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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

#41

Post by bluGill »

corrral wrote: post #20
actionablefiber wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the sense that the pickup truck market in the U.S. particularly in suburbs is driven by brand marketing rather than consumer needs. People are paying a premium, in the cost of purchasing as well as in the cost of insuring, maintaining, and fueling, for the image of the rugged individualistic American ready for any terrain, weather, or load that needs hauling, and maximally armored to "win" should they ever hit…

> There's a subset of contexts where they make sense although I think for _most_ people they're infrequent enough that it's way more sensible to use a cargo van or a sedan and then just rent a truck during the minority of times when you actually need one. Even a minivan can tow a small trailer for occasional lumber store runs or towing a jet ski or two. Or just use the roof rack and some tie-downs. Or take the seats…

If you need a truck even 5% of the time it is overall cheapest to just own a truck. Insurance, car payments, and other fixed costs are too high to make a second car worth it, and renting a car is not cheap, not to mention rental rules often mean you can't use the truck as a truck. (I've been looking for a place to rent a truck so I can replace mine, a couple times a year I do something that no rental truck will let me do) Sure a truck uses a lot more fuel, but fuel is a small part of the cost of a car.

Though I don't get families with more than one truck/suv. One will do the job for all of those things, and a EV (even a limited range one like the older leaf) will take care of all the other. Only rarely do you have to tell your spouse that you need the truck so drive "my" car.

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

#42

Post by EricE »

EricE wrote: post #31
kurthr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The giant king cab luxury seating is the only thing available on the larger and more expensive models unless you have access to fleet purchasing. They definitely have a market and they've tuned product lines for it. There are even supersport models. Personally, I hate the short-beds cuz you can't easily transport lumber or plywood sheets.

Both the Hyundai Santa Cruz and Ford Ranger have tail gates that will partially lower to the same level as the tops of the wheel wells, providing a perfect platform for 4x8 sheets of plywood. I have a friend with a Ranger and we have hauled plywood and other larger objects with no issues. Would I want to do it routinely? Probably not - but for casual hauling they work well enough. I would expect the Scout to be desig…

And if you are as frustrated by the lack of true mini-pickups as I am, search the 'net and read about the chicken tax. Which was aimed at locking VW out of the US market quite a while ago, has lingered on way past it's prime and has bit even American manufacturers in the butt as more manufacturing has shifted outside of the US. Gotta love unintended consequences - ha!

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

#43

Post by yardie »

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…

> At least in the 2000s a 4x8 sheet of plywood will not fit in a compact pickup but lays flat in a fullsize.

I hate to break it to you but the F150 XLT Crew Cab tops out at 6.5ft. Your 4x8 plywood won't fit with the gate up. And if you have to put the gate down for standard sizes do you really need a fullsize pickup to do it?

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

#44

Post by bluGill »

mulmen wrote: post #28
SandersAK wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Even once is not never, because nothing else will do that job.

Note too that there people who use their bed but never tow, the fact that a truck could serve either purpose but for some only does one doesn't mean that those people don't use a truck.

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

#45

Post by corrral »

bluGill wrote: post #41
corrral wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a subset of contexts where they make sense although I think for _most_ people they're infrequent enough that it's way more sensible to use a cargo van or a sedan and then just rent a truck during the minority of times when you actually need one. Even a minivan can tow a small trailer for occasional lumber store runs or towing a jet ski or two. Or just use the roof rack and some tie-downs. Or take the seats…

If you need a truck even 5% of the time it is overall cheapest to just own a truck. Insurance, car payments, and other fixed costs are too high to make a second car worth it, and renting a car is not cheap, not to mention rental rules often mean you can't use the truck as a truck. (I've been looking for a place to rent a truck so I can replace mine, a couple times a year I do something that no rental truck will let m…

I expect using a truck as a truck, for a situation in which a roof rack or a small trailer towed by a lesser vehicle wouldn't have sufficed, 18-19 days a year would put you way above average for non-business truck owners in my area.

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

#46

Post by mulmen »

yardie wrote: post #43
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…

> At least in the 2000s a 4x8 sheet of plywood will not fit in a compact pickup but lays flat in a fullsize. I hate to break it to you but the F150 XLT Crew Cab tops out at 6.5ft. Your 4x8 plywood won't fit with the gate up. And if you have to put the gate down for standard sizes do you really need a fullsize pickup to do it?

Yes because in a smaller truck (like a Tacoma) the plywood doesn't fit between the wheel wells so it has to be loaded awkwardly and reduces what else you can haul because you can't put things on top of the plywood.

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

#47

Post by bluGill »

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.

Even in the work market they want the crew cab: for the crew to ride around in. I've been the person on a crew who had to ride in the middle seat of the small truck, I never want to again.

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

#48

Post by jandrese »

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.

Pickup trucks aren't for carrying a family around. The whole point is to have a large open cargo space for building materials, equipment, etc... If you want to haul a family use a sedan or minivan. Those back seats in crew cabs are always cramped and uncomfortable anyway. They are a terrible tradeoff, and yet the entire automotive industry has gone all in on them.

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

#49

Post by olivermarks »

I've owned an International Harvester 73 Scout II 4x4 345/torqueflite since 1999.

We've had Ford, the company that managed to kill off the lightline range in 1979 by colluding with their big three partners to crush IH, bringing out their flimsy '60's "Bronco' scout copy which they recently resurrected as a blatant Scout 800 body styling clone.

My point - why are the big auto makers so terrible at innovation and naming conventions? Why do we have to endure these irritating stories about execs 'resurrecting' past era vehicles and trying to get some of the mystique to rub off on their lame new models?

I also own a 1967 IH Travelall 4 x4. IH were absolutely awesome at building vehicles that were very beefy and mechanically built to last but horrifically rust prone. They helped kill themselves by ludicrously over optioning their lightline vehicles with what seemed like 100's of trim options, variants and levels that were very hard to organize on the assembly line. The golden era of US automobile manufacturing being culturally strip mined by VW.

1968 International Scout TV Commercial featuring a beagle puppy cute https://youtu.be/nKj3sjmRm5U

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

#50

Post by spython »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #4

I'm pretty psyched about the "Buzz", an electric reboot of the famous T1 bus [1]. Not sure how I would actually use this but it seems they're finally getting to grips with what made people love VW's in the past, and translating that to electric vehicles. I've also driven their electric ID.3 and it's just not nearly as exciting. 1: https://www.vw.com/en/models/id-buzz.html

Incredibly disappointed with how designed the front on this one. The original T1 had round 'eyes' and a friendly look; the headlights on the new one give it a mean squinting look.
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