Toyota Gives Scion Brand the Axe

I've been watching my local used car market and have noticed a lack of Scion's but didn't realize it was this bad: "In 2015, the entire Scion brand sold 56,167 cars — less than the number of Toyota Avalons sold". So now my observations make more sense.

Unrelated note, everytime I say the word "Scion" my wife sings "crappy purple Scion" under her breath. She loves the band Train and will be seeing them in March.

 

wow, toyota is on a cost cutting spree!

 

What's a Scion?

 

descendent of a wealthy family. took 3 pages of google to get past toyota.

 

"The notion that young buyers would grow up with Scion, graduate to something in the Toyota lineup, and ultimately end up in a Lexus seemed like a good idea at the time."
Wasn't that the old thinking at GM and Ford with Chevy, Buick, and Cadillac and Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln. Now Mercury is gone, and only high popularity in China saved Buick.

"The brand’s no-haggle pricing was another innovative tactic designed to attract new buyers that might otherwise be intimidated by the car buying process." *cough*Saturn*cough*

 

most definitely. seemed like a good idea to me too. what are the kids buying these days? around here, they either don't drive, or don't even have licenses.

 

We bought a 2005 Scion XB brand new way back then. It was a good car that never gave us any issues and was good on gas. Very roomy too.

But alas,

With the XB's redesign they just had to put the base Camry motor in in and bloat the whole thing up (leaving an antiquated 4 speed tranny in it) and that resulted in it getting abismal mpg's and pretty crappy ratings..

 

Toyota IQ (sold under scion in US) was under Toyota name from the start in Europe.

And one possible reason for axing the scion - Toyota bought Daihatsu:
Toyota buys Daihatsu for small-car development

 

I think the biggest problem is that the kids these days are not that interested in cars for ownership as we did. They are more into their smartphones, Uber and Lyft. Thats why GM had invested in Lyft a month ago. Projections are that people may not own cars anymore but summon autonomous cars to drive them and just drive them from place to place. Imagine?....its pretty dire if this scenario pans out.
On a practical matter if you don't own a car - no car insurance, no fuel to buy, no need for a license(if legally allowed), no garage needed and other scenarios I can't think of at this moment. Basically the old idea of "Pride of Ownership" will be given a reality check of sorts.
I think the new generations may not give a sheet about that idea other than the few who can afford to own a car. Being in the auto industry I can also see the influcence in that kind of mentality will have on the automotive sales sector. Less detail shops and car washes, repair shops with less volumns of work, less cars means also less revenue from citations and parking tickets for municipalities as well. When that happens probably no meter maids for sure..and so on...I guess we will see as a lot of this will happen soon...

 

A more accurate headline would be, "Toyota buys the other 49% of Daihatsu."
All the Scions were Toyotas or Diahatsus or even a Mazda elsewhere.

In hindsight, I think Scion's mistake was that the ads weren't targeting the younger crowd, but a subset of that group. They were pushing the personalization some do to their cars with third party parts with dealer installed options. Basically, Toyota seemed to be trying to get the kids that mod their Civics, but that group isn't large enough to support a brand, and they tend to buy used in order to have more funds for mods.

Offering a wider palette of colors, and upgraded standard features on the Corolla's, Yaris', etc. and Toyota might have had more luck getting kids to look at their cars without the expense of launching a whole new brand.

 

Utopia or Dystopia?

I'll keep driving....thank you very much.

 

Another hit from low gas prices, people are no longer shopping for MPGs

 

Basically you can keep driving if you can afford the probable cost associated to that activity. Driving itself may become prohibitive in liability in the future. My Gawd..I hope I am wrong..but those are some of the worrisome probable scenarios.

 

A friend of mine from college lives in DC and follows this ideology. He's 26 and makes more than enough money to own a luxury car, and can justify doing so, but simply prefers Uber. He's proud of his usage score, and is not shy about the fact that he spends just as much on Uber as he would on a car. In his opinion, he doesn't have to worry about parking, maintenance, traffic, etc. His friends even brag about their usage scores. Of course it depends on where you live, but this is becoming more and more common among the generation coming out of college.

 

absolutely. even my 3 thirty somethings and their friends do the same.

 

Sad! I'm surprised they went to all the trouble with the Mazda collaboration on the iA only to shutter. I wonder if this will encourage Mazda to bring the new Mazda2 to the US. They were originally holding off, since the iA is almost entirely Mazda2 (ah, it looks like the iA will continue under Toyota).

I always thought Scion was a really interesting brand, although they didn't always make the best decisions (such as Camry'izing the Celica and original xB).

The tC is getting killed off? Although it wasn't that great, I guess that means no sporty models for Toyota for the time being...hmm.

I don't see the decrease in youth auto ownership as a problem. To me, it is very encouraging. Although I love cars for their engineering & design, the truth is, they are the root of many of our problems (environmental, societal, cultural, fiscal, cardiovascular...).

 

I've always kind of questioned the value of a major automaker creating a satellite "brand". They always seem to have a limited life span. I'm thinking of Saturn, Geo, and now Scion.
I think some of Scion's products were great. I came a hair's breath away from buying one of the original Xb's. I liked the original small JDM styling. I think the FR-S and the Tc are great choices today.
But last weekend and in years past, I've attended auto shows and Scion, was Toyota. Everyone would go look at the Scion's and the inevitable repeated phrase would be " That's a Scion *Then in a whispered hush-built by Toyota ". So everyone knew Scion was just a jumbled anagram for Toyota.
I suppose as the article states, a satellite brand allows a large automaker to try some more intimate or extreme marketing strategies that perhaps they wouldn't try with the "big ship", but with the inevitable failure of satellite brands I'm always surprised when automakers launch the experiment.

I'm not 100% convinced Toyota has their "sporty" youth marketing right. Folding Scion into Toyota might help.
But a lot of "youth" marketing becomes the entry level vehicles, which I consider for Toyota to be The Yaris and The Corolla. Both which I think are good vehicles, I actually really, really like the new Corolla, but both which I think don't match the panache of rival Honda's Fit and Civic.
I'll watch with interest how Toyota "folds" Scion into themselves and what happens with the existing Scion models once they are badged as Toyota's and no longer Scions.

In some way's this isn't as earth shattering as it sounds, as I always thought the distinction between Toyota and Scion dubious at best. At my local Toyota dealership, Scions were on the Toyota showroom floor alongside Toyota's. There was little effort to hide or create a distinction between "Scion" and Toyota anyway. In fact, I think to encourage and bolster Scion sales, the Scion IS Toyota reality was actually a battle cry.