Scout Motors' Electric Truck and SUV Will Both Debut This Summer

• Scout Motors — the Volkswagen Group's new electric truck and SUV brand that reimagines the International Harvester Scout from the 1970s — will show its first two products this summer.
• Both a pickup truck and sport-utility vehicle are coming, with a shared electric architecture and body-on-frame construction.
• The production versions will be built in Blythewood, South Carolina, and are expected to go on sale in 2026.

Volkswagen's electric sub-brand, Scout Motors, will debut both a pickup truck and SUV this summer. Speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for the company's new production facility in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Thursday, Scout CEO Scott Keogh said the pair will be "highly robust and highly capable," with body-on-frame construction and locking differentials.

"It's gonna be a car with character. It's gonna be a car with personality. It's gonna be a car that's not an optimized jellybean," Keogh said.

The Volkswagen Group first announced the creation of Scout Motors in 2022, with Keogh — who formerly headed both Audi and Volkswagen in the U.S. — tapped to lead. The plan is for both vehicles to go on sale in 2026, with as many as 200,000 units a year rolling off the line at the Blythewood facility.

What's coming this summer

"The intent is to show a car that's gonna align pretty closely with what our intent is," Keogh said. When asked if Scout would debut both the truck and SUV simultaneously, Keogh added, "We intend to show them at the same time."

Final details are still forthcoming, but right now, Keogh says the designs of Scout's truck and SUV are "hyper-hyper-hyper close" to finalized, and that "engineering is maybe a tack or two behind, but not far."

"Will there be some tweaks and adjustments? Sure," Keogh said. "But the goal here would be to say, 'Here's what we're gonna bring to market.'"

Scout's first two products will ride on a platform not shared with any other vehicle in the Volkswagen Group. "The design is Scout Motors, engineering is Scout Motors," Keogh said.

"This platform, this car, this everything was designed with specs to compete [in the U.S.]," Keogh added. "That's a unique thing to modifying [what are] effectively European cars. We think this is a very cool platform that offers a lot of opportunities."

Could those opportunities include Scout lending this platform to other VW Group brands? "Possibly," Keogh said. But right now, the priority is Scout first and foremost, and the company will have different variants and trim packages for these two models, and is already working with aftermarket companies about add-on accessories. 

"We're not building something to navigate the strip malls of America," Keogh said. "We're building something to navigate America."

A new home in South Carolina

Scout Motors' factory will live on a 1,100-acre site in Blythewood, South Carolina, roughly 15 miles north of the state's capital of Columbia. During the groundbreaking event, councilwoman Jesica Mackey said the Volkswagen Group's $2 billion investment marks the single largest economic development in the history of Richland County, where the factory is located.

At full operation, Scout's facility will be able to build more than 200,000 vehicles annually, according to Jan Spies, the company's head of production. And that's not just limited to the first truck and SUV.

"We do have the opportunity to build all of the ideas that we have at the moment," Spies said. "We can do [it] in that factory. We're not 'one model, one car.'"

Edmunds says

With growing interest in electric trucks and SUVs, we're excited to see how Scout's lifestyle-driven approach competes with the industry's established players.