The third generation Toyota Estima / Previa has been produced since 2006, that is, for 13 years. Now it became known that the Japanese company will stop selling in October 2019. And it is not only about the current generation of Estima.
Yes, Toyota Estima, which has been produced since 1990, will now become part of the story. Toyota decided to abandon its sales due to falling demand for minivans. The Japanese blame the decline in fertility and the aging of the population.
The abandonment of Estima was also influenced by the success of the Toyota Alphard / Toyota Vellfire: these models have similar sizes and prices. In the first half of 2019, an average of 5,878 new Alphard per month and 3,460 Vellfire were sold in Japan. Since they are built on the same platform, their sales can be folded, and together they surpass Nissan Serena – the most popular minivan in Japan.
Against this background, the result of Estima looks more than modest: in the first half of the year the company sold an average of 791 cars per month. This figure does not reach 10% of the demand for Alphard and Vellfire.
Toyota recently announced the abandonment of yet another iconic model: Toyota Mark X will stop selling in December 2019. Toyota Premio / Toyota Allion expects a similar fate.
The reduction in the lineup is aimed not only at optimizing production, but also implementing a new market strategy when all Toyota models will be presented at every Toyota dealership in Japan. So far, the manufacturer has taken a different approach: Toyota dealerships are segmented, so some models sell some models, others different ones. The transition to a new strategy has already been implemented in Tokyo.
