Car FYI

Photo Credit: Chris Nagy When Billy Joel once sang that "Only the good die young", some could ponder if his words are prophetic to Toyota's experiment with a youth-driven brand. Bearing a name symbolizing an offspring or descendent, Scion was deliberately launched as a targeted method to court the Generation Y or Millennial automotive customer. After 13 years, Toyota's has announced plans to discontinue the Scion brand. A sudden announcement from the world's largest automaker, the move by Toyota is not unexpected. Since its launch in 2003, Scion has experienced varying success in the marketplace. Sale numbers for Scion have never arisen to expectations. Despite boasting well-equipped, practical vehicles and some compact performance spice with the Scion FR-S, the brand had trouble identifying with a large customer base. At the end of 2015 in the United States, the entire sum of Scion sales accounted for just 56,167 vehicles of Toyota's total of over 1.1 ...

Since its introduction in 2002, Toyota's Scion brand has been fighting to gain traction as a hip and popular youth-oriented spectacle. Scion has been devoted in selling small, affordable vehicles while the North American Toyota brand converged itself on the mid-range of the auto sector. However, despite Scion's creative marketing and promises for personalization, the brand has not entirely succeeded in winning over customers. Recent additions of the FR-S and the iQ microcar has made Scion showrooms a more entertaining destination but the novelty of those vehicles appears to be exhausting. Scion sales in Canada following October is down compared to 2013. Division sales in the first 10 months of 2014 is down 18.8 percent compared to the same time last year. In order to reinvigorate the young blood of the Scion brand, a new hatchback concept car will debut at the...