Scout Steps Toward Mass Production, With 200,000+ Reservations On The Line

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Scout Motors, the revived American brand now focused on off-road capable and affordable electric trucks and SUVs, has apparently produced its first validation build vehicles at its factory in South Carolina. This is a significant step forward toward mass production for the Volkswagen Group subsidiary.

We’ve seen many EV startups come and go, including ones that revived old, historic car brands — like Detroit Electric. However, in this case, Scout is 1) offering something unique on the market, 2) focused on affordability combined with usefulness, 3) backed by automotive giant Volkswagen Group, and 4) currently has more than 200,000 reservations on the books! Reportedly, there are 212,000+ reservations for Scout EVs.

Oh, also, the company has a $2 billion factory in South Carolina, and it’s real. I’m sure there’s a lot to do there to get it filled out and operating as desired, but getting to factory production of validation build vehicles is a notable achievement that implies we are fairly close to getting actual production vehicles delivered to customers. The validation builds are of the Traveler SUV and Terra pickup truck.

The company is now able to do stamping, welding, and painting at the factory in Blythewood, South Carolina, and CEO Scott Keogh says the factory is actually 85% complete already.

After validation builds, the next phase will be pre-production vehicles. Keogh forecasts that actual production of consumer cars will begin in 2027, and deliveries will then commence in 2028. (So, customer vehicle production must be slated for the end of next year.) Construction on the factory began in 2023.

Scout was initially only going to produce 100% electric vehicles. However, it pivoted to also producing extended-range electric vehicles (vehicles that always run on electricity from a battery but whose battery can be recharged from a gas engine while driving). According to the company, 87% of those 212,000+ reservations are for the range-extended versions of the Traveler and Terra. Buyers are also heavily favoring the SUV, the Traveler, which has pulled in 75% of the reservations so far.

Keogh thinks the company could reach 400,000 reservations by the time it starts producing customer vehicles. It was at 160,000 in March and 50,000 in January. The factory is supposed to have an annual production capacity of 200,000. Having reservations for two years worth of production would be a strong, helpful boost for the company.

All of that said, one warning on the reservation tally is it has one of the same issues as the Tesla Cybertruck had — reservations are fully refundable and only cost $100. That makes it very hard to know how many people will actually go ahead and buy the vehicles once they are on offer. We will see.