Jim Letz, founding vice-president of Scion and now Toyota Motor North America’s CEO, said: “This isn’t a step back for Scion; it’s a leap forward for Toyota”. Bob Carter, the automaker’s senior vice president of automotive operations, promised Toyota would “work closely” with Scion’s 1,004 dealerships “to support this process and help communicate this change to customers”.
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According to a sales history of Scion provided in a Toyota news release, annual new-car sales for the brand peaked in 2006 at 173,034.
The company said it established Scion as a separate brand in 2003 to attract younger customers. After declining sales the last few years, it was announced today that while the brand will be discontinued, several of their cars will live on, re-badged as Toyota vehicles for Model Year 2017 (MY17). But now he says the Toyota brand can sufficiently attract the younger buyer with its switch to more aggressive styling and high-tech features. The C-HR concept vehicle making rounds at auto shows will also be a Toyota product. Perhaps most crucially, the US economy cratered, upending younger consumers buying power, and Scion hasn’t had a 6-figure sales year since 2008 when 113,904 units were delivered, WardsAuto data shows.
“By offering Scion products under the Toyota badge, the company can save marketing costs and eliminate what had effectively become a distraction from its core business focus”. Ford Motor Co. killed its Mercury brand in 2010, and multiple brands, like Izusu and Renault, have left the US market. Regardless of how you look at the Scion brand from Toyota, it will be no more in due time.
“There’s been a lot written about the USA industry being at peak levels and that a downturn is imminent”, Barra said.
Scion-specific Toyota employees will be moved into their counterpart areas within Toyota’s structure, the company said.
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Toyota will scrap the youth-oriented nameplate. He said while Gen Xers wouldn’t touch the same brand their parents and grandparents liked, Millennials see Toyota more favorably than they did Scion. Toyota sold 56,167 Scion vehicles in 2015, a decline of 68 per cent in a United States market that favors larger sport utility vehicles and trucks. The brand is being phased out, with most Scion models set to be rebadged as Toyotas beginning in August.
