What one thing would you like to see changed from concept to production?

[J Alynn]

Terra is complete as of now and off on a secret mission. I would think it will be revealed in its new skin in a month.

Early release for the forum members? You know we’re jonesing for some new pics

 

[Chavannigans]

I’m in shambles RN

 

[cyure]

The revamp of the models are unfortunately not reflective of the production models. There are certain changes in the production models that would be too costly to show in these models. But.... The revamp of these models are SUPER cool. The design team came up with some great add ons to include in these models. I am actually going to see the traveler in an hour.

No! I will be not taking pics and including them in our Friday treat for you all. Sorry.

Well you are no fun! . I can’t wait to see them!!! We are all like little kids waiting for Christmas morning.

 

[strider]

Basically it’s better because if you use Tesla chargers, you don’t have to back in, if you’ve got street charging, it’s on the right side, and otherwise it doesn’t really matter. Literally the only reason Tesla puts it there is because the house that EM happened to be renting when they were making this decisions, had an awkward driveway that required him to back into the garage. The only reason others do it is because Tesla does. Other charging networks are growing faster than Tesla, so soon it won’t really matter at all, except for the advantage of having it on the sidewalk side for street charging. I’d love it if they put the charge port where they’ve put the gas cap on harvesters, but of course that won’t change with the initial models. Best we can hope for is that they change it with successor models.

Having owned Teslas since 2010 (2010 Roadster, 2012 and 2018 Model S, 2022 Model X Plaid) I will gently push back on this. The Roadster had its charge port in the same place as the Lotus Elise's fuel port (just behind the driver's door). The first gen Model S was rear wheel drive so they chose to put the port in the rear to save weight by not having to run a lot of cabling front to back. This was opposite of the Nissan Leaf that was front wheel drive - they put their charge port in the nose as all of their electronics were there.

I obviously have a lot of history so maybe I'm just a creature of habit, but I like the charge port in the driver's rear. I especially like it in the garage. I walk around the front of the car to get in and I am glad I do not have to trip over the cord to get to the door. Every garage I have ever seen has a bit of wall on either side of the roll up door - it's a perfect place to put the charger (EVSE). I have one on either side of our garage door. Also, the door to the house is in the side of the garage so I walk past my wife's car when I go to mine. I wouldn't want to have to avoid a charge cable on the way to my car.

All that being said, you can get pretty creative with cable routing. In one house that had exposed rafters in the garage, I ran the cable through there and had it drop down in between the cars. I just rigged a hook to hold it but others I read about had weighted cantilever systems to lift the cable out of the way (those original Roadster plugs were HEAVY).

 

[strider]

This made me so curious, are there EV's that do shut "off" when the seat sensor is disengaged? During road trips I often lift up for a bit to get a little blood flow back to the derriere. Is the sensor also in the backrest? I would hate for it to shut down on a highway! I have so much to learn about EV's

With Tesla's, below a certain speed (like 2mph) if you lift your butt off the seat and the seatbelt is unplugged, the car will go into Park. So if you are one of those people that back up a truck to a trailer with the door open and one leg hanging out, it may not go well for you. I was one of those people. But now that I have backup cameras, I don't need to hang myself out of the truck like that so it's become a non-issue. You could always get one of those dummy seat belt plugs to fool the system.

I don't want programmers in some office in SC or SFO to be guessing my intentions. Give me an action to indicate my intentions. Sitting in the seat with my key in the car isn't enough to indicate that I want the vehicle to go into driveability mode.

Putting your foot on the brake and shifting it into gear is the action that indicates your intentions. I don't see how you could accidentally do those things when you are not intending to drive. You all are overthinking this, applying ICE mentality to an EV. Door locking is no different than in a modern ICE. Heck my Corvette had walk away door locks in 2006. It was a setting that you could enable or disable. If you have walk away door locks enabled but leave a key in the car, the car will not lock (this can be good or bad if using your phone as a key and leave your phone in the car but again, all new cars work like this). If you are working with the truck, just leave the key fob in the cup holder and you can get in and out as much as you want. Not having a start/stop button is one less thing to do, especially in the scenario that you are creeping forward to load or drop hay bales. Just sit down, press the brake, push the stalk down for Drive, and off you go.

So please do NOT have a Start/Stop button. It serves no purpose in an (ER)EV and is just one more thing to do to get the car to move. Please include key fobs and also allow phone as a key. I was one of the last Teslas that came with key fobs. They are super convenient for doing things like opening the doors and liftgate vs having to pull out your phone, open an app, wait for it to connect, and then push a button to open the liftgate. At that point I could just press the physical button on the vehicle. But some people love not having to remember a key fob and always have their phone with them so it is one less thing for them to carry.

 

[cyure]

With Tesla's, below a certain speed (like 2mph) if you lift your butt off the seat and the seatbelt is unplugged, the car will go into Park. So if you are one of those people that back up a truck to a trailer with the door open and one leg hanging out, it may not go well for you. I was one of those people. But now that I have backup cameras, I don't need to hang myself out of the truck like that so it's become a non-issue. You could always get one of those dummy seat belt plugs to fool the system.

Putting your foot on the brake and shifting it into gear is the action that indicates your intentions. I don't see how you could accidentally do those things when you are not intending to drive. You all are overthinking this, applying ICE mentality to an EV. Door locking is no different than in a modern ICE. Heck my Corvette had walk away door locks in 2006. It was a setting that you could enable or disable. If you have walk away door locks enabled but leave a key in the car, the car will not lock (this can be good or bad if using your phone as a key and leave your phone in the car but again, all new cars work like this). If you are working with the truck, just leave the key fob in the cup holder and you can get in and out as much as you want. Not having a start/stop button is one less thing to do, especially in the scenario that you are creeping forward to load or drop hay bales. Just sit down, press the brake, push the stalk down for Drive, and off you go.

So please do NOT have a Start/Stop button. It serves no purpose in an (ER)EV and is just one more thing to do to get the car to move. Please include key fobs and also allow phone as a key. I was one of the last Teslas that came with key fobs. They are super convenient for doing things like opening the doors and liftgate vs having to pull out your phone, open an app, wait for it to connect, and then push a button to open the liftgate. At that point I could just press the physical button on the vehicle. But some people love not having to remember a key fob and always have their phone with them so it is one less thing for them to carry.

I really want a key fob. Heck I would even pay a couple hundred dollars if it was optional.

 

[dreamweaver]

I really want a key fob. Heck I would even pay a couple hundred dollars if it was optional.

Key fobs these days are about $400 plus $100 to program. I hope the EV Traveler comes with two.

 

[cyure]

Key fobs these days are about $400 plus $100 to program. I hope the EV Traveler comes with two.

Rivians is $250. I’m hoping it comes with 2 as well. But I would buy them if they aren’t included.

 

[J Alynn]

Having owned Teslas since 2010 (2010 Roadster, 2012 and 2018 Model S, 2022 Model X Plaid) I will gently push back on this. The Roadster had its charge port in the same place as the Lotus Elise's fuel port (just behind the driver's door). The first gen Model S was rear wheel drive so they chose to put the port in the rear to save weight by not having to run a lot of cabling front to back. This was opposite of the Nissan Leaf that was front wheel drive - they put their charge port in the nose as all of their electronics were there.

I obviously have a lot of history so maybe I'm just a creature of habit, but I like the charge port in the driver's rear. I especially like it in the garage. I walk around the front of the car to get in and I am glad I do not have to trip over the cord to get to the door. Every garage I have ever seen has a bit of wall on either side of the roll up door - it's a perfect place to put the charger (EVSE). I have one on either side of our garage door. Also, the door to the house is in the side of the garage so I walk past my wife's car when I go to mine. I wouldn't want to have to avoid a charge cable on the way to my car.

All that being said, you can get pretty creative with cable routing. In one house that had exposed rafters in the garage, I ran the cable through there and had it drop down in between the cars. I just rigged a hook to hold it but others I read about had weighted cantilever systems to lift the cable out of the way (those original Roadster plugs were HEAVY).

I like the idea of mounting to the ceiling, or at least running it that way. Like the old days in HS shop class where all cords dropped down. That’s a great way to do it

 

[strider]

I use my truck to power some parts of my home a couple of times a year, and I run various power tools around the ranch, but I don’t use the vehicle-to-home capability, I just use the bed outlets. The vehicle-to-home as emergency backup capability is more of a marketing scheme than realistic use-case—in my opinion.

Why do I say that? Because for any vehicle that does this, you also have to purchase a fair bit of hardware to provide the inverter and switchover capability. That runs some $10k to $20k in parts and labor. Then you have to have your vehicle plugged in when the power goes out. So if you’re away from home with the vehicle, it doesn’t do any good what-so-ever.

You’re better off getting a battery and inverter specifically for emergency power when the grid goes down. The cost is much lower, it doesn’t use your vehicle battery, and you have automatic failover even if you’re not home. If you’re on a utility that has peak usage charges or time of use, you can also shave that off by programming the inverter to pull from the battery. For example, we run our battery from 3 to 8 PM every day so we pull no power from the grid during the peak demand time from 4 to 7 PM. We have enough reserve capacity that with a little conservation we can run for a couple of days on just the battery.

Of course, the Lightning (without the extra hardware and installation labor) was cheaper than a whole home backup battery of the same size. We have a generic battery manufacturer (nearly all the batteries are made in the same one or two factories), but it was still expensive for the energy storage capacity.

All of that said, there are legitimate use cases for a larger, longer-term backup that one can get from the truck. In fact, one of the best use-cases I’ve seen is a pile of Lightning owners brought their vehicles to help with storm relief efforts in 2023 and 2024 by parking them and providing power where it was needed. A Lightning can provide a week or more of emergency power while still having enough energy to make it back to a charging station.

I think it depends on how often you lose power. The beauty of being able to use your truck as backup power is that you get other use it for productive things when the power is working normally. We lose power once or twice a year for a few hours. I would love to be able to power my house during that time without having tens of thousands of dollars of batteries sitting there the other 363 days out of the year.

Also, the inverter is in the truck already. You can get 240V/24A (continuous) with a simple transfer switch like you would have for a backup generator. Just run a male-male extension cord from the vehicle to the transfer switch, and off you go. Yes, to get max power you need a dedicated setup but I fail to see how having dedicated batteries has a lower cost - you need all the same stuff (inverters, transfer switches, etc.) and you have to buy another set of batteries!

 

[strider]

Rivians is $250. I’m hoping it comes with 2 as well. But I would buy them if they aren’t included.

$175 for the Tesla ones and you can program them yourself. They used to include them with the higher end vehicles (S/X) but even stopped doing that a couple years ago. They claim that people weren't using them and were using their phones instead. Mine was one of the last that came with them and I use mine every day.

I do hope that Scout includes them but I understand wanting to save costs on things not everyone will use. One way they could get around this is to give owners a certain amount of credit at the Scout Supply store with every vehicle purchase. Then they could decide if they want to use the money towards an EVSE, key fobs, or other accessories. This let's people get the things they want without feeling nickel and dimed.

 

[cyure]

$175 for the Tesla ones and you can program them yourself. They used to include them with the higher end vehicles (S/X) but even stopped doing that a couple years ago. They claim that people weren't using them and were using their phones instead. Mine was one of the last that came with them and I use mine every day.

I do hope that Scout includes them but I understand wanting to save costs on things not everyone will use. One way they could get around this is to give owners a certain amount of credit at the Scout Supply store with every vehicle purchase. Then they could decide if they want to use the money towards an EVSE, key fobs, or other accessories. This let's people get the things they want without feeling nickel and dimed.

That’s a really novel idea. I like that.

@Jamie@ScoutMotors and the SM team I second this.

@strider I think would be a really good thread to start. Some people want the camp speaker, key fob, etc etc.

 

[BeerParty]

I do hope that Scout includes them but I understand wanting to save costs on things not everyone will use. One way they could get around this is to give owners a certain amount of credit at the Scout Supply store with every vehicle purchase. Then they could decide if they want to use the money towards an EVSE, key fobs, or other accessories. This let's people get the things they want without feeling nickel and dimed.

This suggestion of including a key fob as an option is a good one. I think this leans into the same desire multiple people have mentioned of an a-la-carte approach to options. If Scout does go with an a-la-carte approach to vehicle options, and the vehicles support phone-as-a-key, they could include key fobs as optional add-ons. I would certainly be willing to pay $250 extra for a proper key-fob if it was an option, since it would mean that they can keep the base cost lower than if they were included by default.

 

[rfk]

The revamp of the models are unfortunately not reflective of the production models. There are certain changes in the production models that would be too costly to show in these models. But.... The revamp of these models are SUPER cool.

What does this mean? Revamped concepts are "SUPER cool" but don't reflect high-cost production changes? So at this point, who cares about revising the concepts as actual production slowly approaches?

 

[CP1@scoutmotors]

What does this mean? Revamped concepts are "SUPER cool" but don't reflect high-cost production changes? So at this point, who cares about the concepts?

Not to get in a big discussion, but not high-cost production changes. Changes to these show vehicles are expensive. One off vehicles with one off parts. Costly.

Who cares about the concepts? Are you reading through these forums?

 

[cyure]

Not to get in a big discussion, but not high-cost production changes. Changes to these show vehicles are expensive. One off vehicles with one off parts. Costly.

Who cares about the concepts? Are you reading through these forums?

Honestly now that they’re getting changed, I feel lucky to be able to say I saw the original Scout concepts in person. I even got to touch them!

 

[oldgeeksguide]

Having owned Teslas since 2010 (2010 Roadster, 2012 and 2018 Model S, 2022 Model X Plaid) I will gently push back on this. The Roadster had its charge port in the same place as the Lotus Elise's fuel port (just behind the driver's door). The first gen Model S was rear wheel drive so they chose to put the port in the rear to save weight by not having to run a lot of cabling front to back. This was opposite of the Nissan Leaf that was front wheel drive - they put their charge port in the nose as all of their electronics were there.

I obviously have a lot of history so maybe I'm just a creature of habit, but I like the charge port in the driver's rear. I especially like it in the garage. I walk around the front of the car to get in and I am glad I do not have to trip over the cord to get to the door. Every garage I have ever seen has a bit of wall on either side of the roll up door - it's a perfect place to put the charger (EVSE). I have one on either side of our garage door. Also, the door to the house is in the side of the garage so I walk past my wife's car when I go to mine. I wouldn't want to have to avoid a charge cable on the way to my car.

All that being said, you can get pretty creative with cable routing. In one house that had exposed rafters in the garage, I ran the cable through there and had it drop down in between the cars. I just rigged a hook to hold it but others I read about had weighted cantilever systems to lift the cable out of the way (those original Roadster plugs were HEAVY).

1) I’m not sure why the charge port needs to be near the motor, it’s the battery it needs to connect to.
2) In my garage we’ve got outlets on the opposite side from the garage door, ie the back wall, so it’s much more convenient to pull forward into the garage and plug in at the front of the car.
3) out of my garage, it’s more convenient to have it toward the front passenger side of the car. That works for Tesla chargers as well as everything else.

 

[oldgeeksguide]

So please do NOT have a Start/Stop button..

This has been beat to death, and lots of folks have provided different scenarios where a start/stop button is useful/necessary, so I’m not going to rehash it here. But consider this: if it has a button, they could always provide a software mode that ignores it, giving you what you want and everyone else is still happy. If they take it away, then you get what you want but the rest of us are screwed.

 

[J Alynn]

That’s a really novel idea. I like that.

@Jamie@ScoutMotors and the SM team I second this.

@strider I think would be a really good thread to start. Some people want the camp speaker, key fob, etc etc.

Completely agree on this item /experience if they can do it cost effectively. Choose one of (3) choices or for ‘X’ amount of dollars then you can add this, that or the other thing if you want a second means of doing it

 

[J Alynn]

What does this mean? Revamped concepts are "SUPER cool" but don't reflect high-cost production changes? So at this point, who cares about the concepts?

I think a lot of us care. It’s still means to show alternate colors, optional add-ons, different interiors and our feedback along with general social media gives them a better sense of what appeals to future buyers