The Future Of Electric Pickups Is Here

Scout Motors used to be as American as baseball. Once famous for the 1960-1980 International Scout off-road SUV and truck made by International-Harvester, it remained the property of American truck subsidiary Navistar International, but went into hibernation. The VW Group acquired Navistar in 2021 and relaunched Scout Motors as an independent American startup with VW backing and two initial models – an electric SUV and its pickup truck sibling. We now know they’re called the Traveler SUV and Terra Pickup.

The Scout Terra will be taking on the Tesla Cybertruck in the electriic pickup truck battle. We compare these two trucks to see how they approach the same segment and what they have to offer. Here is all the information we have managed to gather, side by side. The Terra is still three years off, but this is how they compare on paper right now.

Design: Retro Vs New-Age Funk

Terra: Retro Traditional

The two trucks could not have more different approaches to styling. The Cybertruck’s off-the-wall stainless-steel pyramid form factor makes the heads jerk and the jaws drop, while Scout takes many traditional styling cues from Scouts of old to present a traditional truck profile more in keeping with rivals like the Ford F-150 Lightning. The Terra’s family resemblance is clear, with a trademark black “mask” grille panel with its recognizable border picked out in brightwork and an offset Scout logo. There’s a whiff of old-fashioned and a pleasing sense of familiarity to it that traditionalists will prefer – and it looks like a truck at first glance.

Cybertruck: Bridge To Captain

The Cybertruck seems to revel in the freedom from tradition, though owners have complained about keeping the stainless steel looking good and accessing the bed over the intrusive buttresses. Unlike the Tesla, the more traditional Scout makes no claims of a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton or shatterproof glass. And that’s because the Terra doesn’t have an exoskeleton, but a bespoke new ladder-frame chassis like a real truck and shared with nothing else in the VW Group – a trait that will likely be valued by people prioritizing toughness and robustness over style and flash.

Naturally, there are those that want to stand out from the crowd. With jokes of mistaking the Cybertruck for a dumpster aside, the Tesla pickup is unlike anything else you’ll see on the road, so if that’s something you want, this is the winner. If you prefer a truck that looks like, well, a truck, you know which of these two to choose.

Dimensions & Weights: A Close Call

The Terra is a full-size truck and trumps the Cybertruck on all exterior dimensions except bed size, though it’s bigger than a Rivian R1T’s; the bed is equipped with two 120-V outlets and one 240-V outlet. Scout provides a frunk of undisclosed size, saying only that you can fit a set of golf clubs, a small cooler, and a gym bag in there at once, and that it comes with 120-V and USB-C outlets. It opens right down to bumper level for easy access.

Tesla makes a big deal of the Cybetruck’s “total closed storage volume”, but there’s a caveat to having the tonneau cover closed – you can’t see out of the rear window, so it’s not quite as practical as the more traditional Terra.

Powertrain: Different Approaches?

The Cybertruck is currently offered in dual-motor AWD and tri-motor Cyberbeast configurations only (rear-wheel drive Cybetruck orders have been halted at the time of writing), as you see above. Like other electric pickups, the automaker offers more budget-focused models as well as wild performance derivatives; Scout will likely do the same, having hinted that models will have “up to 1,000 lb-ft of torque” on offer and a targer 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds. That’s not the kind of performance you’d expect from a base model, so we can assume a tamer dual-motor will kick off the range while a tri- or even quad-motor model a la Rivian may be in the cards.

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Info on the Terra is still patchy, but the specs for the single configuration so far released falls between the two Cybertruck models on performance, but it beats them on range.

Charging and Range

The Terra beats the Cybertruck on claimed range, which is said to be up to 350 miles – 25 miles more than the Cybertruck’s maximum. Both trucks’ range can be extended, but they go about it in completely different ways; the Terra offers gas-fed range-extended generator to offer more than 500 miles, while Tesla offers an extended-range battery that takes up a portion of the load box to provide up to 445 miles of total electric range.

The interesting bit is the extended-range Terra, which doesn’t use an intrusive extra battery that sits in the bed like the Cybertruck, but a compact gas generator mounted in the rear chassis – not in the nose – which chimes in to provide electricity to the motors to extend the range to significantly more than what the Cybertruck can manage. It will also address range anxiety.

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Thanks to an 800-V architecture, the Terra’s battery can be charged at up to 350 kW, which will significantly shorten charging times compared to the Cybertruck, which maxes out at 250 kW. On top of it all, the Terra comes with a standard NACS charging port and will have access to Tesla’s Supercharger network. Bidirectional charging is supported.

Off-Road Credentials: Riding On Air

Terra: Rugged And Ready To Work

Thanks to height-adjustable air suspension, the Cybertruck can drop right down to easy-access Entry mode or lift to Extract mode that offers up to 16 inches of ground clearance, with our table above showing the range of angles between those extremes. The Terra’s suspension will also feature air springs and presumably be height-adjustable, but figures have not been supplied except for ground clearance and fording depth, and we don’t know in which suspension setting it has been measured.

Cybertruck: Extroverted And Capable

For what it’s worth, Scout says the off-road angles will be “competitive”. Interestingly, the Terra has a solid rear axle with the rear motor integrated into it, while the front anti-roll bar will be disconnectable. We’re keen to see if the solid rear axle will come with a trade-off in ride and handling. It almost certainly eliminates the possibility of the Cybertruck’s useful rear-axle steering being offered. The Terra comes with standard 33-inch tires, with 35-inch rubberware optional. Scout says the Terra can scale a 100 percent gradient.

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Interior and Tech: Easy Win

Cybertruck: Minimalist To A Fault

As has become the norm, the Cybertruck’s interior is starkly minimalist, with a nearly featureless dashboard, a steering wheel with a flat top and bottom, and a big 18.5-inch center touchscreen. The default color scheme is Tactical Gray, but you can have a Gray/White combo. There are dual wireless charging pads, 120/240-V cabin and bed power outlets, and 65-W USB-C charging ports. The rear-seat passengers get their own 9.4-inch touchscreen. The audio system has 15 speakers, including two subwoofers, and the HVAC system boasts a hospital-grade HEPA filter. The entire cabin is bathed in natural light through the glass roof. Build quality is a bit hit-and-miss though.

Terra: Premium – With Actual Buttons

The Scout’s cabin seems far more inviting, with the press images showing warm browns, two-tone brown/gray cabins with a black base color, stitched dashboard and console surfaces and armrests, a horizontal two-tier dashboard with a landscape-style touchscreen, and a row of physical knobs and buttons below it. Again, far more traditional and less sci-fi, with various physical controls and apparently plusher finishes. It will almost certainly feel much more upscale inside, if Scout takes any notes from parent company VW. The Terra is only going into production in 2027, so final specifications and features are not available yet, nor are interior dimensions. An available three-seater front bench will enable the Terra to carry six passengers, however.

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Price and Winner: A Lot Can Change In Three Years

Scout says the MSRP of a new Terra will start under $60,000 when it launches in 2027, with base trims costing as little as $52k or less when available incentives are taken into account. The Cybertruck AWD has a base MSRP of $79,990, with the Cyberbeast adding $20k to that price, so it’s much more expensive than the Terra. A cheaper RWD single-motor base Cybertruck comes later, but it’s unlikely to undercut $60k, so pricing goes the way of the Terra right now. In three years, who knows.

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It’s a tough call to make with three years to go – as the specs stand right now, it looks like the Terra has the advantage. Its more traditional appearance will appeal to a wider audience, and its promised charging rate and range are better than those of the Cybertruck, with the added benefit of having access to a gas-powered range-extender hybrid model, so even the longest journeys can be tackled without range anxiety. The interior also looks far nicer and more inviting than that of the Cybertruck. The big caveat is that the Terra is still three years away. It’s competitive now, but how will the Cybertruck improve in the meantime? These are questions we can’t answer yet.

Sources:

Scout, Tesla, MotorTrend, Car and Driver .