The Toyota RAV4 is a popular SUV known for being versatile and fuel-efficient. The 2026 version is a hybrid, which means it uses both gasoline and electricity to run, making it better for the environment.
The Hyundai Tucson Hybrid is a type of SUV that uses both gas and electricity to run, making it more efficient and better for the environment. It has a modern look and is comfortable for passengers.
The Kia Sportage is a small SUV that is popular for its comfort and technology. The hybrid version uses both a gasoline engine and an electric motor to save on fuel.
'Limited' is a name used for a version of a car that has more features than the standard model. It usually means it's a bit fancier or has more options.
Subaru is another car company from Japan that makes vehicles designed for tough conditions, like snow or off-road driving. They are popular among people who enjoy outdoor activities.
A 6.2-liter engine is a big engine that can produce a lot of power. It's often used in trucks and SUVs to help them carry heavy loads or drive off-road.
The Camaro is a sporty car made by Chevrolet that is known for being fast and stylish. It's a favorite among people who love cars that look and drive great.
Infotainment is the system in your car that lets you listen to music, get directions, and connect your phone. It's like a computer screen for your car.
Traction control helps your car keep its grip on the road, especially in slippery conditions. It makes sure your wheels don't spin too much when you accelerate.
Mercedes is a famous car brand that makes luxury vehicles. They are known for their high-quality cars that often come with lots of features and technology.
The Nissan Armada Nismo is a sportier version of the Nissan Armada SUV, made to be faster and more fun to drive. Nismo is the part of Nissan that focuses on making cars perform better.
The 2026 Ford Mustang Mach E California Special is a special version of Ford's electric SUV that has sporty features and a unique look. It's designed for people who love driving.
The Toyota Land Cruiser FJ is a smaller version of the Land Cruiser, known for its off-road abilities. It's designed to be cute and compact, making it easier to drive while still being tough.
and it feels like you already kind of nailed it there, Ryan,
but you're pretty unique in the EV space,
or actually, I mean, in the broader automotive space,
for being a brand that is new,
but also balancing that with decades of history, right?
And history from a brand that some people
may not even remember ever seeing on the road.
I've seen a handful, right?
In terms of when they stopped being sold.
So how do you balance those two very different worlds?
It's a great question.
And the first thing I want to address is just,
I want to make sure we don't put Scout motors
in too much in this EV space box,
because although we do have an electrified powertrain,
we're also quite excited by our Harvester range-extended powertrain.
We love what that delivers from a customer perspective.
We think it's a game changer in terms of technology,
but we're also not shying away from the fact that
the wheels, the drive units, are always powered by battery.
So it's just super exciting, great torque, great acceleration,
but at the same time, having a total combined range
that can do over 500 miles.
We think that checks a lot of really,
really interesting boxes from a customer perspective.
Going back to the broader company question,
I think the two words that I would anchor that conversation on
are trust and enthusiasm.
There have been a lot of new entrants,
typically EV entrants, that have brought a lot of enthusiasm.
They've been cool, they've been fast, they've been innovative,
they've been entrepreneurial,
but some of them have lacked a little bit of trust, so to speak.
Some of them have had questions whether they'll be around next year
or whether they're going to go bankrupt.
Some of them have had questions,
can they service my car or am I going to have to wait six months
to get an appointment?
You can imagine, there's been some questions
on whether these new entrants will deliver.
On the other hand, you have a lot of really strong incumbents
who have been around literally for decades, hundreds of years.
And they have some challenges, I would say,
in just being perceived as sort of new and cool and exciting.
And that's what Scott Motors has the opportunity to do,
to really throw a dart right between those two,
to be new, cool, exciting, innovative, modern,
to sort of have a little bit of that scrappy American startup spirit,
but to do it in a way that has the trust of having a large OEM behind us,
which means we have money.
That's nice.
But beyond money, we have expertise.
We know how to build a factory.
We know how to get good terms of trade and good pricing from suppliers.
We know what we're doing here.
And I think that's a very unique combination in automotive
that hasn't really been seen before.
Interesting.
You talk about, you mentioned the eRef,
and I know originally you launched the company in 2022.
It looked like it was going to be all electric.
And then you offer this sort of new opportunity.
The market has certainly shifted in the last few years, too.
Things have changed for a variety of reasons.
Can you kind of tell us about that decision?
And do you think it'll be a different customer for Scout,
or just talk about this extended range type of vehicle?
Yeah, Greg, I would say considerably might be a bit of an understatement on that.
I'll answer this through two dimensions.
The first way is through the regulatory environment,
and the second way will be coming back to the customer perspective.
And from a regulatory perspective,
when Scout Motors was being conjured up in 2022,
it was a very different environment.
There was a federal regulatory landscape,
and then there was the state regulatory landscape
being driven by California and many other states.
That had very ambitious, very comprehensive emissions
in electric vehicle targets that were out there.
And so for us a new company that would be selling products
well into the 2030s,
the decision was made to succeed in that regulatory environment.
We had to go all electric.
Now, obviously the regulatory environment significantly shifted.
We'll come back to what that means for Scout.
From a customer perspective,
we're also paying very close attention to what's going on in the marketplace.
The first thing I'll say is that the last time I checked,
EV to EV loyalty is still a very high number.
It's still over 80%,
meaning people who get behind the wheel of an electric car,
they typically don't say, I hated this.
I'm never going to buy one again.
In fact, they do the opposite.
And it's quite clear why, right?
They get comfortable with range.
They get comfortable with charging.
They quite like the torque.
They quite like the performance.
They like the cost of ownership, on and on and on.
But we're not naive.
And we recognize that from a customer perspective,
going all electric, not quite right for everyone during the stage.
There is still some charging anxiety out there.
There is still range anxiety out there.
And so we thought that our range extender harvester solution
was very interesting from that point of view.
Now, what we like about it is it's still an electric vehicle first,
meaning the battery is always driving the wheels.
You can still do around 150 miles of all electric range.
A lot of day-to-day driving will still be in all electric mode,
which is great.
It's efficient, slow cost, all of the reasons that you guys know.
But for those road trips, for those long drive scenarios,
introducing the gas engine, being able to do over 500 miles,
it's a game changer.
We listen to our customers, recognize that in a lot of off-road applications
and a lot of long distance application,
just having to stop the charge is not really ideal.
And so we think that this is a game-changing breakthrough for the customer.
Now, how we did it, we also really think is interesting, right?
So the engine is packaged in the rear,
so we still always have the front trunk.
We still have always the good parts of being an EV, so to speak.
But it comes with the additional confidence of just, again,
over 500 miles of range.
We think it's quite compelling.
Very cool, very cool.
I'm curious too, have you had a chance to connect
with maybe some of the older Scout owners or people who own older Scout vehicles?
Perhaps that's a better way to say it.
What's been your experience with the Scout community like so far?
Yeah, great.
This is a really important part of the broader company,
is that community orientation.
And when we looked at what Scout was,
and we paid attention to it from 1960 to 1980,
and then I would say more specifically from 1980 to 2022,
it was a community that kept the flame burning.
And there's several layers to it, right?
There's sort of the OG, RestoMod, Barn Find, like hardcore crew.
And we love them, we respect them, we've gotten to know them,
we really value their feedback.
And then there's a whole other bigger slice,
which is, for lack of better words,
call it like the nostalgic connection crew, right?
It's people who didn't own one.
It's people who aren't looking for carburetors and junkyards,
but they recall their grandpa having one,
or they learned how to drive on one, or they rode the prom in one.
And we love that, we love that as a place to be building from.
We think that's just like a really special, authentic place
to build a brand from.
Now, so okay, great, we recognize that it's out there.
What have we done about it?
One of the first things we did as a company,
and it was in November 2022,
we invited 10 of those Scout OGs to a warehouse
in Dallas, if any of them are listening,
they'll know who they are.
And we showed them a lot of what we're up to.
We kind of gave them a peek behind the curtain
of the entire company,
including showing them what we're at the time,
our earliest full-size design models.
And we leaned in, we listened,
we sincerely wanted their feedback,
they gave us a lot of feedback,
some of it a little bit more critical than the others.
But we listened, and in many cases,
we actually did adapt some things.
And so that was in 2022.
And then in actually exactly one year ago, in 2024,
when we showed our show cars off to the world
for the first time,
we had a lot of those community members there as well.
And I think based on their reaction
to hear them kind of hoot win and holler,
and to hear their applause when we showed the vehicles,
and then to hear their little appreciation
for all of the Scout DNA we weaved into the products,
that was a really nice affirmation,
a nice vote of compliments.
And I think we're doing right by the community so far,
and the company should be proud of that.
It's interesting how Scout is
sort of like almost below the radar cultural touchstone.
Like I've noticed Scouts have been turning up
in like sort of novels I've been reading
by indie publishers, things like that.
I've seen a few of them on the road recently,
which is kind of trippy.
It almost feels like the resurrection of the company
has maybe brought some of these people out of like,
wherever they've had their vehicles,
maybe just were noticing it more.
Can you talk about, I guess, the challenges
of bringing back a brand that was very well known,
but then did go away for like 40 years,
and there's some companies like Abercrombie,
like Indian Motorcycles,
a lot of ones that have done this before
with sort of a mixed record of success.
What are the challenges you think you're going to face here,
and how do you get people who are just interested
in a new off-road type thing,
and they're shopping it or cross-shopping it
with like Rivian, a Honda Passport,
Trail Sport, like a Jeep Wrangler, you name it.
How do you connect with those types of folks, I guess?
Yeah. Greg, first I'll adjust it
just from the kind of 30,000-foot trend perspective.
And I do think that there's a moment here,
and whether it's, I won't name the brands,
you can imagine who I'm getting at,
whether it's Workwear, whether it's sneakers,
whether it's record players,
there is kind of this push back towards a little bit of authenticity,
and that spans across generations.
And I do think that there is a certain appreciation
and value in knowing that you're buying a product
or a brand that's been here before,
and that they've kind of earned it before.
And so I do think Scout can check that box
and kind of ride that little bit of cultural zeitgeist
that we're in at the moment, that craving for authenticity
that we're in at the moment.
Now, on the other hand, you do need to be careful
that you don't overindex, because we're definitely
not like a retro vintage throwback machine.
We are innovative as heck, we're cool, modern, safe.
So it's finding that balance.
And from a strategic perspective,
right now we're still telling a little bit of a comeback story.
If you watch some of our brand assets,
if you watch some of our creative campaigns,
we lean into that heritage, but we embrace that.
We're building something new on top of it.
As we look forward and we get closer to actual
building and selling cars to customers,
I think that we start to look more and more modern,
cool, useful, safe, exciting, just really a vehicle
that's fit for the 21st century,
but always anchoring on that authenticity and DNA.
And Greg, then since you brought up some competitive products,
I think our right to win will be that very sincere connection
to combine the best of Old World and New World.
And our product does have some really interesting
Old World DNA to it.
So it's built on a body on frame, increasingly rare.
It has this wild, rowdy, solid rear axle that we love,
still disconnecting sway bars, optional mechanical
four by four lockers, real tactile switches on the interior,
real door handles, which are becoming quite rare, right?
So we're doing some of these kind of Old World product choices,
which I think the market's actually going to really love
and enjoy and has missed over the last few years.
But again, at the same time, it's not a retro machine
because then it's going to have really great UX.
We're going to have really great software.
We're going to have these really impressive drive units
that can do over right around 1,000 pound feet of torque.
So it's that combination of Old and New
that I think is really going to uniquely position Scout
in the market and allow us to go head to head and win.
I just want to add really quickly,
talking about seeing Scout around the older models.
I just want to point out that Forza Horizon,
which is probably the biggest racing game,
has had an international Scout knit for the last few editions.
And I remember just being like, oh, well, this is interesting.
But I really appreciate, Ryan, you talking about this combination
of authenticity and modern.
And talking about body on frame, that, like you said,
is an increasingly rare thing.
And we've seen more capability from unibody vehicles recently.
But still, I mean, when you're properly off-roading,
you need that proper foundation.
Do you find, you're talking about the moment of authenticity.
Do you also find that the last few years,
seeing people shift to wanting more of an outdoorsy life,
we've seen that since 2020, for reasons we won't get into.
Do you think that has also really aligned well
with this plan on bringing Scout back?
Well, that is definitely one of those other strategic trends
that we have been paying very close attention to.
And I'm really glad you asked, because I agree.
So if trend one is this yearning for authenticity,
trend two is that Americans are more active outdoors
in building things more than ever before.
And you're right, those events in 2020 accelerated that trend.
But that was a trend that has been ongoing for decades.
And we see it everywhere we can measure it, right?
If you look at, for example, national park visitors
or the amount of people on hiking trails
or the amount of people going to fishing holes
or pick your own orchards, or you name it outside,
busier than ever.
If you look at sort of where population trends people
are moving to and from, America is one of the only countries
in the world that is de-urbanizing.
Americans are moving out of our mega cities
and moving into more mid-sized cities and even small towns,
which is quite rare, quite unique.
And then the third element is this idea of sort of DIY culture.
And whether it's DIY a house or a trailer or furniture,
Americans are simply more hands-on than they've ever been before.
And when they do those three things,
we are very confident that they need the tool to enable them.
We're very confident that they need a more versatile vehicle.
And so that is what is really defining
a lot of the requirements of Scout,
is we want it to be a vehicle for people
who are exploring, doing, and making things, full stop.
We haven't driven any of the Scouts yet.
I don't think really anybody has outside
of maybe some of your in-house testers, things like that.
Can you kind of preview what that driving experience
will be for people who might be interested in getting
on the reservation list or what's it going to be like?
We have a really unique potential here.
And in some ways, we have what I would call
a little bit of American off-road rowdiness.
Body on frame, solid or axle, up to 35-inch tires from the factory,
all the stuff I already said, which in theory gives you
that really rowdy off-road.
But then when you pair that with a battery,
with really capable drive units, with the range extender,
you get this very precise technical performance orientation
to the vehicle as well.
So it's really unique.
And in some ways, when you look at it,
you're like a vehicle that size and with that capability
shouldn't drive that good, that exciting.
I had, actually, I drove it for the first time,
one of our first test mules last week,
and I was like geeking out because it's just,
it's very unique in how it combines capability
with precision and technicality.
It's just a very impressive vehicle.
Obviously, I might be a little bit biased,
but I'm looking forward to more people getting behind the wheel of it as well.
All right, sounds good.
Well, you've been very generous with your time.
Kyle, did you want to ask something?
Sorry.
I mean, actually, so this might be an interesting one,
because usually if we talk to people who work for an OEM,
we can guess what's in their garage.
But, Ryan, what's in your garage?
Yeah, great question.
Well, right now, I'm driving an Audi Q7.
Okay.
That's what's in there.
Still a little bit of Volkswagen group love
and plenty of space for my family.
So it works quite well for me at the time.
All right, sounds pretty good.
Daily driver, pretty comfy.
Yep.
All right, well, it looks like we're right kind of up against it
as far as your allotted time.
We really appreciate it.
You've been very generous with it.
I guess final thoughts, anything we haven't asked you
that you would like to throw in here?
I have to do it every time.
I always have to shout out to Scout community.
You know, we value them.
I know they're probably going to be listening.
We want their feedback.
We want to continue to engage with them.
And frankly, I just want to thank them for keeping the flame burning.
We're going to make it even brighter moving forward.
So got to shout out to community and the OGs out there.
I like that.
Yeah.
Sounds good.
Well, thanks for joining us, Ryan.
It's been a really great conversation.
We can't wait to see what's going on next with Scout.
Thanks, Kyle.
Thanks, Greg.
All right.
Thanks so much.
All right.
That was a pretty informative interview.
I think Greg and I are on the same page there.
Here on the AutoGuide show brought to you by eBay Motors.
Now we're at the end of the show.
And so Greg, I feel like we haven't caught up in a little bit,
even though we've been recording this whole thing.
So what have you been in or have driven or are driving soon?
So I just got back from North America in car of the year testing.
I've been out there for the most, the better part of this week.
Drove a lot of cool things.
I'm actually quite tired.
It's just I feel a little foggy just being in my laptop this morning.
Coming up soon, we will have a prelude first drive.
So that's under a bar go.
I can't tell you right now how it was like, but that will be coming up.
And I also just, I think you drove this car recently.
Mercedes AMG E53, the plug-in hybrid, just left my driveway.
Really liked it.
I'm about probably two thirds of the way through some like a short piece on that.
So those will probably be the next two things you have coming from me.
Excellent.
I look forward to it.
I'm also going to point out that the wagon version of the E53 is coming.
And I feel like that will be the new ultimate journalist.
Oh man.
We have to arm wrestle over that one or do some sort of beaten Windsor and trade it or something.
That is, I'm super fired up to get in that one.
Yeah.
So I'm also very jealous of prelude.
That's exciting because I'm still quite a ways away from driving that one.
So similarly, I know we talked about this before the show, but we never really got around to it.
I was also doing some car of the year judging.
I was at the automobile journalist association of Canada's annual test fest,
where we collect dozens of cars from across brands.
We get journalists from all across the country to fly in and we spend two days
driving them and scoring them.
I am very fortunate because being where I am,
I've driven most of the vehicles already before test fest,
but there were still some big surprises.
When this goes live, you will be able to head to Autogad.com and see my first drive review of the
Palisade hybrid.
The BMW M2 CS was also there, which was a big shock to all of us because,
yeah, that thing was just announced pretty recently, like this summer.
So those were exciting.
The Lucid Gravity was there.
People really wanted to get their hands on it.
It was a good time.
I drove the Mercedes CLE 450 Cabriolet up there, which was excellent.
We had a lot of rain at the event, but it was pretty good weather there and back.
So I got to drive at the top down, use those air scarves.
It is kind of a unique vehicle in the market in terms of being a proper four seat convertible.
So that was nice.
And then currently I am in the Jeep Wagoneer S or the Swagoneer, as we like to call it.
There you go.
It's been interesting.
I drove it at the beginning of the year and driving it here on my roads has revealed some
good and not so good aspects of the vehicle, but I'll save that for a proper review.
And then next week, I'm not driving anything because as of Sunday, I, or well, when this airs,
I will be in Japan at the Japan Mobility Show with Toyota and Lexus.
I'm going to be there for almost two weeks because while the show takes up a good chunk
of the time, I'm also staying there for a little while because I've never been to Japan.
So the next episode of the AutoGAD show will not feature me unless I jump in on a call,
13 hours ahead of you guys.
There we go.
I guess we'll have to figure that one out.
We'll either do early recordings or time travel, one of the two.
Yeah, we've got options here.
We do.
We do.
Some more realistic than others.
Slightly.
But yeah, that's been this episode of the AutoGAD show.
And yeah, until next time, everyone, have a good week.
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About this episode
The AutoGuide Show dives into the latest automotive news, featuring a detailed discussion on the 2026 Toyota RAV4, which is now all hybrid with a new GR Sport model. The hosts compare it to competitors like the Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. They also explore the performance of the new Ford Mustang Mach-E California Special and Porsche Macan GTS, as well as the Lamborghini Revuelto, a hybrid supercar. The episode wraps up with an interview with Ryan Decker from Scout Motors, discussing the brand's heritage and future direction.
This week we dive into the biggest new vehicle launch of the year, the 2026 Toyota RAV4, which we drove three times in two weeks to get the full story.
Greg and Kyle also discuss hybrid sports cars in our 911 GTS and Corvette E-Ray comparison and hybrid hypercars in the shape of the 1,001-horsepower Lamborghini Revuelto. We can't escape tariff talk, or the news GM really doesn't like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
We also talk about Cadillac killing off some sedans, Toyota targeting Rolls-Royce, and Jeep updating the Grand Wagoneer. Later, Greg joins us to discuss our best consumer choices for vehicles at certain price points.
Finally, Greg and Kyle take a look at what's next.