This will certainly not come as a shock considering the Scion xB’s only update for the 2015 model year was a rearview camera. The Toyota-owned brand announced it will discontinue the boxy xB hatchback at the end of the year.
“The xB will be leaving the lineup at the end of the year,” Scion Vice President Doug Murtha told WardsAuto at the 2016 iA and iM media preview. Despite a drop in sales and an announcement in 2012 that there would not be a third-generation model, Scion kept the xB around. But 2015 will be the final model year for the xB.
Unlike the first-generation xB, which was the face of the Scion brand in its early years and sold 61,306 units in its best year (2006), the second-generation model was not a success. After increasing in 2012 from 2011, sales fell in 2013 and 2014, with just 16,583 units sold last year. For comparison, Kia delivered 145,316 units of the competing Soul in 2014.
So far in its final year of production the xB has been more popular, with 7,376 xBs sold through May, accounting for a 5.4 percent increase over the same period last year.
The Scion xB follows the Honda Element and Nissan Cube, with the Kia Soul remaining the last boxy model on sale in the United States. While the Scion iM hatchback will somehow fill the xB’s void, Doug Murtha says it is not a direct replacement of the model.
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