Scion
Scion, a brand of vehicles produced by Toyota Motor Corporation since 2002 for the North American market, went on sale in California in 2003 followed by a nationwide launch in 2004 and expansion to Canada in 2010. The brand originally promised value based partly on low dealer margins that became difficult to sustain as sales fell after the 2008 economic downturn.
In 1999, Toyota launched Project Genesis to attract younger buyers in the USA with an advertising strategy for the new Echo economy car, a late-generation MR-2, and Celica models. This strategy was unsuccessful. Toyota then launched the Project Exodus, retaining a Los Angeles digital design company to develop the brand, logo, and website. This project brought about the Scion.
Toyota marketed the Scion as a youth brand that appeared first in March 2002 at the New York Auto Show. The 2004 xA and xB, unveiled at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show in January 2003, were available at only 105 Toyota California dealerships at their initial launch in June 2003. The Scion rollout in the South, the Southeast, and the East Coast took place in February 2004.
Toyota Canada Inc announced Scion availability in September 2010 at 45 selected dealers in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. The Toyota iQ now sells in Canada and the USA as a Scion model. New Scions were at the 2009 Montreal International Auto Show. Toyota has repeated efforts to achieve the same marketing results in the Japanese home market.
Scion has five current models, the tC, a three-door liftback based on the European-marketed Avensis sedan; the xB, a five-door, boxy, compact Toyota sells as the Corolla Rumion in the home market; the iQ, an ultra-compact city car that went on sale in the western USA in December 2011; the xD, a five-door subcompact based on the Toyota Yaris platform with a Corolla engine; and a rear-wheel-drive sports car, the FR-S, based on the Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86. In April 2012, Scion announced that it would drop the xB and xD in favor of new models. In the meantime, sales will focus on the iQ passenger car, the FR-S sports coupe, and the second generation tC, Scion said.
Sales of the Scion brand were down to 45,678 in 2010 from more than 173,000 in model year 2006. In particular:
• USA sales of the tC reached 79,125 in 2006, its best year, fell off dramatically to 15,204 in 2010, and made some recovery to 19,094 in 2013.
• The xB was Scion’s most popular model in the USA until 2011, when the tC surpassed it. Sales have dropped from a 2006 peak of 61,306 to 17,017 in 2011.
• Scion sold 8,879 iQ models in 2012, 4,046 in 2013, and 166 through January 2014. Aston Martin has cancelled its Cygnet, a rebadged iQ variant, after two years of sales of only 150 units, too far from Aston’s 4,000 annual target to continue.
• Scion xD sales have fallen fast from 32,603 in 2006 to 9,005 in 2013.
• FR-S USA sales for seven months in 2012, its first year, were 11,417 and 18,327 for calendar year 2013, an encouraging start; January 2014 sales of 921, however, did not make dealers feel encouraged about the rest of the year.
In late 2013, Toyota informed dealers that they are free to drop the Scion brand without penalty.
Toyota has the financial wherewithal to support Scion through hard times but faces a financial difficulty, the appreciating Japanese yen, nearly a third against the dollar since 2007, that increases production costs and cuts already thin profit margins on subcompacts. Toyota builds all Scions in Japan. A continuous flow of new products keeps a brand competitive, but Toyota Chief Executive Officer Akio Toyoda has said there will be no new Scion products for the next couple of years.
