Most likely solely Individuals of a sure age keep in mind when the Volkswagen Beetle was the best-selling imported automotive in the USA and the hippest journey to a Grateful Useless live performance was a Volkswagen Microbus.

Volkswagen is attempting to faucet a few of that nostalgia in its newest push to regain the standing and gross sales it loved in the USA through the Beetle’s and Microbus’s heydays within the Nineteen Sixties. However this time it hopes its high fashions will probably be electrical.

The German carmaker is second solely to Toyota globally however is a distinct segment participant in the USA. A part of its plan to revive its fortunes right here is to lean on a brand new electrical mannequin that resembles the Microbus, the ID.Buzz, and to revive the Scout model with a line of electrical pickups and sport utility autos.

Final week, as big earth movers kicked up clouds of mud, Volkswagen executives and native officers gathered close to Columbia, S.C., to inaugurate the positioning of a manufacturing unit that can construct autos bearing the Scout badge for the primary time since 1980.

Volkswagen is considered one of a number of international automakers that see electrical vehicles and the upheaval they’re inflicting as a solution to problem the dominant gamers in the USA. Volkswagen, which additionally owns Audi, Porsche, Bentley and Lamborghini, is aiming to at the least double its market share in the USA by the top of the last decade from a meager 4 p.c now.

“This market is popping electrical, and everyone’s ranging from scratch,” Arno Antlitz, the chief monetary officer of Volkswagen, stated in an interview. “That is our distinctive alternative to develop.”

Electrical autos have already shaken the business rankings, emboldening Volkswagen and different international automakers. Battery-powered S.U.V.s and sedans helped Hyundai Motor and its sister model Kia overtake Stellantis, the maker of Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler and Ram, because the fourth-largest carmaker by gross sales in the USA final yr.

“Electrical autos are serving to our model to be seen as a know-how chief,” stated José Muñoz, chief working officer of Hyundai. In addition they appeal to a better-educated, extra prosperous buyer than has been the case for the South Korean firm’s gasoline autos, he stated in an interview.

The record of corporations that dominate electrical automotive gross sales seems to be so much completely different from the highest rankings for general U.S. gross sales, hinting at a future when a special group of corporations rule.

The highest 5 corporations in the USA for all engine sorts are Basic Motors, Toyota, Ford Motor, Hyundai and Stellantis. In electrical vehicles, Tesla is No. 1 by a large margin, adopted by Hyundai, G.M., Ford and Volkswagen. Toyota is a minor participant in electrical vehicles.

“Simply since you’ve been round for 120 years doesn’t imply you’re going to have something on this new market,” stated Steven Heart, the chief working officer of Kia America.

Volvo Vehicles is one other firm hoping to reap the benefits of the adjustments wrought by electrical autos. The Swedish carmaker, which is majority owned by Geely Holding Group of China, reported a 26 p.c improve in U.S. gross sales final yr.

A lot of that progress got here from hybrids which have a gasoline engine and might journey shorter distances on batteries. However Mike Cottone, president of Volvo Automobile for the USA and Canada, stated he noticed hybrids as a pathway to completely electrical autos.

Later this yr, Volvo will start promoting a Chinese language-made, all-electric compact S.U.V., the EX30, which is able to begin at $35,000. The corporate may even start delivering the EX90, a seven-seat S.U.V. that’s made in South Carolina and can begin round $80,000.

Particularly for luxurious automotive patrons, Mr. Cottone stated, “there’s loads of room for progress within the E.V. phase over the following few years.”

Volkswagen has tried and failed for the reason that Seventies to grow to be a much bigger presence in the USA, and analysts are skeptical that this time will probably be completely different. “I’ve seen Volkswagen set these objectives earlier than,” stated Michelle Krebs, government analyst at Cox Automotive.

The established carmakers won’t be pushovers. G.M. and Ford are additionally investing closely in electrical autos, whereas Toyota has stated it should begin producing a big electrical S.U.V. in Kentucky subsequent yr.

Ms. Krebs identified that auto gross sales within the U.S. had been rising slowly, making the combat for market share largely a zero-sum sport. “There’s this little little bit of progress that everyone goes after,” she stated.

Volkswagen’s final large push in the USA led to scandal. Within the early 2000s, the corporate tried to promote Individuals on vehicles with “clear diesel” engines. It marketed the gas, which was utilized in European passenger vehicles way more than in American vehicles, as extra environmentally pleasant than gasoline.

However the marketing campaign collapsed in 2015 when U.S. regulators found that Volkswagen had used software program within the autos to cheat on emissions assessments. In actuality, the vehicles polluted as a lot as long-haul vans.

The scandal had one profit for Volkswagen. It prompted the corporate to speculate early in electrical automobile know-how and construct vehicles that had been designed from the bottom as much as run on batteries, fairly than make awkward modifications to gasoline fashions. In Europe, Volkswagen’s numerous electrical manufacturers collectively outsell Tesla, in accordance with Schmidt Automotive Analysis.

The particular person chargeable for doubling Volkswagen gross sales in the USA is Pablo Di Si, president of Volkswagen Group of America. Mr. Di Si, initially from Argentina, stated he deliberate to make use of the identical technique he deployed whereas overseeing the corporate’s operations in Brazil, the place Volkswagen’s market share rose to greater than 16 p.c from 9 p.c.

“You take a look at the segments that you simply suppose are going to achieve success 10 years from now,” Mr. Di Si stated in an interview. “What are your gaps within the product portfolio? And you then begin including merchandise for these explicit markets.”

In the USA, he stated, that’s more likely to embody gasoline vehicles and hybrids in addition to all-electric autos. Volkswagen plans to import the ID.7, an electrical sedan, and the ID.Buzz. Mr. Di Si hinted that there may also be a brand new electrical automobile that references the design of the Beetle. The final model of that automotive offered in the USA was the 2019 Beetle.

Volkswagen is constructing a $5 billion manufacturing unit in Ontario to provide batteries to its factories in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Puebla, Mexico, which collectively will produce at the least 80 p.c of the corporate’s vehicles offered in North America. That may assist patrons of vehicles from its Volkswagen, Audi and different manufacturers qualify for federal tax credit of as much as $7,500 per automotive.

Scout will fill a significant hole in Volkswagen’s portfolio: pickups, among the many hottest autos in the USA. By reviving Scout, which was one of many first passenger autos that might navigate tough filth tracks in addition to metropolis streets, Volkswagen hopes to draw patrons who sometimes purchase off-road-capable autos from U.S. manufacturers like Chevrolet, Ford and Jeep.

The South Carolina manufacturing unit will underscore the made-in-America vibe when the primary Scouts go on sale in late 2026. Volkswagen inherited the Scout model when the corporate’s truck subsidiary, Traton, acquired Navistar, a U.S. firm beforehand referred to as Worldwide Harvester, in 2021.

The brand new Scouts could borrow some elements utilized in different Volkswagen autos, firm executives stated, however the design will probably be distinct from current autos like the electrical ID.4 S.U.V. made in Chattanooga. Scout plans to disclose prototypes this yr.

A stronger presence in the USA is “a strategic necessity,” Scott Keogh, the chief government of Volkswagen’s Scout Motors division, stated in South Carolina final week.

Outdoors the USA, Volkswagen is a behemoth, with a 26 p.c share of the European market and 15 p.c in China. However the firm is below extreme stress in China, the place gross sales of electrical autos have been rising quick, permitting BYD and different Chinese language carmakers to achieve market share from international automakers. Volkswagen wants progress in the USA to compensate.

Volkswagen “desires to have a robust world footprint,” Mr. Keogh stated, “not have an remoted footprint, the place it’s solely sitting sturdy in a single area.”