bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

don't understand how your data point contradicts the autoblog post. they said prius out did the c max easily.

spwolf

its wrong numbers... they are always wrong about something, they are simply guys typing on a keyboard, not journalists.

it doesnt matter if it is 3000 or 15000, it is wrong facts. Every article of theirs has wrong facts, not just opinions. It is not against Toyota, it is just bad writing.

pman6

seems to be a trend with all recently introduced lexus models, excluding bread & butter ES and RX.



Ford F150 numbers are nuts. They sell so many, yet I see so few on the road.
who the hell is buying them?

spwolf

you live in a wrong state... I bet they dont see many Lexii in Texas either :-)

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

if you live in or close to a city, that's why you don't see many. farming/ranching/construction and most people living in rural areas have a truck. and it's most likely to be a ford f-150, a chevy silverado, or a dodge ram.

LexFather

So Acura can't sell expensive cars or cheap cars. The ILX is a massive miss and anyone with half a brain saw that disaster coming.

spwolf

i dont hate on Acura, but thats pretty stupid tagline.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

so about lexus mid-range, looks like what many including me predicted - now that the new ES is out in full force and sales have taken off, it's clearly eating into GS sales which were less than 1500 this month. toyota/lexus probably doesn't really care, as i wouldn't be surprised if they make more profit off each es than each gs anyway.

LexFather

Better than 39 cars in the midsize class.

One month does not make a trend. With "December to remember" coming all models will get a boost. For 2012 the GS is so far 3rd best selling in class since its debut.

spwolf

they are letting the market decide, which is correct IMHO.

While there would be 1000 more GS sales if there was no ES, they now get extra 6000 sales combined.

It is like when Prius c was introduced in Japan... now Prius sales are down by 10,000 per month, but they sell 25,000 Prius c's, so they get to sell extra 15,000 cars or 50% more.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

yup, makes sense. thanks.

GS69

Lexus Says US Sales Behind Target

Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus, dethroned in 2011 as the best-selling U.S. luxury auto brand, said it may miss its U.S. sales target this year amid increased competition from BMW.

Sales in the U.S. are "slightly behind" their target, according to Kazuo Ohara, executive vice president for Lexus. The introduction of the ES model in August may help the automaker boost sales in the rest of the year, he said.

"Toward the beginning of the year, we'd targeted sales of 250,000 units, but to be honest, that's looking to be tough," Ohara said in an interview following a press briefing in Tokyo today. "We just recently introduced the ES, so we may be able to catch up toward the end of the year."

Increased competition for Lexus in the U.S., the luxury brand's largest market, adds to the challenges faced by Japan's largest automaker. Toyota this week reported its biggest drop in China sales since at least 2008 and announced a global recall for about 7.43 million Toyota-badged vehicles for a faulty power-window switch.

Toyota, which also lost its title as the world's biggest carmaker to General Motors Co. last year, is targeting a rebound in 2012, forecasting sales -- including those of subsidiaries Hino Motors Ltd. and Daihatsu Motor Co. -- to rise 23% to a record 9.76 million units. Regaining market share for Lexus, which had led U.S. luxury sales for 11 years, is a priority because its vehicles fetch higher prices than Toyota-brand cars.

U.S. sales

The annual target for Lexus sales in the U.S. is 46% higher than deliveries in the 1st 9 months, which reached 170,990, according to the Automotive News data center.

BMW topped the U.S. luxury auto market last year with 247,907 deliveries, followed by Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz with sales of 245,192 vehicles. Lexus sales reached 198,552.

This year, Mercedes is leading the market with sales of 191,618 vehicles through September, a 13% increase from a year earlier. In the same period, BMW has expanded sales by 4.9% with sales of 186,397 units.

China problems

In China, Toyota deliveries tumbled 49% last month, as consumers shunned Japanese-brand cars after violent protests erupted in cities over the group of island known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.

Toyota and Honda reported damage to dealerships from fire, while TV footage showed overturned Japanese cars and window shields smashed by demonstrators in some cities.

Lexus has "no choice but to cut back" on sales promotions as they won't have much impact in the wake of the anti-Japanese sentiment, said Ohara.

"I know the protesters don't represent the whole of China and I'm sure there are customers who want to buy Lexus cars," he said. "Think about the car getting damaged. The concern over this would lead people to refrain from buying our cars."

LexFather

I honestly thought their prediction of 250k this year was way off and way to optimistic. Sad to hear about the China/Japanese beef still hurting Japanese brands there.

20k a month is A LOT of luxury vehicles sold, more than many non luxury brands. BMW/Benz/Lexus sell an amazing amount of vehicles here.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

unless a vendor sells a huge percentage less than they forecast (like the tundra), which messes up their supply chain, capacity planning, employees and suppliers, it doesn't matter.

spwolf

Chinese is nowhere as big deal for Toyota as media makes it... It is 10% of their global sales, at best.

250k was very ambitious... luckily for them ES is off to great start... and maybe more discounts for lexus until end of the year? They are way below what germans offer.