After Volkswagen purchased Traton, which owns Navistar, which owns Scout – the automaker announced that Scout would indeed be making a comeback roughly two years ago. That announcement finally came to fruition just last week when both the Scout Traveler SUV and Terra pickup were officially unveiled, each touting all-electric power, a host of true off-road credentials, and like many EVs these days, a direct sales model using an online/app-only ordering system. As one might imagine, that last detail hasn’t exactly settled well with Volkswagen dealers, however.
According to Automotive News, VW dealers in the U.S. – as well as the National Dealers Association and other state dealer associations – began reaching out to law firms almost immediately after Scout Motors announced that it would be selling vehicles independently of that automaker’s dealer network. At the moment, NADA has vowed to block Scout from using a direct sales model, though it hasn’t revealed how it plans to do that, aside from embarking on a legal battle.
“In the vast majority of states, the OEMs are not permitted to sell direct or compete with their dealers,” said Richard Sox, managing partner at the law firm Bass Sox Mercer. “There are some exceptions to that, but those exceptions generally relate to the non-legacy OEMs who do not have and have never had a dealer network, i.e., Tesla. They’re [Volkswagen] affiliated with Scout, they have ownership. They have potentially some control. It certainly complicates Scout’s ability to sell direct in those particular states that would otherwise allow a manufacturer that is completely separate from a legacy OEM to sell direct.”
Ford is well aware of the struggles of legacy automakers to sell EVs direct to consumers after it attempted to implement its Model e Certified sales program some time ago. Many dealers ultimately opted out of that program, even after Ford made changes to it based on feedback from those entities, and it was challenged in court by multiple lawsuits – after which The Blue Oval decided to simply scrap the idea entirely this past June.
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VW owned Traton before Traton bought International trucks. Traton is a combination of VW commercial vehicles, Scania, MAN and VW Commerical and now International.
On Fox and Friends Show this morning ; there was a show of hands as to how many people drive EVs in Michigan . No one raised their hands ! They all drive gas or diesel !