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The Volkswagen Group has huge plans for electrical SUVs for the U.S. market underneath its revived Scout Motors model, and now, its CEO has revealed that famed contract auto producer Magna Worldwide will likely be its “engineering accomplice.”
Talking with Automotive Information, Scout CEO Scott Keogh mentioned the collaboration with Magna was a “good, environment friendly option to get the automobile to market on time.” The Canadian firm was useful at first of the venture to get issues shifting, in line with Keogh. “However now Scout engineers are within the lead. We’re driving it,” he mentioned.
The Canadian auto components provider and contract producer has huge experience in growing and constructing body-on-frame off-roaders and electrical autos. It at the moment builds the Mercedes-Benz G-Class at its plant in Graz, Austria, and it’ll make the EQG all-electric variant on the similar web site. Magna additionally builds the Jaguar I-Tempo and Fisker Ocean electrical SUVs on the plant.
Keogh didn’t touch upon a latest report from Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung, which claimed Volkswagen Group paid $492 million to Magna to assist develop the Scout fashions. Keogh mentioned Magna is not going to be concerned within the manufacturing of Scout EVs. Scout Motors will construct its electrical SUV and pickup truck at a brand new plant in Blythewood, South Carolina, on which it plans to interrupt floor within the first quarter. Keogh mentioned the corporate at the moment has round 300 staff and has been hiring round 50 extra every month. The manufacturing unit is anticipated to have 4,000 staff when it goes on-line in 2026.
Since Volkswagen Group has no inside experience with body-on-frame autos outdoors the first-generation Amarok midsize pickup—which has been changed by the Ford Ranger-based second-gen mannequin—it is smart that Scout Motors turned to an exterior accomplice for assist in engineering the platform.
Scout electrical SUV official teaser
Keogh advised Automotive Information that Scout’s body-on-frame electrical SUV is on monitor for a full unveiling in Q3 2024. The beginning of manufacturing, nevertheless, will likely be round late 2026, with gross sales anticipated to start quickly after. He mentioned the SUV would be the first to launch, adopted by the pickup truck “six, seven months after.”
He famous that the design is “85, 90, 95 % of the best way there” and improvement is on monitor, with the primary take a look at mules prone to hit the highway within the coming months.
The chief burdened that Scout autos are designed for the U.S. market at first, in contrast to many Volkswagen Group merchandise, that are European autos adjusted for the U.S. and North America. Regardless of being the unique “import” model, Volkswagen has lengthy struggled to realize the sort of mainstream success in America that it enjoys in Europe and different locations.
Maybe the off-road EV’s body-on-frame platform illustrates that America-specific philosophy greatest, as Keogh dismissed rumors that it’s derived from Volkswagen Group’s MEB structure. “Not gonna occur. That is one hundred pc succesful, American, strong, full platform,” he mentioned.
He mentioned the structure is “utterly distinctive,” engineered and developed from the bottom up. “The very first thing we needed to clear with that is to ensure this platform was credible,” Keogh mentioned.
The former Volkswagen Group of America boss added that the electrical off-roader’s platform, which was performed with computer-aided design, would not exist bodily but. It now wants “to go get performed in the actual world,” as the key architectural necessities and underpinnings have been “dialed in.”
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