VW Board Discussing Two New North American Plants

• If VW wants to bring back Scout brand, it will need new plants

• Discussions include location for North American battery Gigafactory

Volkswagen is continuing to discuss its plans to revive the Scout 4×4 brand. A new report says that the board is currently in talks around two new plants in North America. One to build the vehicles and another to build the batteries to put in them.

The supervisory board in charge of the Volkswagen Group was meeting today to discuss plans for the new factory, Reuters reports. The Scout brand plant, which would build a modern and electric interpretation of the vintage off-road brand, is expected to be located in the U.S.

The second plant, which would build electric batteries for VW is still more up in the air, the report said. Though it has been rumoured that a Canadian site would be chosen to take advantage of the country’s supplies of critical raw materials.

“We are still working hard to find a suitable location for our first gigafactory in North America and are in good, constructive talks,” a VW spokesperson told Reuters. No decision has been made yet, the spokesperson said.

The Scout brand vehicles were built by the agricultural company International Harvester. That company built light trucks up until 1980, with the line including the Bronco-like Scout and the Suburban competitor Travelall.

Volkswagen came to own the US brand in 2020 when its truck and bus division Traton purchased the outstanding shares in Navistar, the successor company to International Harvester.