Audi Reportedly Exploring A New Off-Road SUV Based On Scout

An unnamed US official linked 25,000 annual units in South Carolina to Audi, hinting at a Scout-based body-on-frame off-roader.

A US official let a number slip this week that Audi has not confirmed and Scout Motors will not touch: 25,000 vehicles a year, built at Scout's plant in Blythewood, South Carolina. That is the first reported link tying the Audi brand to Scout's factory floor.

The claim surfaced alongside President Trump's announcement of a separate $4 billion Audi assembly plant in Georgia. But the South Carolina detail points somewhere else entirely, toward a body-on-frame Audi off-roader built on Scout bones.

2025 Audi Q6 e-tron offroad concept

Photo by: Audi

The figure comes from an unnamed US official speaking around Trump's factory announcement, first reported by CNBC. Some of that production could even be earmarked for export, according to the same account.

Scout Motors responded on October 24 by saying it had nothing to announce. The plant itself is real and well underway. Volkswagen Group, Audi's parent company, is pouring $2 billion into the Blythewood facility to revive Scout as a body-on-frame off-road brand.

Audi has never said it is building anything there.

Audi has publicly discussed a rugged SUV before with an off-road concept. But it has never tied that idea to a specific American factory or a production number until this leak surfaced.

The Scout connection would hand Audi a body-on-frame platform it does not currently build anywhere, instead of reworking another existing unibody SUV like the Q9. Scout's own Traveler SUV and Terra pickup, previewed as concepts with distinct luxury and beadlock-wheeled trims, are built that way from the ground up.

Both Scout models were shown with fully electric drive systems. The company now describes plans for them to be available either as all-electric models or with a gas-powered Harvester range-extender setup, a two-path energy strategy aimed at easing range anxiety for buyers who plan to drive off pavement.

Audi CEO Gernot Döllner has already floated the idea publicly.

'After the Q9 launched, we could also think about next steps and extending our portfolio in both directions,'

he said, pointing toward both rugged terrain SUVs and sports cars as the brand looks past its current lineup.

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Döllner has named the competition directly too, pointing to the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and the Land Rover Defender as benchmarks. "The models do not sell in huge numbers, but they do generate very large amounts of revenue," he said, a line that reads like a business case for exactly the kind of low-volume, high-margin off-roader Scout's platform could support.

Nobody at Audi has confirmed South Carolina is where that vehicle, if it becomes reality, gets built.