Author: EVAI

Ford will pause production of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck from Nov. 18 to Jan. 6, reports Reuters.

“We continue to adjust production for an optimal mix of sales growth and profitability,” the automaker said in a statement to Reuters regarding the six-week production pause, which overlaps with a week in December when all Ford factories are closed for the holidays.

2022 Ford F-150 Lightning pre-production

Ford said this month that U.S. EV sales for its namesake brand were up 45% this year, and that Lightning sales had more than doubled to 7,100 trucks in the three months ending Sept. 30, Reuters noted, adding that this means the Lightning makes up a tiny 3.6% of total F-150 sales.

The production pause comes after Ford in April cut production to just one shift. The automaker also slowed production in 2023 rather than further lowering prices as demand for pricier Lightning variants dried up. Ford initially promised that the Lightning would cost around $40,000 but, even with a few price cuts, prices remained much higher than that throughout 2023.

2022 Ford F-150 Lightning pre-production

Prices continued to fluctuate into 2024, with Ford cutting the sticker price of certain versions by up to $5,500 this past April—the same month as the most recent production cut. Those changes only affected models in the middle of the lineup, with prices for both the base F-150 Lightning Pro Standard Range and the range-topping Platinum Extended Range unchanged.

Ford has been resetting its EV plans. In August, the automaker said it was nixing a three-row electric SUV, adding an electric midsize pickup, and pushing back the launch of the Lightning’s replacement from 2025 to 2027. More hybrids are also part of this plan, particularly in bigger segments where battery costs could make all-electric models less profitable.

Ford is now shipping a new North American Charging Standard (NACS) adapter to customers to help provide access to Tesla Supercharger stations more quickly.

First reported by InsideEVs, the new NACS adapter comes from Lectron, and will be distributed alongside the existing design from Tesla. They have the same specifications as the Tesla-provided adapters, with ratings of 500 amps and 1,000 volts, InsideEVs reports. But they have a slightly different appearance.

Ford Mustang Mach-E at Tesla Supercharger station

The new adapters aren’t replacements for the original design, which Ford began shipping to customers in March, but rather an “incremental” addition to get adapters to customers as quickly as possible, the automaker confirmed to Green Car Reports. The Lectron adapters began shipping Oct. 31, and customers in line for an adapter may get either one of those or one of the previous design.

Ford offered one free adapter per vehicle to all new and existing EV customers who enrolled in its charging aggregator by Jun. 30 of this year. Adapters are otherwise priced at $230, and Ford has set up a different process for fleet customers through its Ford Pro division. Those terms remain in place.

Ford EVs at Tesla Supercharger

The new adapter is also unrelated to a replacement program being undertaken by Ford after the automaker discovered a problem with a specific batch of the Tesla-sourced adapters that could result in reduce charging speeds, or potentially even damage to a vehicle’s charge port. The automaker has told certain customers to stop using affected adapters pending shipment of replacements, which was scheduled to start this week.

Ford led the industry last year in announcing a shift to the Tesla charge port, with nearly every other major U.S.-market automaker following suit. So far, though, only General Motors and Rivian have also begun shipping adapters to customers, with Volvo and Polestar announcing plans to do so earlier this week.

Honda and Acura’s official motorsports arm in the U.S., Honda Racing Corporation (HRC), announced on Thursday plans to develop a line of performance parts for Honda and Acura road cars, similar to offerings from Ford’s Ford Performance division and Nissan’s Nismo unit. HRC, previously known as Honda Performance Development (HPD)…

The Brazilian Grand Prix is round 21 of 2024 F1 season The race is held at São Paulo’s Autódromo José Carlos Pace Lewis Hamilton will make an exhibition run in Ayrton Senna’s 1990 McLaren MP4/5B The 2024 Formula 1 World Championship continues this weekend with the Brazilian Grand Prix, the third race of this season’s American…

The Scout Terra is here, and it looks great. It’s the better-looking of the two recently revealed Scout prototypes, which the manufacturer says are at about 80% representative of the finished production models. What we’re looking at right now are essentially hand-built design studies—the factory where it will be assembled is still a few years away from completion.

It’s interesting to observe how two different manufacturers ended up creating such similar trucks. Under the skin, though, they are not related in any way and are actually quite different. The Terra pickup and Traveler SUV are both built on a new body-on-frame platform developed with the backing of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group.

They’re both about the same size, and they are about as direct as rivals in terms of capability. Probably the single biggest difference between them is that you can buy a Rivian R1T today, while for the Scout Terra, you have to wait at least three more years. Another significant difference is that you will be able to put fuel in the Terra to extend its range with gasoline power.

Let’s take a look at the other ways these electric trucks are similar, and different. 

Size

The Scout Terra is about a foot longer than the R1T, measuring 229.2 inches (5.82 meters) in length versus the Rivian’s 217.1 in (5.51 meters). That extra foot of length allows it to have a 5.5-foot (1.67 m) bed while the Rivian makes do with a 4.5-foot (1.37 m) bed.

The R1T is slightly wider at 81.8 in (2.08 m) with its mirrors folded, while the Terra measures 79.9 in (2.03 m) in width. With mirrors out, the measurements increase to 87.1 in (2.21 m) and 91.6 in (2.32 m), respectively. The size of the cab seems to be about the same, so both vehicles should offer similar levels of interior room.

Power

Rivian offers the R1T with standard all-wheel drive with two and three motors, with power levels ranging from 533 to 850 horsepower with up to 1,103 pound-feet of torque—in top spec, it’s really quick. The most potent one you can buy has a quad-motor powertrain with 1,050 hp and 1,198 lb-ft. Rivian claims it can accelerate to 60 mph in “less than 2.5 seconds,” putting it in supercar territory in a straight line. The base dual-motor R1T needs 4.5 seconds to hit sixty.

Only dual-motor all-wheel drive configurations will be offered for the Scout Terra. The manufacturer claims it will be able to do the dash to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and should feel pretty muscular thanks to 1,000 lb-ft of torque.

Range

You can get the Rivian R1T with battery packs ranging from 92.5 to 141.5 kilowatt-hours, which can provide between 292 and 420 miles of EPA range. Because it has a 400-volt architecture, the R1T doesn’t charge as quickly as EVs built on higher-voltage platforms, topping out at 220 kW. That’s enough to bring the largest battery pack from 20 to 80% state of charge in 40 minutes, according to the manufacturer.

The Scout Terra runs on 800 volts, so it charges at speeds of up to 350 kW, enabling it to complete the 20 to 80% charge in 25 minutes. Scout hasn’t specified the Terra’s battery capacity, but we can expect it to go up to 350 miles on one charge.

Should you want to extend the Terra’s range further, there will be an option for a Harvester combustion engine (that isn’t connected to the wheels and works solely as a generator), which will push the range to 500 miles. It’s already proving to be an especially popular option among those who have put their name down for one.

Having the safety net of a combustion engine to add miles seems to be an attractive prospect for buyers. Scout hasn’t said whether the range extender Terra will have a smaller battery pack than the pure EV. If so, it will make the truck more enticing than the Ram 1500 Ramcharger, which gets a smaller pack compared to the fully electric Rev.

You will be able to use the Terra just like a BEV truck, unlike the Ramcharger, whose smaller battery will need the engine to turn on more often or require more frequent charging stops.

Scout will deliver the Terra with a NACS charging connector, making it compatible with Tesla’s Supercharger network. If you want to charge a Rivian via a Tesla Supercharger, you will need a special CCS to NACS adapter.

Towing

With an expected tow rating of 10,000 pounds, the Scout Terra won’t be able to match the Rivian R1T’s 11,000-pound rating. However, with a 2000-pound maximum payload, it will be able to carry slightly more than the R1T, which is rated at up to 1,764 pounds.

Features

One of the most unique features offered by the Rivian R1T is its gear tunnel. This is located behind the cab, and it’s an extra 11.7 cubic-foot compartment where you can store items (including longer ones) that you don’t want to leave in the bed. The gear tunnel could also accommodate a slide-out camp kitchen, but Rivian discontinued the option in 2022. Now you can add a special toolbox that slides out.

It also has an 11.1-cubic-foot front trunk, making it very practical. If you do want to leave something in the bed, the Gear Guard system monitors your belongings, as well as the truck itself. This system is similar to Tesla’s Sentry Mode.

With its standard air suspension, the R1T can vary its ride height between 7.9 in (20 centimeters) and 14.4 in (36.5 cm). In its lowest (and stiffest) setting, it’s surprisingly good to drive for a pickup, sticking to corners better than you would expect a pickup weighing over 7,000 pounds to manage.

The R1T doesn’t have any kind of mechanical differential locks (the quad-motor version doesn’t even have traditional differentials). It can simulate their effect and this makes the R1T a surprisingly good rock-crawler and generally good off-roader, but it won’t be up to the same level as the Scout Terra.

Scout doesn’t say how much the Terra’s air suspension varies the ride height, simply stating that it will have “over a foot” of ground clearance. You will also be able to specify 35-inch tires from the factory and the vehicle will feature a front mechanical locking diff to help it pull itself out of tricky situations. The Terra will have a solid rear axle and the ability to disconnect its sway bars to increase wheel travel and further enhance its off-road ability.

While the R1T’s interior adopts a minimalist design style (which almost makes it look Volvo-esque), the Terra has a much more traditional-looking interior. It still has a big infotainment screen in the middle of the dash, but it also has a bench seat in the front and a row of physical controls under the screen. It also has an actual compass built into the headliner, which is both useful and aesthetically pleasing.

Powering your home during an outage is possible with the Scout Terra thanks to vehicle-to-home (V2H) bidirectional charging. It also has two 120-volt and one 240-volt in the bed, making it possible to power tools like the ones used around a building site—Scout wants this to be a work truck too and it wants you to work on your own vehicle with up to 80% of its parts being serviceable at home. Rivian plans to add V2H in the future.

Price

You can have a Rivian R1T starting at $71,700. The current range-topper, the R1T Tri Max, costs $101,700. The R1T Quad Max, which is coming in 2025, could start at around $120,000. All Rivians that cost less than $80,000 are eligible for a $3,750 federal tax credit.

Scout says that with the federal tax credit factored in, the Terra will cost $51,500, so it will still come in under $60,000 even without incentives.

Walmart is adding Chevrolet BrightDrop 400 electric vans to its U.S. home delivery fleet.

The vans will be deployed in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, northwest Arkansas, Orlando, and the San Francisco Bay Area before the end of the year, General Motors said in a press release. They’ll be used for Walmart’s InHome service, which provides delivery of groceries from stores to nearby customer homes.

Chevrolet BrightDrop 400 electric van in Walmart livery

GM and Walmart initially ran a pilot program with the vans, which got positive reviews from employees for their driver aids, automated features like automatic-closing doors, and ease of ingress and egress, the release said.

The 400 is the shorter-wheelbase option, with a long-wheelbase BrightDrop 600 van also available. GM estimates 159 miles of range with the standard battery pack and 272 miles with a larger optional pack. The vans use the same component set, branded as Ultium until recently, as GM’s current generation of electric passenger vehicles.

2025 Chevrolet BrightDrop 600

GM launched BrightDrop as a separate brand in January 2021, but folded it into Chevrolet in August of this year. Production is still assigned to GM’s CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, which has been building BrightDrop vans since late 2021. Earlier customers included FedEx and the Ryder rental fleet.

Walmart has long shown interest in electric vehicles. In 2022, the retail chain placed a larger order with Canoo for 4,500 electric vans—effectively breathing new life into the struggling startup, for a short period of time, at least. Some Walmart stores also host Electrify America charging stations, and the company announced its own EV charging network in 2023.

What kind of vehicle is the 2025 Alfa Romeo Tonale? What does it compare to? Alfa Romeo’s Tonale brings Italian styling and athleticism, as well as an efficient plug-in hybrid, to the luxury small crossover segment. Competitors include Audi’s Q3, Mercedes-Benz’ GLA-Class, and BMW’s X1 and X2. Is the 2025 Alfa Romeo Tonale a…

Toyota to present open-top Land Cruiser and 4Runner concepts at SEMA show Land Cruiser ROX concept designed in Ann Arbor Concept features vintage color used on early Land Cruisers It’s not unusual to see a Ford Bronco or Jeep Wrangler with their roofs removed while out on the trail, but you won’t find this with the latest Toyota Land Cruiser and…

Solomon Lunger’s Ford Era builds 1969 Ford F-100 for SEMA show Custom truck features full carbon-fiber body Power comes from F-150 Raptor R supercharged V-8 Early Ford F-Series pickup trucks are a popular option in the vehicle customizing scene, due in part to the wide availability of options and spare parts. And one company slowly building up a…

• The Volkswagen Group’s electric revival of an iconic American truck brand, Scout Motors, has drawn many comparisons to a similar EV truck company: Rivian.
• The VW Group and Rivian have a joint venture to develop software and electrical architectures together. 
• Despite this, and despite what you may see online, a Scout is not a Rivian. 

What an age of miracles we find ourselves in. The internet is the greatest tool for disseminating information that humanity has ever created, but it also allows anybody to just instantly broadcast whatever is on their mind at any given moment, regardless of how true it is or not. That does lead to the occasional bit of misinformation that news outlets like InsideEVs must correct. 

Since the recent debut of two new electric concepts from Scout Motors, the American truck and SUV brand revived by the Volkswagen Group, we have noticed more than a few comparisons drawn to another EV truck company: Rivian.

The comparisons are fair; Scout’s two concept vehicles bear a strong resemblance to Rivian’s first two vehicles, the R1T truck and R1S SUV. And the lines between the two brands are further blurred by the fact that the Volkswagen Group and Rivian have recently started working together.

But the latter situation, in particular, seems to be drawing a lot of confusion. Here are some emails, comments and social media posts we’ve seen lately: 

“I can’t shake the thought that the Scout isn’t just like a Rivian, but it is a Rivian.”
“Well, now we know why Volkswagen is teaming up with Rivian.” 
“Isn’t the Scout a rebadged Rivian?”
“The Scout Motors EV is really just a Rivian with a gas generator, isn’t it?”
“Reskinned Rivian? VW owns Scout, VW and Rivian announced a joint venture…”
“So how much is Rivian making per each Scout EV sold? It’s clear they’ll be using Rivian’s zonal architecture.”

And so forth. But I’m here to hopefully clear this one up once and for all: While Scout and Rivian have similar designs and will probably compete for the same customer, and Scout will use the new electrical architecture that VW is co-developing with Rivian, the two vehicles and brands are not the same. They do not use the same platform, are built (or rather, will be built) in different places and should have considerably different price tags. 

Does it feel like a kind of McDonald’s-McDowell’s situation for the electric vehicle world? Yes, which is probably unfortunate for both brands. But there’s certainly room in the space for both, and whatever technological intersection exists between the two will probably benefit them both. Let’s dig in.  

[embedded content]

Let’s Start With Rivian

We’ll begin with an extremely brief history of one of the more promising EV startups out there, California-based Rivian. 

People forget this today, but Rivian actually launched way back in 2009 (and under a different name) with the goal of making a hybrid, mid-engine sports car. That idea was shelved, but by 2022, Rivian was making the R1S and R1T electric adventure trucks at a former Mitsubishi factory in Normal, Ill. Both vehicles boast excellent electric range, charming designs and legitimate off-road talents. The company also makes electric vans for fleet use, originally for Amazon alone but now available to any fleet customer. 

Rivian’s EVs have garnered considerable acclaim since then. While the company today has a sizable cash pile, it is still dealing with the instability and difficult path to long-term profitability that makes being a newcomer in the auto industry such a gargantuan task. Should it successfully fight through the “valley of death” that it’s currently in, Rivian is due to launch a series of more affordable, mainstream EVs by the end of this decade: the smaller R2 crossover and more compact R3 and R3X.

But Rivian has the advantage of being able to do things with a clean sheet, vertically integrated approach, something that traditional automakers who depend on vast networks of outside parts suppliers struggle with. This in-house approach, once pioneered by Tesla, has made Rivian into a burgeoning software power player too. The world took notice of that when Rivian and the Volkswagen Group (which has struggled mightily on the technology front as it seeks a mostly electric future) inked a $5 billion deal to co-develop software and electrical architectures together. That deal is giving Rivian the cash it needs to continue R&D and scale up operations, while VW is getting the kind of software and tech expertise it needs to be competitive in the future. 

What About Scout Motors? 

Scout’s history actually goes back many decades. The SUVs and trucks were made by the International Harvester Company, which was mostly known for agricultural and commercial vehicles, between 1960 and 1980. They were simple, capable machines that offered plenty of capability. The original Scouts are highly coveted by off-roading enthusiasts even today, as the company helped to pioneer that entire field of vehicles. 

After a complicated series of sales and acquisitions, the VW Group ended up in possession of the Scout branding and trademarks (via the acquisition of International Harvester’s successor company, Navistar, to supplement VW’s other commercial truck brands) in 2020. As Scout Motors’ CEO Scott Keogh told InsideEVs earlier this year, that led to some discussions within VW, which has long struggled to garner the kind of mainstream, volume success in America that it enjoys in the rest of the world. Moreover, these days, the VW Group is losing ground quickly in China, so it needs to win big in the U.S. 

That yielded a bold plan to relaunch the Scout Motors brand, and not as some re-badged ID.4 or Audi Q8 E-Tron but with an entirely new platform and a new factory in South Carolina to take advantage of tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act. 

But They’re Both Boxy, Electric Trucks And SUVs Aimed At Off-Roaders. How Are They Different?

That’s certainly an understandable question, and I think the Scout Terra truck in particular bears an uncanny and perhaps uncomfortable resemblance to the R1T. We always knew the Scout was going to be boxy and utilitarian looking, as that’s how Scouts have always been. If you’re going for a boxy look while maintaining the aerodynamic design you need to build a competitive EV, it’s not surprising that the end result looks like an existing utilitarian, efficient electric truck. But the two vehicles from Scout and Rivian are different. 

The R1T vs. the Scout Terra.

Besides predating the Scout vehicles by years (they won’t even go on sale until 2027 at the earliest) the Rivian R1S and R1T use a platform, motors and software all made in-house. The upcoming Rivian R3, R3X and R2 will use a new Rivian “midsize” platform as well that incorporates the lessons and cost-savings from the R1 vehicles. A Rivian spokesperson confirmed to InsideEVs that the R2 and R3 platform is “unrelated” to the upcoming Scout project. 

As I mentioned earlier, Scout’s platform is a different animal. The automaker wanted a truly off-road capable EV, so it’s crafting a body-on-frame platform from the ground up with a solid rear axle and front and rear mechanical lockers—just like an old-school rock-crawling truck would have. Rivian’s vehicles do not use locking differentials. They also don’t offer solid axles. 

The differences go even deeper. Perhaps most notably, the Scout models will offer a range extender option called the “Harvester,” which is simply a gasoline engine designed to solely recharge the electric battery. While it does not power the wheels at all, the engine is expected to boost the Scout EV’s range from 350 miles to 500 miles. Rivian has not announced any plans for a gas range extender, and given that it’s always been an all-electric automaker, that seems rather unlikely. Scout, however, has the advantage of potentially pulling a gas engine from the VW Group’s expansive family. 

On the battery front, Rivian’s vehicles use cells from Samsung SDI in South Korea. CNBC reports that Scout’s batteries are expected to come from VW’s joint venture battery cell manufacturer in Canada.

That’s not all. Besides being in different price classes—Rivian’s current vehicles start around $75,000 and reach into the $100,000 range, while the Scout EVs are aiming to start around $60,000—there are two very different approaches to the user experience at work here. Rivian’s interfaces famously (perhaps infamously, based on our reviews) eschew traditional buttons for touchscreen controls, voice commands and soon, a clickwheel system mounted on the steering wheel to operate various functions. 

Scout, on the other hand, purposely went big on buttons. The Scout concepts revealed last week have some nice display units, sure, but also a row of physical buttons, volume knobs and steering wheel controls. Oh, and the Terra and Traveler will offer an optional bench seat as well, another old-school throwback. 

Finally, the vehicles are different sizes. The Scout Traveler SUV is shorter than a Rivian R1S by about 10 inches, while Scout’s Terra truck is about a foot longer than an R1T. 

So Where Do Rivian And Scout Intersect? 

An excellent question, and one that’s come up recently. And this actually does speak to that Volkswagen-Rivian tie-up that’s in the works.

At the Scout concept debut, Keogh told InsideEVs that the cars could use the new zonal architecture being developed by that partnership—but only that one, not anything currently in use by Rivian. “It’s important to separate Rivian, the car company, from the joint venture,” Keogh said. “Those are two very different things. Rivian the car company, we have zero interaction with, absolutely nothing. But the joint venture company could potentially [provide] the architecture that is in this vehicle.” 

That was confirmed on the other side of things by Rivian Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid at TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2024 conference this week. Here’s what Bensaid had to say: 

[Scout] said at the time that the vehicles would use a zonal architecture — meaning it would rely on just a handful of computers that control the functions of a few “zones” of the electrical architecture. And the software in Scout’s press images looked awfully similar to what you can find in Rivian’s current vehicles, so Bensaid’s confirmation is not all that surprising. Bensaid stressed on the Disrupt stage that each brand that uses the joint venture’s software will “continue to have their own identity,” as well as “their own features.”

“We’re enabling competition,” he said. Bensaid also noted how much the Scout vehicles resemble Rivian’s overall design sensibility, even outside of the software. “That’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s great validation of the Rivian product.”

And TechCrunch is correct that the software shown in the Scout concepts does look very Rivian-ish. (Rivish?) However, those vehicles are still just concepts with production models at least three years away. Even if these vehicles share commonalities on the back end that allow Scout to do things Rivians can do, like over-the-air updates, it’s extremely likely both brands will work to carve out their own identities and unique interfaces when they actually hit the market. 

So What Did We Learn Today, Class?

In the end, while Scout and Rivian are both coming to market with similar products, designs, overall vibes and probably audiences, they are not the same brand or car. 

I think that what this ended up being is two different EV-oriented companies both coming to the same conclusion about what American buyers love: big trucks and SUVs. In their own ways, they took advantage of the kind of retro-truck charm that’s extremely in vogue right now. Things got somewhat complicated by the software and tech team-up behind the scenes, but given what we’ve reported on Scout Motors’ development timeline, that certainly didn’t seem to be the plan all along.

Moreover, Scout’s target debut date of 2027 can feel like 500 years from now in the fast-moving world of modern EVs. We’re basing all of this on initial impressions, early official plans from both automakers and what we know about where both brands are at in late 2024. It’s entirely possible that the final production versions of the Scout vehicles could differ from these concepts in some way (though InsideEVs was told they are extremely close to the final designs) and we can’t rule out some kind of deepened tie-up between VW, Rivian and Scout in the future. For now, that’s just speculation.

But if you think these two adventure-ready EVs are the same thing, look a little deeper.

Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com