Toyota revives Scion with a 25 mph kei pickup built in Indiana

Toyota is bringing back the Scion badge after killing it for the 2017 model year, and its first new product is a tiny four-wheel-drive pickup called the Kei-01, sold under the brand name Scion by Toyota. Production is scheduled for 2027 in Indiana, and the truck will be offered to fleet customers only at launch.

A kei truck built to low-speed vehicle rules

The Kei-01 is built around a 660cc three-cylinder engine driving all four wheels through a CVT, with selectable four-wheel drive and a push-button lock-up that Toyota says helps it cope with mud, snow and uneven terrain. Toyota has not published power or torque figures, and it has not said whether the lock-up engages one axle or both.

The truck is aimed at Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard Number 500, the rule covering low-speed vehicles, which shapes almost everything about it. Its top speed is 25 mph, it is barred from highways, and it does not have to meet all the safety requirements that apply to normal cars. Low-speed vehicles are also not legal in every US state, and even where they can be registered for street use, the highway ban stands.

That matters because the Kei-01 is not a substitute for a daily driver, however appealing its dimensions look on paper. It is a short-hop machine for campuses, job sites and city blocks, and buyers should check their own state's registration rules before assuming it can be used at all.

Size, payload and the folding bed

Toyota quotes a payload capacity of 600 pounds and a three-way cargo bed that converts from a conventional bed to a flat bed using three folding side rails, which should make loading and unloading easier without complex suspension hardware. The truck measures 11 feet long and just under five feet wide. No tow rating has been announced, though Toyota says it is built to handle small trailers.

It is right-hand drive, an unusual layout for a US-market vehicle and one that will take some adjustment for fleet drivers used to left-hand-drive cabs. Heating and air conditioning are included.

Fleet buyers first, low volume on purpose

Toyota says the build is intentionally low volume and will require around 50 new hires in Indiana. Initial sales will focus entirely on fleets, with small businesses after a cheap in-city vehicle at the front of the list, alongside farmers, ranchers, municipalities, corporate campuses and universities.

The fleet-first approach fits the vehicle's limits. A 25 mph cap and a highway ban rule out most private retail use cases, but for organisations moving people and light loads on fixed, low-speed routes, a small electric-adjacent runabout with a cargo bed and four-wheel drive covers ground that a full-size pickup handles wastefully.

Scion's second life goes beyond one truck

Scion was discontinued after the 2017 model year, and the revived branding now covers more than the Kei-01. The SxS Concept, a four-door, four-seat off-road vehicle, debuted at the 2025 SEMA Show and signals Toyota's interest in the side-by-side market. A second show vehicle, the BKE Concept, is described by Toyota as exploring "another dimension of personal mobility," and reads as a rival to the Honda Motocompacto folding e-scooter with larger tyres.

Toyota has not announced pricing for the Kei-01, and no Australian availability has been indicated. The low-speed vehicle rules that govern it are a US framework, which makes a wider launch a separate question from the Indiana build plan.

Lincoln is recalling 36,994 Navigators from the 2025 to 2027 model years because the front passenger seat can move without anyone touching a control, according to recall documents the brand filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The culprit is the Chauffeur Seat Feature, which lets second-row occupants adjust the front passenger seat through a touchscreen built into the centre console. Residue on that display can register as input and set the seat moving forward, back, up or down.

How the seat ends up moving on its own

Lincoln's filing describes two failure paths. In the first, residue on the touch-activated screen causes the front passenger seat to move unexpectedly in any direction. In the second, pressing the home screen button on the rear touchscreen at the same moment as a seat adjustment can send the seat all the way to the end of its track, with no further button presses needed.

An empty seat sliding around is mostly unsettling. An occupied one is the real safety concern, since the seat can move into a passenger without warning, which is why the recall exists.

The fix turns the feature off

Owners are asked to take affected Navigators to an authorised dealer, where the Chauffeur Seat Feature will be deactivated at no cost. The trade-off is plain: the rear touchscreen control that lets second-row passengers reposition the front seat will no longer function.

For buyers who optioned the feature as a convenience, that is a small loss of function in exchange for removing an unpredictable one. Lincoln says dealers and owners should already have been notified by mail. Anyone who has not received a letter can check whether their SUV is covered through NHTSA's VIN lookup or by searching year, make and model, which also surfaces any other open recall alerts.

A large SUV with a software-flavoured fault

The recall covers 36,994 vehicles across three model years of Lincoln's full-size SUV. It is a mechanical fix for what is essentially an input problem: a screen that reads stray residue as a command. That is the kind of fault that tends to appear in vehicles that route more and more cabin functions through touch panels, and it is why the remedy targets the control rather than the seat hardware itself.

Lincoln has not said whether a revised touchscreen or updated software will eventually restore the feature, so for now deactivation is the whole remedy.