SCOUT TRAVELER FAQ

[J Alynn]

Extremely unlikely that it's binary.

Extremely likely range is infinite if you keep putting gas in.

Extremely likely they never get plugged in if they work that way.

And that’s the sad part. You miss out on the benefits because people will continually gas and go

 

[Jamie@ScoutMotors]

In normal driving situations, you will run out of fuel before you run out of battery. At that point you top off the fuel tank and keep driving.

 

[theonetruestripes]

I do sometimes sneak up on people in parking lots but I just patiently wait for them to reach the end of the row or move out of the way. I never honk at them - I just don't need to be anywhere that urgently.

In her case she “snuck up” on several pedestrians who were having a conversation and as they were unaware of the car they were not obviously moving anywhere. They had drifted to a stop in the middle of the parking area blocking anyone from driving past. While waiting was an option there were no obvious signs that the wait wouldn’t extend past “a few minutes” into “an hour”. To be fair, also no indication the wait would actually be more then a few seconds before someone noticed a car, or another car made noise, or they decided otherwise start moving again.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

And that’s the sad part. You miss out on the benefits because people will continually gas and go

People checking the box for Harvester and insisting they need it will never plug it in, think an hour to drive is too far, never leave their zip codes lol.

It's 85% a gimmick to calm anxiety.

 

[J Alynn]

People checking the box for Harvester and insisting they need it will never plug it in, think an hour to drive is too far, never leave their zip codes lol.

It's 85% a gimmick to calm anxiety.

I agree 100%. I’d love to see Scout get out early and document the proof cycles of the BEV and show people they don’t have to worry but I also know tigers don’t change their stripes.

 

[theonetruestripes]

People checking the box for Harvester and insisting they need it will never plug it in, think an hour to drive is too far, never leave their zip codes lol.

I was going to complain and then realized that despite checking the box for Harvester I don’t fall under this because I do plan to plug it in. I plan on plugging it in where my current EV is plugged in, and likely plugging it in on trips involving only a handful of charge stops, but for trips with a large trailer that my current EV needs way too many charge stops for I’m going to assume I’ll just buy gas every 200 miles or so (I assume the 350 mile gas range will take a big hit when towing something big because the EV range tends to take a hit for that and the gas engine is just making power for the battery to spend...)

My use case for the harvester is in fact basically just long trips while towing something big, although I’m also bullish on “power outages lasting longer then my battery can deal with” with the EV supplying power to the house either directly or indirectly via something like an Apex 300...

 

[Jamie@ScoutMotors]

People checking the box for Harvester and insisting they need it will never plug it in, think an hour to drive is too far, never leave their zip codes lol.

It's 85% a gimmick to calm anxiety.

I'm not so sure. Yes, there will be people who probably never plug it in. But, when you have the ability to go 150 miles with just battery electric and can just plug it in like your cell phone at night, and rinse and repeat without paying for any gas? That's a nice benefit. It is kinda nice rarely going to a gas station.

 

[Logan]

I'm not so sure. Yes, there will be people who probably never plug it in. But, when you have the ability to go 150 miles with just battery electric and can just plug it in like your cell phone at night, and rinse and repeat without paying for any gas? That's a nice benefit. It is kinda nice rarely going to a gas station.

@Jamie@ScoutMotors
Like you said, I'm sure there will be some that just fill it with gas. But I think IMO, the real game changer, is when they see the difference in price to drive their daily commute/runabout stuff, if they're willing to try.

In fact, it might be worth having something to calculate/show the cost savings to a driver if they aren't charging. Toyota recently did something like this. They simply made a notification to remind the drivers to plug in, and it made a surprisingly large difference. Perhaps Scout could do something similar, but actually provide some numbers on how much doing that might save them.

https://insideevs.com/news/772551/toyota-phev-plug-in-often-study-app/

Like a monthly report with something like "most of your drives are < 40 miles, but are being run using the harvester. You could reduce your operating costs by <X>% by charging at more" or something like that.


Thats basically what happened to me... I just did it to myself, with math, as I drove/before I drove. I have an old jeep I love. But, it doesn't get driven much anymore, just because compared to the other vehicles we have (PHEV, and EV), it just costs sooooo much more to run. For me, the difference is literally 1/10th the cost (its not apples/apples, so its a bit unfair, but the actual real world price difference). A 20 mile round trip in the Jeep (14mpg) costs me about $5.75 these days. The same drive in the EV costs me like ~$0.60, and ~$0.80 in the PHEV. Its just hard to justify throwing the extra cash out there, when I have the "free" (since I already own the other vehicles) options of driving on electrons.

I have a local buddy who drives a lot (lives a bit off the grid in a log cabin on acreage, heats by wood), and had a recent big transmission problem on his truck. He's now realized that he can save a ton of money driving something like a used EV/Prius for most things, and only using the truck when needed. I think he'd be a perfect candidate for the Scouts (and yes, I'm recruiting him ).

 

[dreamweaver]

I'm not so sure. Yes, there will be people who probably never plug it in. But, when you have the ability to go 150 miles with just battery electric and can just plug it in like your cell phone at night, and rinse and repeat without paying for any gas? That's a nice benefit. It is kinda nice rarely going to a gas station.

Even better never going to a gas station. BEV Rocks! Sorry couldn't help it.

 

[socalscout]

Even better never going to a gas station. BEV Rocks! Sorry couldn't help it.

I concur.

I’d love to see Scout use solid state batteries and give us a BEV with a true 500+ mile range

 

[RodorW]

I'm not so sure. Yes, there will be people who probably never plug it in. But, when you have the ability to go 150 miles with just battery electric and can just plug it in like your cell phone at night, and rinse and repeat without paying for any gas? That's a nice benefit. It is kinda nice rarely going to a gas station.

There’s been plenty of people that never charger their PHEV just run on gas, and those vehicles don’t just charge themselves, I really find it hard to see those unfamiliar with EVs to plug in at night, unless there’s plans to actually help educate potential buyers on what there buying and EVs in a more general sense

 

[THil08]

I'm not so sure. Yes, there will be people who probably never plug it in. But, when you have the ability to go 150 miles with just battery electric and can just plug it in like your cell phone at night, and rinse and repeat without paying for any gas? That's a nice benefit. It is kinda nice rarely going to a gas station.

I might plug mine in at home with that sick pistol grip looking charger. But on the road my choice will be gas.

 

[LastDayScout]

@Jamie@ScoutMotors
Like you said, I'm sure there will be some that just fill it with gas. But I think some IMO, the real game changer, is when they see the difference in price to drive their daily commute/runabout stuff, if they're willing to try.

In fact, it might be worth having something to calculate/show the cost savings to a driver if they aren't charging. Toyota recently did something like this. They simply made a notification to remind the drivers to plug in, and it made a surprisingly large difference. Perhaps Scout could do something similar, but actually provide some numbers on how much doing that might save them.

https://insideevs.com/news/772551/toyota-phev-plug-in-often-study-app/

Like a monthly report with something like "most of your drives are < 40 miles, but are being run using the harvester. You could reduce your operating costs by <X>% by charging at more" or something like that.


Thats basically what happened to me... I just did it to myself, with math, as I drove/before I drove. I have an old jeep I love. But, it doesn't get driven much anymore, just because compared to the other vehicles we have (PHEV, and EV), it just costs sooooo much more to run. For me, the difference is literally 1/10th the cost (its not apples/apples, so its a bit unfair, but the actual real world price difference). A 20 mile round trip in the Jeep (14mpg) costs me about $5.75 these days. The same drive in the EV costs me like ~$0.60, and ~$0.80 in the PHEV. Its just hard to justify throwing the extra cash out there, when I have the "free" (since I already own the other vehicles) options of driving on electrons.

I have a local buddy who drives a lot (lives a bit off the grid in a log cabin on acreage, heats by wood), and had a recent big transmission problem on his truck. He's now realized that he can save a ton of money driving something like a used EV/Prius for most things, and only using the truck when needed. I think he'd be a perfect candidate for the Scouts (and yes, I'm recruiting him ).

The BMW app has a lot of those features and the in car system has all sorts of telematics info like you’re suggesting. So, it’s absolutely doable and I bet Scout can come up with some really great and fun ways to present that info.

 

[LastDayScout]

There’s been plenty of people that never charger their PHEV just run on gas, and those vehicles don’t just charge themselves, I really find it hard to see those unfamiliar with EVs to plug in at night, unless there’s plans to actually help educate potential buyers on what there buying and EVs in a more general sense

Mary Barra said just as much about GM PHEV owners.

 

[J Alynn]

I'm not so sure. Yes, there will be people who probably never plug it in. But, when you have the ability to go 150 miles with just battery electric and can just plug it in like your cell phone at night, and rinse and repeat without paying for any gas? That's a nice benefit. It is kinda nice rarely going to a gas station.

I keep saying in and believing it but I worry with all these damn AI centers drawing massive amounts of power the rates seems to be increasing at a very fast rate so I’m hoping that slows. PA gas is now like $2.90/ gallon and if electricity keeps creeping up at some point you have to wonder. I’m convinced it’s all conspiracy to try and destroy EV’s all together. Next year gas will be $2.18 and electricity will be .64 /kwh and I’m not sure where the break point is. I still want BEV-just conspiricing-ing (or something like that)

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

My partner would be the primary driver of the Traveler and she is concerned that there won’t be a Scout BEV when she’s ready to replace the Mustang. One of the biggest benefits she notices on a weekly basis is not having to go to a gas station and not having to deal with all things ICE. She would rather buy a different vehicle if the EREV is the only option from Scout. We’re saving up right now. The Mustang already has 54k miles on it and we’ll probably be ready to hand it down to our child at 100k, which seems like it could happen before the BEV Traveler is in production. Without formal, solid statements from Scout Motors that the BEV will be available for purchase at the time she’s ready to buy, if there’s a “too-good-to-ignore” deal, we could easily end up in a different vehicle earlier. The biggest thing holding her to the Scout possibility is the off-road chops (and maybe price, though I’m skeptical it’ll be low enough to be a better deal than a used R1).

The EREV holds zero interest for us. We did the hybrid thing for ~20 years and no longer have interest in any ICE at all—not when the BEV is such a better ownership experience.

 

[cyure]

My partner would be the primary driver of the Traveler and she is concerned that there won’t be a Scout BEV when she’s ready to replace the Mustang. One of the biggest benefits she notices on a weekly basis is not having to go to a gas station and not having to deal with all things ICE. She would rather buy a different vehicle if the EREV is the only option from Scout. We’re saving up right now. The Mustang already has 54k miles on it and we’ll probably be ready to hand it down to our child at 100k, which seems like it could happen before the BEV Traveler is in production. Without formal, solid statements from Scout Motors that the BEV will be available for purchase at the time she’s ready to buy, if there’s a “too-good-to-ignore” deal, we could easily end up in a different vehicle earlier. The biggest thing holding her to the Scout possibility is the off-road chops (and maybe price, though I’m skeptical it’ll be low enough to be a better deal than a used R1).

The EREV holds zero interest for us. We did the hybrid thing for ~20 years and no longer have interest in any ICE at all—not when the BEV is such a better ownership experience.

I don’t mean to be all Mrs Rosie Sunshine here but I can’t believe they won’t make the BEV. They have spent years designing it. Im holding out hope unless and until Scout actually says something different. They are still taking reservations for both and that’s what I’m holding onto.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I don’t mean to be all Mrs Rosie Sunshine here but I can’t believe they won’t make the BEV. They have spent years designing it. Im holding out hope unless and until Scout actually says something different. They are still taking reservations for both and that’s what I’m holding onto.

You know I’m Dark Clouds to your Rosie Sunshine.

Ford spent years and supposedly $20B developing the best-selling BEV pickup in the world and then abandoned it when they felt a little political and sales resistance (and saw a massive tax write-off on the table—so, yay all of us, we got to carry the burden of their venture).

I just don’t trust most companies to do the right, sensible, or long-term rational thing. Too many are controlled by quarterly reports rather than doing what makes long-term sense.

The main positive difference I see is that Scout Motors isn’t a publicly-owned, share-holder-controlled company. So maybe they can do the clever things instead of the boring things. Unfortunately it is still a subsidiary of such a publicly-owned company. That doesn’t mean Scout has to do what VAG directs, but it does mean they could possibly lose additional investments if VAG shareholders whine loudly enough.

We’ll see.

 

[dreamweaver]

I concur.

I’d love to see Scout use solid state batteries and give us a BEV with a true 500+ mile range

Hard to argue with that.

 

[dreamweaver]

My partner would be the primary driver of the Traveler and she is concerned that there won’t be a Scout BEV when she’s ready to replace the Mustang. One of the biggest benefits she notices on a weekly basis is not having to go to a gas station and not having to deal with all things ICE. She would rather buy a different vehicle if the EREV is the only option from Scout. We’re saving up right now. The Mustang already has 54k miles on it and we’ll probably be ready to hand it down to our child at 100k, which seems like it could happen before the BEV Traveler is in production. Without formal, solid statements from Scout Motors that the BEV will be available for purchase at the time she’s ready to buy, if there’s a “too-good-to-ignore” deal, we could easily end up in a different vehicle earlier. The biggest thing holding her to the Scout possibility is the off-road chops (and maybe price, though I’m skeptical it’ll be low enough to be a better deal than a used R1).

The EREV holds zero interest for us. We did the hybrid thing for ~20 years and no longer have interest in any ICE at all—not when the BEV is such a better ownership experience.

We seem to be in the same boat at the moment. Let's hope we all get what we want/need from Scout.