South Washington, District of Columbia - Toyota is to drop its Scion sub-brand, the often quirky line of cars it launched in the United States in 2003, targeted at younger, more adventurous buyers.
The company says it will stop selling cars under the Scion name by mid-2016, merging the medels back into Toyota range for the US market.
Toyota North America chief executive Jim Lentz said the decision to discontinue the Scion nameplate was dictated by a market shifting away from small cars and by changes in the buying habits of younger Americans.
“Younger buyers still want fun-to-drive vehicles that look good,” he said, “but today they are also more practical.”
The Scion brand pitched a range of smaller cars costing less than $20 000 (then about R150 000) from the xA hatchback (sold elsewhere as the Toyota Yaris) and the box-like xB to the respected FR-S rear wheel-drive sports car, sister to the Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ.
Lentz, who was the executive in charge of the brand at its launch, said at the time: “Scion allows us to fast-track ideas that would have been challenging to test through the Toyota network.”
Initially it garnered some success with critics and achieved some sales aims; about 70 percent of Scions were bought by customers new to Toyota, and 50 percent of buyers were less than 35 years old.
CHEAP PETROL
But sales fell to only 56 000 cars in 2015, down three percent from the previous year despite a surging market overall. By comparison, Toyota sold 363 000 Corollas in the United States last year.
Edmunds.com analyst Jessica Caldwell said cheap petrol had has diverted buyers from small cars back to larger SUVs and pick-ups, and Scion didn’t have any models in those segments.
KBB analyst Rebecca Lindland commented: “When Scion debuted in 2003, it was intended to bring in a younger demographic to Toyota, but its growth was derailed by the recession and the brand never reached its intended volume targets or demographic.”
“The Scion brand never quite caught on in the way that Toyota hoped it would,” she said. “By selling Scion cars with Toyota badging the company can save marketing costs and eliminate what had effectively become a distraction from its core business focus.”
AFP