Scion Brand Ending

A 2011 Scion tC

I never really understood why Toyota did Scion. It was only for the USA, then belatedly Canada was included. It was to appeal to younger buyers that didn't want to drive a Toyota because their parents did. I think if you want to appeal to a car buying demographic in society, creating a specific brand to do that is bold but flawed. The target market is limited and constantly changing.

It was launched in 2002, and by 2006, 173,000 sales was quite successful for a short time frame. Taking it to the next level was the challenge and maybe at this point Toyota was complacent about the brand. From there the sales fell sharply until 2011. By then Canada was welcomed into the fold but that seemed to be too little too late.

	Yr	USA	Canada	Total
	2002	2,054	-	2,054
	2003	8,916	-	8,916
	2004	99,259	-	99,259
	2005	156,485	-	156,485
	2006	173,034	-	173,034
	2007	130,181	-	130,181
	2008	113,904	-	113,904
	2009	57,961	-	57,961
	2010	45,678	679	46,357
	2011	49,271	4,720	53,991
	2012	73,505	5,783	79,288
	2013	68,321	4,978	73,299
	2014	58,009	3,962	61,971
	2015	56,167	4,659	60,826
	2016	5,099	256	5,355
	Tot	1,097,844	25,037	1,122,881

The marque would need constant attention to keep the interest up. The Toyota brand relies on repeat customers. For Scion, a young person would buy one, then get older and buy something else. There would be little if any buyer loyalty. It was like a dependent child always needing attention and that forced Toyota to announce it is pulling the plug, and from August 2016 Scion models will be sold as Toyota cars. It probably should have been done sooner.

The Scion xB from 2009