Sources say Volkswagen is considering building an electric SUV based on Amarok

CTOnews.com, December 9 (Xinhua) Volkswagen may be considering building an all-electric SUV model based on Amarok pickup trucks.

WhichCar of Australia interviewed Petr Sulc, a senior executive in Volkswagen's global product management team, and he said:

SUV was not in the scope of the previous [commercial vehicle partnership] negotiations [with Ford], so I told him that we were not interested in [that type of vehicle]. But I can imagine that if we want to get close to [Ford] electric cars, then [SUV] makes sense.

CTOnews.com learned that the current Amarok is not made by Volkswagen, but by Ford at its Silverton plant in South Africa. It has the same infrastructure as Ford's own Ranger, which in turn gave birth to Everest SUV. The new car has 80% of the same components, which greatly reduces development costs.

He believes that while Scout can compete with full-size pickups such as the Ford Fmur150, the latter is fiercely competitive and buyers are very loyal to domestic brands. In other words, buyer loyalty may be a key factor in VW's approval of Scout projects, because it hopes that "this is a name that buyers will remember and resonate with."

Unfortunately, there is no word on when the Amarok EV will be unveiled, but Volkswagen has previously announced that it will invest $485 million in its Wolfsburg plant to produce a modified ID.3 model and an equivalent SUV model that will be produced on the MEB+ platform.