Winding Road
http://easyurl.net/Scion
Automotive industry indexer J.D. Power has published some sales
figures for Scion that back up recent news that Toyota’s youth
brand may be loosing a bit of traction.
Scion has added numbers to the Toyota sales behemoth for the
last five years, but recently those sales have started to flag.
The sub-brand saw sales grow from 10,898 units in 2003, to as
high as 173,034 in 2006. But last year deliveries of Scion
products fell to one-fourth to 130,181 units.
Further reinforcing the notion that the public is losing
interest in the Scion brand is the data regarding the time
vehicles spend sitting on dealer lots. In 2006 through the early
part of 2007, Scion vehicles spent an average of 35 days in a
dealer’s hands before being sold. During the same period in 2007
through 2008, that dealer wait had increased by over two-weeks
to 50 days.
Could it be that Scion is simply charging too much for their
vehicles these days? J.D. Power tells us that the transaction
price for each sale has gone up for every model the automaker
sells. The average sale price of the tC is up by $479 to
$18,758, and the redesigned xB is commanding $1,749 more year-
over-year.