gyrase321

That's what this Bloomberg headline ought to read. The body of the article reports that Lexus sales in Russia are up 63% for November, beating other luxury car brands. Yet Bloomberg hypes up the Porsche sales instead, which only increased 55%. What gives?


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-1...s-savings.html

spwolf

The NX factor.

Due to cheap gas, Russians like Lexus and their petrol engines... thats why it sells well there. It is by far the best Lexus market in Europe, and they sell ES there as well as GX, not available elsewhere in Europe.

2.0t is going to expand the sales as well.

mmarshall

After the vehicles that Russians (and citizens of other ex-Communist countries behind the old Iron Curtain) had to put up with and drive for decades, it is not surprising that, especially now with cheaper fuel, those that can afford them are snapping up nice upmarket luxury vehicles from the West and Japan.

gyrase321

Thanks for your comments explaining why Lexus sells well in Russia. The issue I have with this Bloomberg article is that the headline is very misleading. It talks about Porsche being snapped up by Russians when the body of the article shows that Lexus is being snapped up in even larger numbers. That should have been the headline. Why Bloomberg decided to hype Porsche instead of Lexus boggles the mind.

mmarshall

Porsches, in general, are not produced in the same numbers as Lexuses. Nor do they, in general, have as wide a dealer network.

spwolf

who cares :-)

Lexus might reach Audi in Russia next year, which would be first market worldwide (other than US and Japan) for that to happen... not sure if they will have to increase the network first.... but with NX, RC and RX, all with new 2.0t, I predict lots of new sales.

FastTags

The dollar went up almost 100%, which means if you have $ you can buy a car for $, then say next year the Dollar will go down, and you can sell the car in Rubles for twice as much.

back around 6mos ago $1= 30 rubles, now 1$=63 rubles

Lexmex

If you told me 30 years ago that Toyota would have a luxury brand called Lexus one day, I might believe you, but if you told me that the Soviet Union was no longer in existence, I might give you a second look.

Amazing world.

spwolf

its is kind of dumb that article talks about "saving in rubles" when russians dont save in rubbles... they save in USD, at least all of ones that I know.

mmarshall

In 1984?.........I'm not sure would have. Back in the 1980s, Toyota was arguably the most successful auto company in the world just as they were....to the point where we imposed import-quotas here in the U.S. to control their explosive growth. (all that did, in effect, was to drive prices up). Toyota didn't NEED Lexus back then.



Well, thanks first to God, and then to Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, the Communist Old Guard behind the Iron Curtain finally fell. Reagan was not the type to screw around. When he told Gorbechev to tear down that wall, he meant it....and he didn't mean "maybe". He was arguably the best American President of my lifetime.

That's all I can probably say on it here, though, because anything more on that subject will probably need to be in the Debate Forum.