The Next Big Fail

There’s a lag built into things; especially big things. Like building out big boondoggle things. It takes time to get everything organized before anything gets started. Plans are made based on projections that make certain assumptions. But when those assumptions prove to be false, it is often too late to prevent the boondoggle from happening.

Such is likely to be the case with “upstart” (bracketed in air fingers quotation marks to convey sarcasm) EV manufacturer Scout, which trades on the name of the classic 4×4 (there were 4x4s before there were “SUVs”) made back in the ’60s and ’70s. Scout is actually VW – which bought the name back in 2021, which you’ll recall was the high water mark of EV Fever, congruent with Sickness Psychosis. VW assumed that the “market” created by the government would assure the success of battery powered devices and figured it would be a good move to badge some of these battery powered devices as “Scouts,” on the assumption that people would be attracted by the badge to such a degree that they would not notice it was just another battery powered device.

This latter error is one every manufacturer of battery powered devices has made and it is an especially grievous one as regards brands that traded chiefly on being different because every battery powered device is fundamentally the same. The charm of the original Scout – and also the VW Microbus, to cite a second case-in-point – was that they were different, quirky things. VW – which thinks it cab successfully market a Scout-badged device – also thought it could trade on the name (or at least, the memory) of the old Microbus to sell a device that looked kind of like the original but was nothing like it. That was a lot like every other device being made, except for its shape.

The point they missed was the lack of the underlying difference.

The ID Buzz didn’t have an engine unlike any other vehicle’s engine – like the microbus did. It has the same generic battery pack and electric motors as every other device. It didn’t  – for this reason – sound or feel any different than other-shaped devices, which all sound and feel the same. Perhaps if VW had at least managed to emulate the affordability of the old Microbus, it might have sold. But – like all devices – the ID Buzz is haltingly expensive (about $60,000 to start) which is also effronterous given that electric drivetrains could be inexpensive, if they didn’t also have to be capable of delivering “ludicrous” acceleration and extended highway driving range (at highway driving speeds). There are inexpensive EVs – in China. They can also be found on golf courses, here. They are inexpensive because the expectations aren’t unrealistic.

How realistic is it to expect that VW’s attempt to sell the Scout name won’t be the next big flop?

Not very, probably.

The base price of the device that will be marketed as a “Scout” come 2028 is “estimated” to be in the vicinity of $60,000. This “estimate” is an assumption – another one – that assumes such a target will be met two years hence, which is a rather large assumption. Even if it proves to be spot on, there is still the assumption that there are enough people who want a battery-powered device that says “Scout” on its liftgate, which will be pretty much the only thing that distinguishes it from similarly shaped devices already on the “market” manufactured by Rivian – and who are in a position to afford to spend $60k on one.

That’s a lot to bet the farm on. Or – in this case – $2 billion, the sum VW has reportedly committed to this “investment” in “the future.” The state North Carolina – more finely, the government of the state of North Carolina – has bought in as well. More accurately, has used the dollars it has extorted from North Carolina taxpayers to buy in – to the tune $51.2 million in “incentives” (as they are styled) that will (allegedly) conjure 1,200 jobs.

That’s a lot of assumptions.

Similar assumptions made by GM and Ford have not turned out to have been remunerative. Nor have the jobs they conjured remained. GM recently eliminated several thousand and Ford is likely to do the same because it does not pay to keep people working on make-work projects such as the manufacturing of the F-150 Lightning.

The governor of North Carolina – Josh Stein – rolled up to an “economic development announcement last week in a ’77 Scout II, a publicity stunt on par with Fred Thompson (the actor who became a senator, which isn’t really much of a role change) getting into an old truck just outside of a campaign stop to present himself to the rubes as a good ol’ boy who actually drove an old truck.

But at least Fred’s old truck was real – even if he was a fake.

The device that VW hopes to market to the rubes as a “Scout” is as fake (and gay) as thirty-three dollar bill.

It’s one hell of an assumption to believe anyone’s going to accept them.

. . .

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