According to Toyota, the young adults of today are less engaged with the Scion brand, and less likely to want to deliberately seek out products specifically created to appeal to them. Toyota released a press release this morning confirming the news and announcing that most Scion models would be consolidated into the bigger, and more successful brand. “As a part of the team that established Scion in Canada, our goal was to make Toyota and our dealers stronger by learning how to better attract and engage young customers”. And the brand brought many new shoppers into Toyota showrooms, with about 70 percent of all Scions purchased by people who had never bought a Toyota model before. Now starting with the 2017 model year in August, the brand’s vehicles will be re-badged under its parent brand’s name. Along with the equally mediocre xD and tC, it soldiered on without significant updates for years, while Toyota made an ill-fated attempt to spice up Scion with the FR-S sports auto and (now discontinued) iQ city vehicle, neither of which could provide the sales volumes Scion needed to sustain itself.
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The company said Scion owners will still be able to get service from Toyota dealerships. Toyota will eliminate its funky, youth-focused auto brand and consolidate those models back into the Toyota lineup.
Scion, which started in 2003, has seen lagging sales, with a mere 56,167 cars sold a year ago in the U.S. I think that’s market speak for nobody was buying the cars. And hey! Now it’s going to come with a Toyota badge, which saves you the trouble of doing the swap yourself.
Beatty said Toyota would work closely with its dealer council in the transition.
A spokeswoman said Toyota would realise “efficiencies” from not having to promote a separate brand, but declined to provide figures. The brand was also a tacit admission that, a new generation of buyers, Toyota was an old-person’s brand.
As for parts and fix support from Toyota, fret not, those will still be offered, as it is a matter of a brand transition more than anything else. And Scion vehicles weren’t showcases for alternative power trains or even carriers for the company’s signature command of mild-hybrid technology as in Prius.
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It’s also true, though, that some viewed Scion as a lesser version of Toyota.
