Announced this past May, Scott Keogh would leave his position as CEO of Volkswagen of America to become CEO of a car company inside the Volkswagen Group that didn’t yet exist.
It fell to Keogh to revitalise Volkswagen’s presence and market share in North America by reviving the iconic Scout brand, which the Volkswagen Group inherited when it took over the remaining portion of truck maker Navistar.
Scout was the model from International Harvester that founded what became the sport utility vehicle category beginning in 1962. By 1966, Ford brought out the Bronco SUV, with rival Chevrolet launching the Blazer in 1969, cementing the category into the American market through competition. Keogh maintained that Scout would be designed and built in North America with an SUV and pickup body on a ladder frame. So, with six people in total, Keogh and company began to look at how Scout could begin producing all-electric vehicles by 2026.
This story is an extract from the January 2023 issue of Auto Forecast Solutions' monthly report. Auto Forecast Solutions is the only fully integrated solutions provider of vehicle, powertrain, drivetrain and electrification production forecasting, business planning software and advisory services to the global automotive industry. Click here to download the full report, or to catch up on previous months.
Much has happened since Scout was outlined in the May 2022 issue of the AutoForecast Monthly Report. Former Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess, under whom Scout was reconstituted, planned for Scout building a dedicated, stand-alone EV factory in North America. Traveling about the country this past summer, Keogh held talks with city leaders in Bloomington, Indiana, where International Harvester built the majority of Scout SUVs. Coincidentally, Audi was also looking to establish additional production capacity in North America and sought to co-locate EV production lines with Scout’s new factory, wherever it would be. While site surveys continued in Bloomington and other locations, Audi’s plan to co-locate with Scout were laid to rest. Diess and the board decided that Scout was to be a solo operation.
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