Scout Motors Has 130,000 Reservations. Nearly All Want The Gas Engine

• Most of Scout Motors’ reservation holders opted for the range extender option.
• That’s over 100,000 people who would still prefer a gasoline engine.
• In Scout’s upcoming vehicles, the combustion engine only acts as a generator for the battery and electric motors.

When Stellantis killed the all-electric Ram 1500 truck to focus on the extended-range version, we weren’t exactly surprised. All-electric pickup sales have so far been anything but stellar, and now it’s clearer than ever why: people still want a gas engine, just to be safe.

That’s not just an assumption. It’s what Scout Motors, the Volkswagen Group-owned reborn automaker, is currently experiencing. Speaking with Bloomberg, Scott Keogh, the company’s CEO, said that the vast majority of customers placed reservations for the extended-range versions of the upcoming Terra pickup and Traveler SUV EVs.

Scout Traveler Electric SUV

Photo by: Scout Motors

“Look, the market has spoken. Over 80% of the reservations are for the range extender,” said Keogh, who added that the company currently has 130,000 reservations in total, a number that is constantly growing. In other words, a little over 100,000 people opted for the version that has a gas generator, which feeds electricity to the main high-voltage battery.

Asked about whether Scout will prioritize the launch of the EREV version, Keogh was a little ambiguous. “In general, in life, you like to meet the market. So certainly we would probably lean with the EREV, but nothing we’ve announced yet,” Scout’s CEO said. “Both of them are being developed, and both of them can be handled at the manufacturing line. We’ll announce that as soon as possible.”

An EREV, or extended-range electric vehicle, is essentially an electric vehicle that has a combustion engine to boost the range when the state of charge is getting low and there’s no chargers nearby. The wheels are driven by electric motors, and there’s no physical connection between the wheels and the gas engine.

In Scout’s case, the all-electric version of the Terra and Traveler will have a nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery that’s expected to offer roughly 120 kilowatt-hours for an estimated range of 350 miles. Meanwhile, the EREV versions will have a smaller lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery with approximately half the capacity of the full-blown EV. The LFP pack, which is less energy-dense than the NMC pack but cheaper to make, is expected to deliver about 150 miles on its own, but here’s where the gas engine comes into play.

The naturally-aspirated four-cylinder lump, which will be placed behind the rear axle, will increase the total range to 500 miles by burning fuel. The car’s platform is the same, and both the EV and EREV will be able to charge from a DC fast charger, but the range-extended version seems to be the logical step for American truck customers at the moment.

However, when asked about the possibility of a combustion-only Scout model, Scott Keogh didn’t mince words: “I don’t see it. And look, there’s a lot of drama now that says the world was all EV. Now the world’s going to become 100% internal combustion engine,” he said.

“The world is still heading electric. The technology is there, the innovation is there. We are in the early stages. Tech is only getting better; our costs are only going to go down. And we want to make sure Scout is prepared for the next 100 years, we’re not building a two-year brand.”

Scout’s first new models, the Terra and Traveler, are scheduled to go into production in late 2027 at a brand-new factory in Blythewood, South Carolina. After a $2 billion investment, the Volkswagen Group-backed automaker said it will add another $300 million on top. 

Despite production being only two years away, it will take about three years for the company to reach its true assembly potential, Keogh said for Bloomberg.