Scout Motors is developing a bespoke sound profile for its upcoming electric vehicles as the revived off-road brand moves closer to production of its Traveler SUV and Terra pickup, company executives said, aiming to give the vehicles a distinctly American acoustic identity.
Chris Benjamin, Scout’s chief design officer, said the company’s user-experience team has been traveling across the United States to capture natural mechanical and environmental sounds that will form the basis of more than 40 custom audio cues, including sounds for door locks, turn signals, alerts and vehicle start-up. “All of the sounds inside the vehicle, we want them to feel authentic to us and unique,” Benjamin told Automotive News at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
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As part of the process, Scout brought a vintage International Harvester Scout with a V8 engine into an anechoic chamber to record isolated mechanical sounds, including door latches, locks and engine tones. Those recordings, along with audio gathered from agricultural equipment inside a grain silo in Adairville, Kentucky, and acoustic guitar elements, will be layered into the final sound design. “You have a little bit of industry, a little bit of agriculture, a little bit of the original Scout in each one of the sounds,” Benjamin said.
Scout said the soundscape approach aligns with its broader design philosophy, which emphasizes physical controls such as knobs, switches and buttons rather than fully minimalist, screen-dominated interiors. “We’re not creating spaceships,” Benjamin said. “We’re creating hearty, wholesome vehicles that people will love, and we want the sounds to reflect that.”
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The Terra pickup and Traveler SUV are scheduled to begin production in South Carolina in late 2027, following a pilot production phase planned for 2026. Scout Motors was relaunched by Volkswagen Group as part of its expansion into electric off-road vehicles.
