Foxconn could be a Scout builder, Nissan and Renault are trying again, Hyundai has a battery partner, and a bunch of sedans are dead.
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
Foxconn + VW = Scout?
You probably don’t know what Hon Hai Technology Group is, but you’ve used something the company’s built. In fact, the iPhone or iPad you’re reading this on could have been built by the Taiwanese megacompany. Perhaps you know it by its more popular international name: Foxconn.
If it’s electronic, Foxconn probably builds it in one of its massive and sometimes terrible plants.
The company always manages to be on the edge of what’s coming, which explains why it’s jumped into EV truck manufacturing by purchasing the former Lordstown GM plant from Lordstown Motors in an agreement that sees Foxconn making the Lordstown Endurance truck and owning part of that company. It’s possible that Lordstown is not the future of the car industry, no offense, so what’s with Foxconn’s investment?
There was an interesting piece filed this morning in Automobilewoche (the German sister pub of Automotive News) that indicates Volkswagen is at least “in talks” with the Taiwanese company to manufacture Scout EV trucks and SUVs. That’s right, the Scout of International-Harvester fame that brought us rugged and handsome trucks and SUVs of yesteryear.
Foxconn last month unveiled two new electric vehicles prototypes highlighting its ambitions to become a major car manufacturer, replicating its success in electronics assembly as Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner. A partnership with VW could give Foxconn a major breakthrough.
Why is Volkswagen going to build a Scout? It’s a good question and, lucky for us, Thomas broke down the whole sordid history earlier this year. The short version is that International-Harvester became Navistar, which in turn became part of Volskwagen’s truck arm.
The article goes on to note that Magna-Steyr is also in the mix for making the trucks, which are expected to come to market in 2026.
Renault And Nissan Still Trying To Work It Out
It’s fairly well established that the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance was a marriage of inconvenience built around two fundamental truths:
- Renault, a huge employer partially owned by the French state, was never going to be allowed to fully fail even as it made mediocre cars and bad decisions.
- Nissan, not owned by the Japanese state and maker of great cars and equally bad decisions, was going to be allowed to fail.
Back in the late 1990s, Nissan found itself buried under a mountain of debt following the popping of Japan’s Bubble Era. The Japanese automaker hoped that DaimlerChrysler and Dr. Z would come to its rescue but, alas, Nissan’s debt and Daimler’s poor experience with Chrysler led the German manufacturer to walk away from the potential deal.
The only company interested in taking on Nissan’s debt was Renault and thus the Renault-Nissan Alliance was formed. Since essentially the first day of the company it’s been a battle between Renault trying to finally absorb Nissan and Nissan steadfastly refusing to give up its independence. In 2018, then-Renault and Nissan Chairman/CEO Carlos Ghosn was going to relent and further entwine the companies and, well, we all know how that went.
It’s been 20 years of this crap and it’s still going on! Here’s an update from Reuters just today:
Renault’s chairman on Tuesday told Reuters on Tuesday he was “confident” the French carmaker will reach an agreement with its Japanese partner Nissan on the future of their alliance.
Ongoing talks between Renault and Nissan about their alliance could prompt the biggest reset in the tie-up since the 2018 arrest of longtime executive Carlos Ghosn, but it still has to be confirmed how they play out.
Those two are like Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. Maybe they’ll finally work it out!
All These Sedans Are Dead
Acura ILX? Dead!
Hyundai Accent? Dead!
Toyota Avalon? Dead!
Volkswagen Passat? Dead!
Wormer? He’s a dead man!
The nice folks at USA Today have a wrap up of all the cars discontinued in the United States for 2023 and what’s most notable is all the sedans. Sure, the weird-fit Ford EcoSport and the half-measure Lexus RX L are also on their way out, but they’re just going to be replaced by other crossovers.
The reality is that the entry-level car is mostly gone and is being replaced by the entry-level subcompact crossover and mid-to-fullsize sedans are being replaced by mid-to-fullsize crossovers. As with all realities, this one is subject to immediate change.
Hyundai To Build Batteries With ‘SK On’ In The US
Following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Hyundai is jumping in bed with South Korea’s SK On to build car batteries in the United States.
Reuters has an explanation of why this deal is so important for Hyundai:
From next year at least 40% of the value of critical minerals for batteries will have to come from the United States or a U.S. free-trade partner in order to receive U.S. EV tax credits of up to $7,500 per vehicle, a threshold set to rise to 80% in 2027.
“We expect the stable supply of EV batteries from SK On will also enable us to contribute to emissions reduction and meet climate goals in the market,” Hyundai said in a statement.
As the new law requires EVs to be assembled in North America to qualify for the tax credits, Hyundai Motor Co and its affiliate Kia Corp, as well as major European automakers, were excluded from the subsidies as they do not yet make the vehicles there.
Yup. Hyundai and Kia have extremely appealing EV offerings but those cars are less appealing without the $7,500 government dollars on the hood. If you’re curious who SK On is, you can read this Forbes profile of their CEO which details how they want to surpass CATL in battery production by 2030.
The Flush
What does Scout need to do to be successful in the United States?
Photos: VW, Omaze, Renault, SK On, Nissan
I smell failure for the Scout SUV. It will be another concept car that doesn’t make it to production.
I’m so pumped that the International Scout is coming back, even though I have never seen one in the flesh and probably never will.
I recently (thought) I spotted one parked in the streets of Zurich, and even better the owner was standing next to it. But when I got closer I realized it was an even cooler car, a Monteverdi Sahara! Which is basically a Scout with some details changed. The Sahara is a small production car(30 ish built) by the (only!) Swiss manufacturer Monteverdi. And they usually took american chassis & motors and let italian companies coach build the body. But to offer a cheaper model they used basically the Scout and changed nothing but the front or some other details.
Which leads me to this, please, (PLEASE!!!) Volkswagen, offer the Scout in Europe as a Monteverdi Sahara. Or at least here in Switzerland. Or if not someone has to make a Monteverdi Sahara replica. How freakin’ cool would that be man…
The EcoSport is out? Good, Ford was never going to convince anybody that “Eco” wasn’t pronounced “Eco”
Make it BOF but electric. Maybe go wild with real solid axles and available lockers. Or at least a rear limited slip diff. No it won’t be efficient. But it’s a giant brick so efficiency wasn’t great to start.
And please no capacitative touch controls!
Uh, just make it a skateboard chassis and put a motor on each wheel.
My grandfather was an IH dealer back in the day, so it’s been horrifying over the years to watch what was once a successful organization with competitive products evaporate.
Since this is all vaporware and we’re on the outside making things up, we can take this in any direction without consequence. One obvious choice is, as others here mentioned, create a modern Bronco-like SUV built on an EV skateboard.
Another option is to create a bare-bones, relatively low-tech, hackable, hose-out-the-interior competitor to the Wrangler at a low price. Sort of like the original Scout but an EV.
The Scout profile with better departure angles and extra doors will make many of the purists quite upset, they likely will also never understand the VW connection. bit oh well. I think the concerning part will be The Built in Taiwan stigma, but I suppose cost to assemble would dictate this. After that warranty on the battery, unit cost and actual off road capability will be the deciding factor. it will have to be as good or better than the Rivian R1S for 20-30K cheaper to be a contender, and it really must hit the market sooner than later.
“The only company interested in taking on Nissan’s debt was Renault and thus the Renault-Nissan Alliance was formed. Since essentially the first day of the company it’s been a battle between Renault trying to finally absorb Nissan and Nissan steadfastly refusing to give up its independence.”
And a perfect example of mismanagement at every level on a scale that makes even Dumber-Chrysler look good by comparison. They demonstrated at every single turn that not a single executive on any side had the least fucking understanding or empathy for the other side, their cultural norms, or their products. Which was absolutely not helped by Japan’s heavily institutionalized racism and the French government’s excessive and heavy-handed attempts at ‘oversight.’
There is no argument against the institutionalized racism either, by the by. Ghosn’s political prosecution proved that. Japanese executives also personally signed off on suspect or illegal payments to themselves as well, yet Ghosn was the only one threatened with life in prison. Nissan was fined $1.7M for the entire “Ghosn scandal,” and CEO Hiroto Saikawa who admitted to actual crimes – forging documents to inflate his pay by nearly $1M USD in 2013 – was not prosecuted at all.
Saikawa, by the way, still works for Nissan making over $1M USD per year in compensation. So does Hari Nada who also admitted to identical crimes. And if you want to see even more fuckery, look into a Mr. Ravinder Passi and what he was subjected to on behalf of Nissan.
This also grossly oversimplifies the conflict. For years upon years it has been open hostilities on both sides. Nissan refuses to kowtow to the invaders who defy all cultural norms, and feels as though they are constantly being insulted; Renault continues to insist the bubble burst proves that nobody at Nissan knows shit about running a company, and that Nissan doesn’t know how to build what Europe wants.
It’s been very open, very public warfare on all sides from day one and it has never, ever cooled or improved in any way.
The only reason it hasn’t imploded completely is because of the massive financial fallout for both sides. It would be catastrophic, despite the years and years of both sides fighting to not cooperate in any fashion. Because the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi (yes, they are part of it, and just completely dumped on and ignored) would be a massively, ruinously expensive divorce. Because most of their collaboration is on capital-intensive (read: expensive as fuck) R&D into things like… electric vehicles. And they’ve already had to write off AvtoVAZ.
The chickens have finally come home to roost for this shitshow, and the fallout is not going to be pretty.
“What does Scout need to do to be successful in the United States?”
Stop the recession and return interest rates to zero, while also making it actually affordable – which means either the price has to come down or real wages for everyone have to go way up.
High dollar luxury SUVs went from unobtanium to lot rot pretty much overnight. Every Wagoneer (minimum OTD price, $70,000) around me has already knocked a minimum – MINIMUM – $2k off the sticker. Not the ADM bullshit sticker; the actual factory sticker. One dealer’s already knocked $74,445 highly equipped stickers down to $65,445 or a $995 down lease – because it’s been on the lot SIX MONTHS. 157 days!
How fucked is it? Even $45k base model Grand Cherokees are getting big sticker knockoffs and still sitting on lots 40+ days. And demo cars? Forget selling one of those unless you’re going to knock at least eight large off.
I know this flies in the face of decades of tradition and would almost certainly jeopardize my subscription to CornBinder Connection if word were to get around that I’m suggesting this, but perhaps for the new Scout VW could at least briefly consider the possibility of some form of rustproofing?
First thing I wondered was how they would get them to rust like the original
Don’t try to make too many changes at once or you’ll alienate the customer base. Perhaps pre-rusted body panels could be a plus. Sell the car at cost and then make your money on replacement panels. Sort of like the printer and ink business.
I agree that I don’t want to be accused of looking for too many changes. I only suggested some form of rustproofing, not necessarily an effective form of rustproofing. One thing at a time.
Please tell me that Cornbinder Connection is an actual thing.
I really do have a subscription, too, including all the back issues:
http://cornbinderconnection.com/
Make the Scout successful? Range and price might do majority of it. The x-factor would be something that the other electric trucks lack.
For the Scout that could be making it a true off-roader? Mimic the Scout of old as much as possible? Removable hard top, soft top optional, rugged interior. An electric truck that isn’t afraid of getting wet? Isn’t afraid of flipping over despite having ground clearance?
Considering how many pictures I see of scout people surprisingly tempting the Scout Rust demon by driving on salt water beaches, the other issue would be burning VW’s on the beach when lithium reacts poorly to salt water.
“Considering how many pictures I see of scout people surprisingly tempting the Scout Rust demon by driving on salt water beaches, the other issue would be burning VW’s on the beach when lithium reacts poorly to salt water.”
Hell over a hundred years ago lead acid batteries were being used in submarines yet most of those didn’t explode from the batteries getting wet, and the ones that did usually had reasons.
Point is batteries can do fine in salty environments, even hazardous ones if designed to do so. Which is good as beaches aren’t the only salty places around.
I was actually excited for VW’s version of Scout. If it involves Foxconn, I will no longer be excited.
Isn’t the new Integra basically replaced the ILX? I’d say a liftback with a manual option replacing a sedan without one is a net gain.
Yeah, and whether or not Toyota says it does, the Crown effectively replaced the Avalon.
The ILX is dead, but the Integra was born. Feel what you want about that, but at least a dead sedan is replaced by another.
This is very true!
Yeah, the Civic-based Acura continues to exist.
“As with all realities, this one [sedans going away] is subject to immediate change.”
I always feel like a lonely voice crying into the wilderness on this, but here we go again. Sedans as we knew them are almost certainly never coming back. The advantages of a CUV body style (higher viewpoint, better visibility, easier step-in height, better capability, more cargo space for a given length) aren’t going anywhere, and the advantages of a sedan body style (better handling, better fuel economy, lower cost) are smaller than ever by comparison.
Technology has enabled people to drive what they really wanted to all along, without the associated tradeoffs that used to prevent them from doing so.
I can see EV sedans clawing back market share. The lower drag of a sedan body style really does give tangible benefits for electric drive trains, where Cd and frontal area matter way more than for ICE.
Not to mention, the compact Escape somehow produces only slightly better real world fuel economy than the full size Town Car, which used decades older technology, which is kind of pathetic.
And, I, for one, have never found a higher seating position to be at all attractive or comfortable, in fact, quite the opposite, it’s downright disconcerting. Maybe personal preference, same reason why I always prefer a normal chair vs a bar stool, or a low toilet over one of those stupid “comfort height” models everyone has to have now. And I’m not exactly short, although 5ft 10 still isn’t tall, either
“Not to mention, the compact Escape somehow produces only slightly better real world fuel economy than the full size Town Car, which used decades older technology, which is kind of pathetic.”
Everyone likes to say they manage great fuel economy in whatever vehicle they’re predisposed to like best, but the government says an Escape gets 28-30 combined (41 in a hybrid) and a Town Car gets 18 combined. So no, not particularly close at all.
I had 4 Escapes in a row as company cars and put a combined 180,000 miles on them and never averaged better than 25mpg from a tank. Owned 2 different Town Cars as persona vehicles, over a combined 60,000 miles, and averaged 22mpg to a tank from the newer one and 18 from the ’80s one. That’s with an archaic 4 speed transmission, RWD powertrain loss, either a 4.6 or 5.0 V8, comfort tires, and 6 passenger seating, vs a 5 seat, FWD, turbo 4-cylinder compact CUV with auto start/stop and low roll resistance tires. Frankly, something the size and displacement of an Escape should totally blow it out of the water with current capabilities, and it never did. The Focus or Fiesta, especially in certain trims, sure, as they should
The Escape has historically underperformed its EPA ratings by a lot, as you can see on Fuelly. That said, it looks like the 2020+ models may have finally made a meaningful improvement on that? It’s a little hard to tell because the hybrid skews the numbers, but even the plain gas models seem to average much higher than they used to.
I am not trying to start an argument or sound snotty when I ask, but could you tell me why CD and frontal area matter way more for BEVs than ICE vehicles? My mind is lurking somewhere around the idea of gearing, but the additional required energy, ceteris paribus, for any speed should be the same, regardless of the source of the energy, right?
Internal combustion engines tend to see increasing thermal efficiency as load increases. Electric motors, in contrast, have a very broad efficiency curve. Look at the BSFC map of your ICE of choice and you will see this. Thus, if you take a platform with a given drag, mass, tires, drive layout, gearing, and engine, and then take that same platform and do nothing but increase the drag, fuel economy is not going to drop directly proportional to the increase in the overall load. This is because the ICE will have a higher loading, and will be operating with slightly more thermal efficiency.
I’d be curious to see real-world data on that (couldn’t find BSFC map for VQ40DE). The thermal efficiency would increase in a linear fashion, but the load would increase with the square of the velocity….. requiring more fuel than the benefit from increased TE.
So…better? I can see that. Mind-blowingly better? I don’t see that. There is also a limit to the increase in thermal efficiency as rpm increase, is there not? If I use cruise control through West Virginia (I have), my motor will reach limits and kick down a gear or two. I am, to my eye, burning waaaaay more fuel at 70mph in 3rd gear than whatever a Rivian R1T may ‘burn’ less efficiently.
Or, I may just be babbling. It’s early; I have the flu.
Hugs.
Higher RPMs tend to have less efficient operating points. Generally, the peak of efficiency will be at roughly 2/3 max load and 1/3 max rpm. However, the car may only need 20 horsepower to maintain 60 mph on the highway, so the difference in thermal efficiency from increasing load to say 25 horsepower will indeed be marginal.
It is correct that increasing drag will still result in worse fuel economy, in spite of the engine’s thermal efficiency being increased due to the modified operating point. You use more fuel than you gain in increased thermal efficiency. Increasing the load from 20 horsepower to 25 horsepower might make the thermal efficiency at the operating point go from 14% to 15%, but now you need 25% more power to maintain speed, resulting in an increase in fuel consumption.
The displacement on the engine doesn’t make as much difference in a car’s fuel economy as we have been led to believe. The reason cars with V8s tend to consume more fuel than small 4-cylinders is because the cars themselves are bigger, heavier, and less slippery to the air than those cars with smaller engines. Compare the 1980s era Mustangs, the 4 cylinder, vs the 5.0L V8, and there is about 2 mpg difference between them. 24 mpg highway for the anemic 4-cylinder, and 22 mpg highway for the 5.0L V8. The V8 does have potential to use a lot more fuel when racing about, however, but in normal A to B driving without hard accelerations, the V8 and the 4-cylinder are very close in economy.
Load reduction is the single most important thing that can be done to improve fuel economy, and even modern cars are totally designed backwards from what is needed to keep load down. They have at least twice as much drag as is necessary for the amount of utility they provide, all in the name of marketing, emphasizing brand identity, and the aesthetics dujour. It’s wasteful and stupid, IMO, and is costing everyone way too much money and depleting the world’s natural resources, for no good reason.
If the automakers made featherweight sub 2,500 lb streamliners with drag coefficients in the mid 0.1X range with long-legged gearing and overpowered monster engines(say, an 8L twin turbo V16), it is not out of the realm of plausibility for such a hypothetical car exceed 40 mpg at a steady 70 mph in spite of all the pumping losses such an engine would impose. Although in city driving with lots of stop and go, a big, powerful engine can be GREATLY penalized, and the mass of the car becomes the overriding factor in economy in these circumstances.
Nah. EVs are required to be slippery right now. Aerodynamics, drag, and limited range require it. A CUV is not slippery.
We’ll see a resurgence of sedans due to EVs. As range and charging abilities/networks get better that might change again, but we’ll see sedans come back for EVs.
CUVs can be made virtually as slippery as sedans.
The Model X and Y have drag coefficients of 0.23 and 0.25 respectively. The Bolt EUV is 0.23. The EV6 is 0.28. The Nissan Ariya and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are 0.29. Etc etc etc.
These are not G wagons we are talking about. If we were going to see a resurgence of sedans, it would have started already. Instead, it’s nothing but EV crossovers as far as the eye can see.
Total drag is different from drag coefficient, and factors in frontal area. The greater frontal area of CUVs/SUVs will always carry a penalty over an equally slippery sedan. Just compare the range of an EV6 or Ionic 5 with an Ionic 6 with the same drivetrain.
I think EVs will more likely muddy the distinction between conventional car and crossover types of vehicles. They allow more (or at least different) freedom with the packaging and design. With typical ICE vehicles, you’ve got the engine up front, exhaust systems routed underneath, driveshafts where applicable, fuel tank location varies, etc. EVs have flexibility on where/how they have the batteries stored (like as the lower chassis, helping lower the center of gravity), motors on the wheels for AWD, even freedom for FWD OR RWD across the same model line.
The better EVs have typically been designed that way from the ground-up, not converted from an ICE car but it’ll take time for public perception to wean off of the conventional body styles.
Ioniq 5 is a good example – looks like a regular compact 5-door hatch in pics yet, has the same wheelbase as a Honda Odyssey; taller than a regular car and visually looks much larger in person but isn’t as tall as a small SUV. They do bill it as an SUV, but EPA classifies it as a large car* which is appropriate as it has more interior room than any midsize sedan.
*The EV6 is classified as a small station wagon with just 3 cu. ft. less interior room than the Ioniq 5, but I guess would need more cargo room to bump it up to say, midsize wagon.
CUVs do have a lot of advantages, though at the expense of mpg. But “better visibility” is an ephemeral one, they only have that compared to smaller/lower vehicles. When everything is a CUV/SUV/brodozer, better visibility will require moving up the ladder to bigger/taller trucks.
That’s true, but even granting that the visibility advantage may diminish over time, the other CUV advantages will still be there. And the mpg difference is closing faster than the visibility difference. Plenty of 30-40 mpg hybrid CUVs out there helping make sedans obsolete.
Only if you define visibility solely based on other vehicles. In my case, I find that taller vehicles make it easier to see at some intersections, especially in the winter when snow is piled up next to the road. That won’t change even if there is a vehicle size arms race.
Crash safety has meant higher beltlines, which make cars harder to see out of. CUVs aren’t as compromises in that regard, especially if you’re sitting more upright.
I find the sedan body style much more practical and easy to live with than a CUV. I like having a trunk. The one in my sedan is cavernous, easy to load and unload, and keeps whatever I have in there hidden. I don’t want increased ride height. If everyone is in an S/CUV, where’s the height advantage? Not everyone has a brood and their stuff to haul around, so I think there is still and will continue to be a market for the good ol’ sedan.
Well I wish there were more V10 powered sport coupes for sale, as they meet my needs to a T, but just because I like them doesn’t mean that the majority share my view, or that the market will respond to what I want to buy.
My current employer doesn’t allow employees to have coupes, so I recently bought my first ever hatchback, and, while I certainly recognize and appreciate the utility, the difference in road noise is noticeable, though I am sure they’re not all created equal, would expect Audi or Acura to do a lot better on NVH in hatches. However, what isn’t going to change is when you’re street parked on a cold winter day and your boss opens the big rear hatch to throw a box in the back and the whole interior gets a gust of frigid air.
I can see the advantages and disadvantages of both, once you get to the intermediate size range and up, I’d prefer a sedan, since the trunks are plenty big enough at that point, but for compact and smaller, probably lean toward hatchbacks
Out of curiosity, what type of employer can dictate the type of car you drive?
“Out of curiosity, what type of employer can dictate the type of car you drive?”
This type:
“you’re street parked on a cold winter day and your boss opens the big rear hatch to throw a box in the back and the whole interior gets a gust of frigid air.”
Yeeaahhh, now about those missing TPS reports….
Don’t think so. The barstool-seating phenomenon is a reflection of exactly WHO is buying new cars nowadays, and that’s the baby boomers. Sales are tilted sharply toward seniors because of how much cars have increased in cost and a desire by younger people to eschew personal vehicle ownership.
Because the boomers are such a large percentage of the population, due to so many of them being born, they’re having an outsized influence on the industry. They’re also the most unhealthy cohort of seniors ever, with obesity and diabetes at record levels. They want high, they want to “slide right in”, and that’s what the industry is responding to.
Like McMansions, CUVs will become obsolete once the people that demand them age out.
“Sales are tilted sharply toward seniors because of how much cars have increased in cost and a desire by younger people to eschew personal vehicle ownership.”
Correct, but what exactly makes you think this trend will change any time soon? The demographic trend of Americans having fewer children and getting older on average is much longer-term than just the Baby Boomers.
“Like McMansions, CUVs will become obsolete once the people that demand them age out.”
This implies that there’s pent up demand among currently-young people for sedans. To which I say, where is the evidence?
Older generations also got accustomed to sitting up higher in minivans and then SUVs, and didn’t want to go back to sitting in a car.
Some automakers tried to upsize their cars over the years to try and appeal to those tastes – higher rooflines, higher seating positions, more interior space – didn’t work. In the more recent/current/outgoing generations, they leaned into lower rooflines and seating positions for ‘sportier’ feels and touted that fact in the press releases (Camry and Accord did for example) – because people were going to buy a RAV4 or Pilot or whatever anyway.
Young people want utility vehicles too. Whether they learned to drive on SUVs/vans, or have the old family CR-V/Highlander/Explorer/etc. handed down to them when they start driving, or they have kids and don’t want to crouch down to load the kid in/out of the lower roofline of a car, heck even just large dogs – they’re shying away from sedans too, even if they like a regular car otherwise. And look at all the outdoorsy editions of standard crossovers to go along with the overlanding craze – Trailsport Hondas, Wilderness Subarus, etc. – it’s not the seniors those are trying to appeal to.
large dogs, lol
Sounds silly I know, but for example a friend of mine was between the Forester and the Outback when they had a kid on the way a couple years ago and had to replace their Golf, while also having just gotten a larger dog. The extra height of the former helped tip it to the Forester.
I think changing the CAFE standards so that they no longer advantage “light trucks” might change the equation a bit, or at least redefining “light truck” so that GMC Sierra Broughams and Ford F150 Raptors and Honda HRVs don’t qualify.
I see this in two ways. One of them is exactly what you outlined above. My other thought is to look back to the 1940s and 1950s. Cars from the 40s were more upright, had greater ground clearance and likely better visibility, ingress and egress because of those things. Enter the Atomic age, and cars become long, low slung and dripping with chrome. That lasted a long time, and now we’ve come full circle to CUVs and larger crossovers that once again have a greater ride height, etc.
I’m wondering what the younger generations are going to be buying as they get older and can afford new vehicles. Will they want an SUV or crossover like their parents had, or something else? That’s what killed the station wagon and minivan, no one wanted to drive what their parents did.
“Technology has enabled people to drive what they really wanted to all along, without the associated tradeoffs that used to prevent them from doing so.”
Same is true for automatic transmissions. Back in the day checking that box usually meant a higher purchase price, less mpg, less performance and more $$ trips to the shop. Now however automatics yield BETTER mileage, great performance and are overall fairly reliable. So good by manual transmissions.
The Scout needs to be usable and less then a Tesla.
I am thinking an EV Bronco here. Goo enough for most bad weather travel, carrying room, commuter. Along with a call back to the glory days of the Scout without the rust factor.
“Scout” should build the full-EV Ford Maverick that Ford won’t build, including single cab and enclosed cargo area (TravelAll?) versions.
I think the Scout coming as an EV is an interesting gambit. I suspect that a number of people who would be excited about a Scout will not be interested in an EV, and a number of people interested in an EV won’t be drawn in by the Scout name.
That said, if they can provide a Scout that is a good value for a capable EV SUV, it will likely sell well. Come up with something boxy and at least somewhat rugged for less than the Rivian and the Hummer and they’ll have a market.
The Scout will do great as long as its competitively priced and looks and drives like you hope it will. As a competitor to the Jeep, bronco, etc it will do alright. GM really screwed the pooch with the Blazer name.
Funny how the market has worked recently. Nissan ditches the Xterra, Toyota ditches the FJ Cruiser (though, they still have the 4Runner), Chevy brings the Blazer back as a forgettable crossover. And yet everyone wants off-road capable SUV’s, and apparently only Jeep has never forgotten this, Ford figured it out, and everyone else is just confused?
It’s funny because GM makes a Trailblazer for other markets based on the Colorado/Canyon. They should’ve just sold that here.
They did, it was called the Hummer H3.
Yeah, but there is the Hummer stigma to deal with.
That was a long time ago. The international Trailblazer is still made today.