Scout EV And Pickup Won’t Be Based On VW’s MEB Platform, Will Be True Off-Roaders, Says Report

The upcoming SUV and pickup sold under the Scout name will not be rebadged Volkswagens, according to a post from a prominent Scout enthusiast who claims he spoke to the Scout Motors team.

Jeff Bade, whom Autoblog refers to as a prominent member of the vintage Scout community, recently posted about his experience on Facebook. He claimed that the team shared some details about the upcoming electric vehicles and asked him (and a number of other enthusiasts) about their views on what a modern Scout should be like.

“This team is special,” Bade wrote, claiming that he had been given some privileged information. “What I can say is that Community and History are very important to them. The Aftermarket is also very important to them so we will all be able to customize and work on our trucks, this is not going to follow a Tesla philosophy.”

Bade wrote, more specifically, that “this is an AMERICAN truck” and that it will not be a “rebranded or variation of anything in the VAG line.” Suggestions that the vehicles would be based on the MEB “skateboard platform are not true,” he claims.

That means that the Scout vehicles will not share their underpinnings with the likes of the ID.4, which is now being built at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Nor will it be a reprise of the concept proposed by the ID. Buggy.

That would make developing these vehicles a very large undertaking, which may explain why Scott Keogh stepped down as the head of Volkswagen Group North America to lead Scout. It is also, however, a strategy that would seem to run counter to Volkswagen’s over arching plan to move all EVs onto a single platform. That’s a long-term plan, though, and Audi and Porsche are currently working on their own architecture, the PPE platform.

With the popularity of SUVs, it might not be a bad idea to have a more utilitarian electric platform kicking around to share with the rest of the group. Indeed, Bade suggests that Scout “can and will share technology,” which is in many ways how VW approached the design of the original Touareg.

The enthusiast further concedes that Scout’s vehicles won’t be exactly the same as the International Harvester SUVs enthusiasts care so deeply about, but he insists that the renewed brand is working to make a capable off-roader that contains “the right amount of old and new.”

This is, of course, not official information and, while we have no specific reason be skeptical about Bade’s information, even if he is reporting the truth, it’s still very early in the development process and Scout’s ambitions may not all come true. Still, he paints an enticing picture.

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