number of buyers on the bottoms of the bell is small.
As a premium nostalgia object, the ID.Buzz was also 20 years too late.
My aunt and uncle travelled to Europe in the 1960s, and purchased an original VW Microbus. They’re over/ pushing 80 now, and frankly have no use for a camper, or even a van. 15 years ago, that might have been different.
Conversely, the Buzz is actually doing well in Europe as a commercial vehicle.
Scout truck in 2030? Was that a quote from Audi, or speculation from the interviewer? I had always assumed they would start with the SUV… but two years later to debut the truck is definitely news.
I’m still holding my deposit, but I’ve stopped following along and dreaming about what I’d do with it. The company is really trying hard to keep up engagement…
I can’t be bothered to look it up right now, but I’m pretty sure that was part of the official announcement back when they delayed the launch. The two year delay may have even gone back to the very first date announcement.
Nah, they’ve definitely been stressing “no delays” in public forums which has always meant early 2028 on posted timelines. This is the first I’ve seen of any suggestion that the truck would happen on a different timeline than the SUV.
https://www.motor1.com/news/792508/scout-truck-suv-delayed-2028-2030/
Ah ok, it was definitely an outside source making that claim. Scout responded and did not definitively contradict the report, but apparently the website still lists 2028 for both.
Re: Audi: The ideas being proposed are far more complicated once you get into the details.
The Scout platform is a body-on-frame EV with an optional small ICE powerplant mounted sideways behind the rear axle. There are no provisions for things like an exhaust system or front mounted radiator that you’d need for a front-engined, fully-ICE-powered Audi. That means a considerable amount of time and money needed for that level of re-engineering.
Second, I cannot find any evidence of any automaker building body-on-frame and BFI (e.g., like the Audi Q7 and Q9) vehicles in the same plant, so we could be talking about significant reworking of the Scout plant if that’s the plan.
Never understood the myth of superior German engineering. Overly complicated, expensive, prone to break downs, more expensive to repair. Performance was generally better, even great, in between visits to the garage. Was surprised when bought a consumers reports auto book way back in 1977, turning the pages to the German makes and viewing a sea of black dots.
I’m not going to claim “superior” engineering because I have no idea, but my personal track record with German cars is very positive.
Two BMWs and two Porsches, model years spanning 1998 to 2023, they have all been incredible cars.
Good to know, thank you. 1977 must have been a bad vintage.
It’s times like this that I wish International/Navistar/Scout were in more capable hands than VW’s
Worth noting that the commercial truck side of the business and passenger car side are very independent of each other with little crossover. But I agree the legacy IH names deserve proper execution.
The could improve quality and new product dev and release times by merging with Stellantis.
I’d call this a match made in heaven except that I’m pretty sure they both had Lucas Electrics as their father.
the twins of darkness Lucas and magnetti marelli
At this point, an Edison Motors hybrid chassis under old Scout bodies is a more likely reality.
I’m thinking InBev Scout because who knows what the folks at VW have been drinking or how much.
The EREV is the only Scout I’m interested in. I tow and frequently take long trips in my truck to places where charging may not be a convenient option. A gas only version isn’t going to get me out of my Silverado.
TBQ: at this rate, the Scout name gets sold back to CaseIHNewHolland or whatever they are these days and becomes a line of Rebadged Polaris UTVs in IH Red.
I said on here before I may or may not work for a VW owned company and was looking at job postings for Scout and from what I saw everything still seems to all point to it being an EV. I would be really surprised and kind of sad if it came out and was ICE only as I really would like the BEV version to be possible replacement for my Polestar 2 and FJ.
Also side note with the money VW invested in Rivian hard to see them pivot far away from EVs
I don’t think VAG will survive. They just don’t seem to have enough brands with overlapping products. /S
If only they had another SUV
It would suck to be a bird with brass wings but a biological head. Poor guy is stuck in an unimaginable hell.
Oh wow, just noticed this.
A Darth Vader-like cyborg eagle is a very appropriate symbol for a company with ties to the
ImperialFederal government right now.Robot Chicken Fuel?
Approximately 67% of the US population sympathizes.
E – REV scout will be the bread and butter vehicle as long as that does not price them out of the game. They could replace the Rev Part with a bank of batteries to extend BEV range I suppose, But again they just need to do that on paper and then have a plan for the occasional swap when some overly rich dude thinks he is being Green by going full BEV or something.
Audi will fail because they have no reliable drive train. The EA888 2.0 turbo is about as reliable as they get for that group, but nobody wants the scout to be as dog slow and unreliable as it once was with tractor motors.
it would be kind of interesting to see if Porsche would try to fit a Mezger flat six in that vehicle somewhere. that might actually be good if the goal is to replace some flat panel of batteries, but even those have a reputation for cylinder plating failure and the upper cams getting insufficient oiling due to gravity.
“E – REV scout will be the bread and butter vehicle as long as that does not price them out of the game.”
There is no way around it, and I feel like this site’s editorial are being willfully blind. Scout is going to be an expensive, compromised, lifestyle vehicle AT BEST.
A full-size truck platform + 70kWh battery + 4cyl gen-set is going to ensure an MSRP at (or above) any previous standard range electric truck or SUV. (Lightning, Rivian, etc.)
All that for a towing capacity of 5000lb. 50% less than the pure EV Scout, or the F150 Lightning. Plus you still have to go to the gas station and take it for oil changes.
I can see the market for improved hybrid & PHEV trucks, but the battery needs to be much smaller than 70kWh to offset the cost of the ICE generator.
I’ve seen Mexican registered modern-ish Golf based VW pickups driving in southern AZ. This seems like a short putt for VW vs. the Scout brand.
Missing the Golf-based pickups, and cutting the Golf seems like a big missed opportunity- even if volumes were low.
I’m thinking no Scout is going to come.
Yep, I’m starting to think it’s not gonna happen at all. I guess my current EREV plan of a BEV and an old beater truck will continue indefinitely.
Solid plan. 05 Grand Cherokee for winter and adventures where a stump might dent a rocker. 08 Prius for city driving. Wife tools around in the blazer ev and we take it on road trips.
This is also my guess, at least the current bloated design. I don’t see why Audi or Porsche would sell a body on frame vehicle that is probably classified similarly to an F250. They would probably be better off just taking a Rivian R2, putting a new front clip on it, getting rid of all the software bloat, and putting in a new dash with buttons, and calling that the Scout.
I came to post a similar comment about the Scout/Rivian similarity. Redo the headlights, add a few new stickers and badges, bigger tires, and there you go. New Scout EV. But would they sell enough to pay off the new headlight design? Not sure.
No scout before it’s time vibes. Five more years based on the ID Buzz metric. Saw a Buzz the other day. Nice looking.