Scout’s ‘Harvester’ Gasoline-Powered EV Range Extender Will Be Built in Mexico

In a somewhat surprising move given the current international trade climate, Scout Motors announced that it will source a gasoline engine from Volkswagen Group Mexico to serve as its optional onboard “Harvester” range-extender. Per Automotive News, VW Group CFO Arno Antlitz confirmed during the company’s earnings call that the Harvester will be a naturally aspirated four-cylinder of unknown size that will be assembled at the company’s engine plant in Silao.

Both the timing and choice of venue for the announcement suggest that VW plans to stay the course despite pressure to move more operations inside U.S. borders, especially given recent signals from the administration that it may be abandoning many of its earlier tariff positions.

We’ve been debating which engine might fill this role ever since Scout CEO Scott Keogh confirmed the obvious by telling us the motor would come from within the VW Group. Our money was on a small-displacement engine destined for something in VW Group’s international portfolio, but this announcement doesn’t give us a whole lot more to go on. Silao currently builds the EA211 and EA288 lines of four-cylinder engines for VW Group vehicles that are distributed within North America, but that’s not much of a clue in this instance, as the company’s small-displacement motors sold in North America are all turbocharged.

We dropped Scout Motors a note to see if there are any more details to share and will update this story if something significant comes through.

While the response to the Harvester range extender’s availability has been undeniably positive (Scout says 80% of its reservations included it), its announcement was an about-face from a company that had initially presented itself as a BEV-only outfit. Vehicles with the Harvester add-on will get a smaller battery pack, reducing their all-electric range at the expense of quicker top-offs, and Keogh told media at CES this year that the engine would be so far from the driver (and presumably well-isolated) that it won’t intrude on the silence EV users have come to expect from their cars.

Embracing a gasoline range-extender isn’t the only unconventional angle embraced by Scout. Unlike range-focused EVs, the Terra and Traveler will be off-road trucks first and foremost, complete with solid-axle suspensions and locking differentials. That said, they’ll be built to optimize the advantages offered by an all-electric powertrain—including the ability to hit 60 mph in shockingly (sorry?) quick sprints. Scout says both the pickup and SUV should be able to do it in just 3.5 seconds.

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