Toyota revives Scion with right-hand-drive Kei trucks for US fleets

A small-vehicle push gets a product

Toyota has announced that it will resurrect the Scion brand with a new model called the KEI-01, according to Ars Technica. The move follows remarks by President Trump in the previous year calling for the Department of Transportation to allow Japan's small Kei vehicles on US roads, a request the outlet says has drawn little public response from the agency.

The revived brand will be marketed as Scion by Toyota and used to try out less conventional ideas. Simon Humphries, Toyota's chief branding officer and head of design, said the company wants a place to challenge conventional thinking and explore new possibilities, and pointed to the KEI-01 alongside SxS and BKE concepts as different expressions of that effort.

What a Kei vehicle actually is

Japan's Kei class is defined by strict limits rather than by a single body style. A Kei car may be no longer than 3.4 m, no wider than 1.5 m and no taller than 2 m, with engine displacement capped at 0.66 L and output at 63 hp (47 kW).

Those rules exist partly because parking is scarce and expensive in Japan, and the category is popular: Ars Technica reports that Japan bought almost 1.7 million Kei cars last year out of total sales of 4.6 million vehicles. The contrast with the US is stark, where full-size pickups run beyond 4.9 m in length and large SUVs dominate, a pattern the outlet attributes largely to corporate average fuel economy standards that made small, efficient cars less profitable to sell.

Fleets only, and slow by design

The KEI-01 will be classified as a low-speed vehicle, which caps it at 25 mph (40 km/h), so it is not intended for highways or fast arterial roads. Toyota also will not sell the truck to individual retail buyers at first; only fleet customers will be able to order one.

The vehicle is right-hand drive because it is built for Japan's roads, though it does come with all-wheel drive. Toyota lists small urban businesses, farmers and ranchers, organisations running campus vehicle fleets, delivery drivers and outdoor enthusiasts as the intended users. Low-speed vehicles have been street-legal in parts of the US for years, with examples including on-demand electric shuttles and golf carts in retirement communities.

Indiana assembly and an open price question

Toyota will ship the trucks to its assembly plant in Indiana as knock-down kits, a move expected to add 50 jobs at the facility in mid-2027. Pricing has not been announced, and Ars Technica notes speculation ranging from about $10,000 to $28,000.

The Scion name was retired more than a decade ago, when Toyota ended its no-haggle sales approach and its focus on younger buyers in favour of selling more Toyotas. Whether the KEI-01 signals a broader shift toward smaller vehicles in the US or remains a niche experiment is an open question, and the outlet frames it that way.