Scout Cars

International Harvester introduced the Scout in 1961, starting with the Scout 80, as a rival to the Jeep CJ, and built 532,674 of them in Fort Wayne, Indiana, before production ended in 1980. The Scout is counted as a forerunner of more refined SUVs like the Ford Bronco, Chevrolet Blazer, and Jeep Cherokee, and its final form was the Scout II. The rights to the name passed to International Harvester's successor, Navistar, and Volkswagen picked them up in 2021 when its truck division, Traton, completed its purchase of Navistar.

Volkswagen approved a new, independent company to design, build, and sell off-road electric vehicles in the United States on May 11, 2022, with its own executives and board. Scott Keogh left his job running Volkswagen Group of America to become Scout's first CEO that September. On October 24, 2024, Scout revealed the Traveler SUV and the Terra pickup outside Nashville, along with a "Harvester" option that adds a small gasoline engine to generate electricity. By January 2025 it had more than 50,000 reservations, about 70% of them for the Traveler, and Keogh said more than half of buyers had picked the Harvester. Scout projected about 350 miles of range for the battery models and 500 miles for Harvester versions, with a starting price under $60,000.

Both trucks are planned for late 2027 as 2028 models. They'll be built at a $2 billion factory in Blythewood, South Carolina, announced on March 3, 2023, and designed to build 200,000 vehicles a year, while engineering is based in Novi, Michigan, and headquarters is moving to Charlotte, North Carolina. Scout plans to sell directly to customers instead of through franchised dealers, which has drawn lawsuits from dealer groups, including the California New Car Dealers Association. On March 30, 2026, a federal judge in Southern California let that association's main claims go forward.