After years of declining sales, Toyota stated on Wednesday, February 3, 2016, that it is eliminating its Scion brand, which caters to younger car customers.
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Will Toyota bring the Scion back?
The Scion will Toyota bring back? There is currently no new information regarding Toyota bringing the Scion brand back as of 2021. In order to maintain the line’s best-selling models on the market for potential customers once the brand was canceled in 2016, they shifted them over to Toyota.
What was the Toyota Scion’s successor?
Toyota once owned the Scion brand, which debuted in 2003. The Scion brand focused on affordable, eye-catching, and distinctive sport compact cars, and used a straightforward “pure price” sales concept that avoided traditional trim levels and dealer haggling. Each vehicle was offered in a single trim with a non-negotiable base price, while buyers could choose from a variety of dealer-installed options to customize their cars. The moniker Scion, which translates to “the heir of a family,” applies to both the brand’s automobiles and the people who purchase them. Scion predominantly used guerilla and viral marketing strategies to appeal to millennials.
In June 2003, a few California Toyota dealers hosted a soft launch of the brand in the US. By February 2004, the brand had gone national. With the sale of 173,034 units, sales reached their pinnacle. 2010 saw Scion’s entry into Canada. However, as sales declined following the financial crisis of 20072008, Toyota’s early proposalsshort product cycles and aggressive pricing predicated on low dealer marginsbecame more and more untenable. At the beginning of the 2017 model year, in August 2016, Toyota ended the Scion brand. The cars were either rebranded as Toyotas or were no longer produced.
Toyota still offers Scion support?
Owners and customers will have many questions after Toyota’s shocking news this week that it will discontinue Scion. We’ll try to respond to a few.
The tC coupe will no longer be produced, but Toyota will rebrand three other Scion vehiclesthe FR-S coupe, iA sedan, and iM hatchbackas Toyota models, according to Scion spokesperson Nancy Hubbell. (The iQ microcar and the xB hatchback were already phased out after 2015).
Sorry. The Toyota iM will replace the Scion iM, and so on for the other models. According to Hubbell, the manufacturer intends to maintain the identities to protect brand equity.
Even then, it most likely won’t be enough to keep you awake at night. When a brand, rather than just a car, is discontinued, it often results in a faster depreciation, according to our analysis of canceled vehicles from the previous year. However, parent companies rarely use the refugees as new models. Usually, if a retired vehicle continues to exist under a different name, it already existed (e.g., the Mercury Milan and the Ford Fusion).
The Saturn Vue SUV, which GM terminated along with the whole brand in late 2009, serves as the most recent example. The Chevrolet Captiva Sport, which is solely available to fleets, replaced the Vue after a one-year absence. (Saturn, as well as Chevrolet, are GM brands.)
For SUVs that are three years old, the Vue and Captiva Sport, we looked at the typical used listing costs. In the middle of 2013, we looked at 2010 Vue listings, and in the middle of 2015, at 2012 Captiva Sport listings. The Captiva Sport listings had an average price of $16,057 while the Vue listings were $16,523. There are various restrictions: The Captiva Sport’s fleet-only status undoubtedly had an impact on its resale value, and the sample size of the Vue postings was limited. But at the very least, the results imply that there may not be much, if any, difference in resale value between a Scion car and its Toyota-rebadged equivalent.
Toyota claims that Scion owners can keep getting their vehicles serviced at Toyota dealerships.
Even so, the program is now known by a new name. In addition to 24-hour roadside assistance for two years regardless of mileage, Scion’s free Scion Service Boost program includes regular factory maintenance for the first two years or 25,000 miles (whichever comes first). These words correspond to Toyota’s free ToyotaCare program. According to Hubbell, Scion owners would still enjoy the benefits of their Scion Service Boost program through ToyotaCare.
Maybe at some point. Hubbell stated that Toyota will keep the mono-spec trim levels and limited option packages for all three vehicles in 2017, but the company will “consider what to do” in 2018 and beyond. Therefore, hold wait if you truly wanted an iM with leather seats or a sunrooftwo extras that aren’t now available. It may certainly occur.
Yes. Hubbell affirmed that Scion’s no-bargaining pricing policy, known as Pure Price, will not be applied to the three vehicles once Scion switches to Toyota. Of course, your local dealer will determine the terms of any agreements.
You got it right. The C-HR is still in development, most likely as a subcompact SUV. But it will be a Toyota.
Scion: Was it a failure?
Ironically, those who were born in the late 1990s, when Toyota originally established its Genesis youth-and-diversity marketing division, would be of driving age today and virtually fall into that core demographic. This generation would help launch the Echo subcompact and give birth to Scion a few years later.
At first glance, it might seem surprising that Toyota, one of the most successful and successful automakers in the U.S. market, would fail with Scion. After all, it has always done small cars well, and even though they have gotten a little stodgier in recent years, all it needed to do to improve the formula for the successful Corollawhich has sold well above a quarter of a million units annually for all but one of the past fifteen yearswas to add a little more flair.
Lentz has recently argued in favor of transforming Scion into a tech-savvy luxury small-car brand that would aim for a sub-$30k price point, fitting just below Lexus and maybe competing with the Audi A3 and Acura ILX. Toyota has the space in its product roster for it, and making this move makes sense because adding additional vehicles to the lower end of the Lexus lineup may tarnish the brand’s enviable reputation. At this moment, all we can do is conjecture as to why the manufacturer decided against it, but one possibility is that they were worried the brand may draw attention away from Toyota, where sales would almost likely be greater, by offering some of the more interesting vehicles.
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Toyota will assert that Scion wasn’t a failure and that it succeeded in its goal as a laboratory for reaching out to younger customers. However, this writer was present for the brand’s 2003 San Francisco launch as well as numerous presentations and interviews that have since taken place.
Toyota, in my opinion, would have preferred to see Scion prosper as a brand rather than a short-lived experiment. The majority of what follows is editorial: Here are five reasons why the brand wasn’t a sales successsome obvious, others not.
Why was Scion discontinued?
The decision to retire Scion was decided, according to a press release issued this morning, in part because the younger customers Scion was intended to draw are content purchasing Toyota cars.
Scion was established more than ten years ago with the goal of luring youthful consumers into the Toyota fold with low-cost compact vehicles and no-haggle pricing.
The brand has had trouble lately. From a high of 173,034 in 2006, Scion sold 56,167 vehicles in 2015.
The compact and ferociously angular first-generation xB was an unexpected hit for the brand at first.
However, a larger second-generation xB and a related model known as the xD did not earn favorable reviews.
Which Scion makes is Toyota still selling?
The 2016 Scion is a potent sports car on the inside and out thanks to its aggressive appearance and rear double-wishbone suspension. The iM comes equipped with high-tech features including a seven-inch touchscreen, dual-zone climate control, and a rearview camera to make your drives safe and enjoyable. This car is based on an earlier concept car that was well-received in the business.
Starting in 2017, Toyota will continue to sell Scion iA, iM, and FR-S automobiles under its own brand. Additionally, the Toyota brand will introduce the Scion CH-R concept car in 2017. The Scion name is set to officially disappear in August 2016.
Who acquired Scion?
A few old Scion vehicles are still available on the market with new names, even if the legendary xB was completely phased out. Toyota rebadged two of its current models as Scion automobiles in an effort to increase the smaller company’s sales. Versions of the Yaris and Corolla, respectively, were called the Scion iA and iM.
The Toyota 86 was given the old moniker of Scion FR-S. The vehicle received a new body and improved suspension for 2017. The 86 is one of the most reasonably priced sports cars on the market as of 2020.
Is Toyota the owner of Subaru?
The major shareholder and owner of 20% of the business is Toyota. As part of this agreement, Subaru has access to steel and other raw materials produced by the Toyota supplier network.
Subaru produces fewer vehicles than other of the major players because it only has two manufacturing facilities, compared to Toyota’s several facilities around the globe. Both the original plant and the second plant are in Lafayette, Indiana. The first facility is in Gunma, Japan.
In 2017, Subaru underwent a $400 million expansion of the factory after announcing plans to do so. When the Indiana factory manufactured its four millionth vehicle in 2019, it marked a significant accomplishment.
The headquarters of Subaru North American production is Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (SIA), a division of Subaru Corporation. In addition to the $400 million expansion indicated above, SIA invested $140.2 million in new machinery and equipment and made upgrades to boost its production capacity by roughly 100,000 units yearly to meet the rising demand for Subaru automobiles in North America.