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Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

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Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#21

Post by alistairSH »

jandrese wrote: post #9
zactato wrote: post #6

I hope this ends up being smaller than the F150. I get the popularity of that form factor, but I simply don't believe that many people are hauling yards of soil or towing boats. 2 Seats + 6 Foot bed seems like a winning combination in practicality, but is quite rare in the US.

Non-crew cab is almost extinct. I think there are tax/regulatory reasons for this, but it also drives me crazy that so many trucks have beds that are terrible at carrying 8' long items like 2x4s and plywood sheets. At least with a 6' bed the stuff is only sticking out a little past the end of the tailgate.

FWIW, I have a Ridgeline with a 5'4" bed. My 10'6" surfboards are fine with the tailgate down (total flat length just shy of 7') and a red flag on the end.

Edit - I would have considered a Santa Cruz or Maverick, had they been available when I bought the RL. But, they're beds are smaller yet and one of the big selling points of the RL was the under-bed trunk, which is massive (about the same as the trunk on my wife's BMW).

Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#23

Post by SandersAK »

mulmen wrote: post #19
zactato wrote: post #6

I hope this ends up being smaller than the F150. I get the popularity of that form factor, but I simply don't believe that many people are hauling yards of soil or towing boats. 2 Seats + 6 Foot bed seems like a winning combination in practicality, but is quite rare in the US.

> hauling yards of soil or towing boats I'm not defending the number of pickups on the road in America but this is an out of touch comment. Some common uses of pickup beds include: * Hauling motorcycles and ATVs including snowmobiles. * Carrying campers. * Carrying home improvement projects such as bags of soil, plants, and raw material such as 8'x2"x4" lumber or 4'x8' plywood. At least in the 2000s a 4x8 sheet of pl…

About 2/3rds of truck owners don't use the bed much at all.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...

Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#24

Post by renewiltord »

I would absolutely love a pickup truck that I can use in SF. All the modern ones are absolutely humongous. I had a Titan and that thing was enormous. Cost me absolute bags of money to offset the carbon.

Ultimately, I just want something with a bed that I can strap my bike down and take somewhere to ride. You can't really do that with the Forester I have now.

Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#25

Post by browningstreet »

orangepurple wrote: post #15

I have heard that VW suffers in the USA because of extremely poor and predatory dealership experiences

I bought VWs & Audis in 3 states and had no issues.

I also had zero problems with any of my cars... including A6s and my last VW product was a VW CC.

But after that, the cars were always out of step with what they were competing with. VW started making "VWs cars for Americans in America", like the Atlas. I bought a Highlander because the Atlas was bigger than I wanted, had less tech (at the beginning, not true at the end).

ID4? I bought a Tesla Y.

I wanted an R as my last ICE vehicle, couldn't get one to save my life, and I tried.

They're #2 globally behind Toyota, but I think they're moving a ton of Tiguans nowadays.

Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#26

Post by toast0 »

zactato wrote: post #6

I hope this ends up being smaller than the F150. I get the popularity of that form factor, but I simply don't believe that many people are hauling yards of soil or towing boats. 2 Seats + 6 Foot bed seems like a winning combination in practicality, but is quite rare in the US.

Well, an old Scout is a two-door, two row SUV, with a bit of storage in the back and a hatch-back + tail gate. Not a compact pickup (but actually a pretty short length; it qualifies for a small car rate on the Washington State ferries!). International Harvester did make pickup trucks into the mid 70s and they share some bodywork and design elements with Scouts such that you might call it a Scout pickup, but that's not what IH called them.

The compact pickup with a standard cab + 6 foot bed was mostly killed by CAFE standard updates. It didn't make sense to make them based on the footprint model. Hopefully electric trucks will bring this segment back, since they don't have the same constraints leading them towards larger footprints.

Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#27

Post by corrral »

rootusrootus wrote: post #17
jandrese wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-crew cab is almost extinct. I think there are tax/regulatory reasons for this, but it also drives me crazy that so many trucks have beds that are terrible at carrying 8' long items like 2x4s and plywood sheets. At least with a 6' bed the stuff is only sticking out a little past the end of the tailgate.

I would wager it is only the retail market where the non-crew-cab is nearly extinct. A two seat pickup is a niche vehicle, about as useful for carrying a family around as a two seat sports car.

> A two seat pickup is a niche vehicle, about as useful for carrying a family around as a two seat sports car.

Not to country folk—kids ride in the bed. Or crammed in the middle if there aren't too many of them and they're still fairly small and you're lucky enough to still have a bench seat.

Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#28

Post by mulmen »

SandersAK wrote: post #23
mulmen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hauling yards of soil or towing boats I'm not defending the number of pickups on the road in America but this is an out of touch comment. Some common uses of pickup beds include: * Hauling motorcycles and ATVs including snowmobiles. * Carrying campers. * Carrying home improvement projects such as bags of soil, plants, and raw material such as 8'x2"x4" lumber or 4'x8' plywood. At least in the 2000s a 4x8 sheet of pl…

About 2/3rds of truck owners don't use the bed much at all. https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...

> And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.

Reads to me like 2/3 of truck owners use their bed at least twice a year.

From the same paragraph:

> 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never).

Over 25% of trucks are used for towing.

> Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less.

A third of truck owners go offroad.

Add all that up and it sounds like pickups are getting a lot of use. There are no stats on what percentage of people do at least one of those things so we are left to guess but by the claims in the article it is at least "most".

Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#29

Post by ThePhysicist »

josephpmay wrote: post #16

This is actually a pretty interesting story, from a career perspective: The CEO of VW North America is on vacation with his family, sees a restored classic Scout, and falls in love with it. He finds out that coincidentally VW now owns the rights to the Scout brand, so he steps down from his post to start a new Scout subsidiary.

Startup life has ruined me, so I'll never be able to believe such an origin story anymore and always assume it's something that PR/marketing has made up.

Re: Volkswagen bringing back Scout brand truck as electric vehicle made in America

#30

Post by Animats »

macintux wrote: post #18
Animats wrote: post #13

Nice, especially since Jeep is discontinuing the 2-door Wrangler, and doesn't make it in electric at all.

Citation? I follow Jeep news very closely and haven’t heard any rumblings of a 2-door cancellation. Electric seems inevitable, however.

See http://www.google.com

* "Jeep Ending Wrangler Two-Door Sales In Key Market" [1]

* "Stellantis to Kill the Two-Door Jeep Wrangler in Europe" [2]

* https://www.jeep.com/ Note total absence of 2 door models in pictures.

* Electric available only in 4-door.[3]

[1] https://carbuzz.com/news/jeep-ending-wrangler-two-door-sales...

[2] https://www.autoevolution.com/news/stellantis-to-kill-the-tw...

[3] https://www.jeep.com/bmo.wrangler_4xe.2023.html

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