Christopher Ott

The dealers really see this as an absolute existential threat to their business model.

The only way for an automaker to go around dealers in the United States is to never have had dealers in the first place.

Because of state laws, because of how entrenched this system is, and what has the dealership body across the United States so up in arms about this, is that Scout Motors is very much a creation of the most legacy of legacy automakers in Volkswagen.

Scout regularly talks about all the benefits they get being backed and wholly owned by Volkswagen, such as negotiating with suppliers to get better prices.

The notion is if any legacy automaker can just invent a new brand, shift all their executives over to the new brand and go direct to consumer, well, that is cutting the dealers out of the equation.