Toyota Kei Truck Coming to the US: Scion Returns With the KEI-01

For years, Americans who wanted a Japanese kei truck had one real option: find a used one at least 25 years old, import it and hope your state would let you register it. Toyota just offered a different route. The company is reviving Scion, the youth brand it killed a decade ago, and its first vehicle is a brand-new Toyota kei truck built in Indiana.

It's called the Scion by Toyota KEI-01. It's small, slow and, at least at first, not for sale to most people.

What Toyota announced

Toyota Motor North America unveiled the new brand, officially "Scion by Toyota," at events in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, and Frisco, Texas, and released the details Tuesday, Nov. 10, according to Toyota's announcement. The KEI-01 is due in the U.S. in the second half of 2027.

Toyota describes the reborn Scion as a "freedom lab," a place to try vehicles that don't fit its mainstream lineup. Alongside the truck it showed two concepts. The SxS Concept is an off-road side-by-side with a turbocharged four-cylinder hybrid making more than 300 horsepower, first seen at the 2025 SEMA Show. The BKE Concept is a folding electric bike that The Drive says folds in 30 seconds and fits in the trunk of a GR86. Neither concept has a production date.

Scion KEI-01 specs: what you get in a kei truck

Kei trucks are a Japanese class of mini pickups built to tight size and engine limits, and they're everywhere on Japanese farms and narrow city streets. The KEI-01 sticks to that recipe. Toyota lists:

• A 660cc three-cylinder engine with a continuously variable transmission
• Selectable four-wheel drive with an auto mode and push-button lock
• Up to 600 pounds of payload in the bed, plus the ability to tow small trailers
• A three-way fold-down bed with a low loading height
• An extended cab with a raised roof, reclining and sliding seats, and heat and air conditioning
• A body just over 11 feet long and under 5 feet wide

For a sense of scale, Car and Driver notes the truck is shorter than a Mazda MX-5 Miata and calls it essentially a rebadged Daihatsu Hijet Jumbo. Daihatsu is a Toyota subsidiary, and the same truck is sold in Japan as the Toyota Pixis, The Drive reported. The steering wheel stays on the right side, even on the Indiana-built version.

Why the 25 mph top speed?

The catch most people will notice first: the KEI-01 tops out at 25 mph. That's deliberate. Toyota designed it to meet FMVSS No. 500, the federal safety standard for low-speed vehicles, the same category as many street-legal golf carts and neighborhood electric vehicles. Meeting that standard lets the truck skip the full crash-test rules that apply to regular cars and pickups.

The trade-off is where you can drive it. Low-speed vehicles are generally limited to slower roads, and states and cities set their own rules on exactly which ones. A KEI-01 is a campus, farm and downtown tool, not a highway commuter.

Who can buy the Toyota kei truck, and when

Not you, probably, at least not right away. Toyota calls the KEI-01 "an intentionally low-volume, niche vehicle." It will launch through a fleet-focused pilot program, sold by a small group of Scion by Toyota dealers chosen from existing Toyota stores.

The target buyers Toyota lists include small businesses, farmers and ranchers, cities, universities and corporate campuses, and delivery and service companies working in tight urban areas. Outdoor hobbyists made the list too, which hints at where Toyota might go next.

Toyota says it "may consider" limited retail sales later, depending on demand, market conditions and operations. The Drive summed it up well: that's not a no, but it's far from a yes.

How much is the Toyota kei truck?

Toyota hasn't said. Its announcement promises more on pricing and the broader sales strategy "as plans are finalized," and Reuters and The Drive both reported the price as undisclosed.

You may see a $28,000 figure online. That comes from Car and Driver's buyer's guide page, which labels it an estimate. It's the magazine's placeholder, not a Toyota number.

Built in Indiana, nudged by Washington

Toyota will assemble the KEI-01 at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana in Princeton starting in the second half of 2027. The project comes with a $34 million investment and roughly 50 new jobs, the company said.

There's a political backstory. Reuters reported that Toyota is bringing the mini trucks to the U.S. after President Donald Trump encouraged the move. The Drive noted that Trump praised Japan's kei cars late last year and said his administration was clearing the way for them. Reuters also pointed out how big the segment is at home: about a third of the 3.7 million new cars sold in Japan last year were kei cars, a type no American automaker builds.

Building locally also matters for cost. Automakers have been moving production into the U.S. to soften the hit from tariffs. Honda said as much this week, a day after unveiling a $3 billion Ohio plant.

Why bring back Scion now?

The original Scion launched in the early 2000s to pull younger buyers into Toyota showrooms with quirky, cheap cars like the boxy xB and the tC coupe. Toyota folded it into the main brand in 2016, and several of its models simply became Toyotas.

The new Scion isn't trying to repeat that. Instead of an entry-level car brand, it's a label for experiments, the kind of vehicles Toyota wants to test on a small scale before betting big. A slow, right-hand-drive work truck sold to fleets is a cautious first step. If the fleet pilot goes well, the KEI-01 could be the first of several odd, small Toyotas to wear the name, and the side-by-side concept looks like the most likely candidate to follow.

For now, anyone hoping to park a new kei truck in their driveway will have to wait for Toyota's next update, which it says will come with the full sales plan.