Tom44

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a3...stest-selling/

interesting article from road and track

EZZ

The fastest selling thing was talked about in car chat. It might be more to do with supply and demand ratio than actual high demand in the market segment. I'm sure the new IS350 is doing better than the older one but a reason it could be selling fast is that they didn't produce enough of them. Makes me wonder if the IS500 will be hard to get as Lexus may just simply not build that many of them...

natnut

Seems like it's due to genuine consumer demand and not artificially created supply shortage.

EZZ

It's probably doing much better than expected so the demand outstrips supply but these metrics aren't based on pure sales volume. It's based on how well a model sells vs expectations (sales targets). I'm happy the new design resonates so well with buyers as it's a beautiful car. I hope the IS500 sells even better.

wtwo3

I would take what Lexus says with a grain of salt. Of course they want you to believe it's not a supply issue and that they are actually flying off shelves.

I think the analysis is flawed if they didn't consider this could just be a product of effective supply chain management. They should have also included sales volume figures and run the comparison by class/price of car (i.e. show time on lot AND sales volume of the IS compared to the C Class/3 series/a4).

If the IS sold 30,000 units and was on the lot for 9 days vs say, a Ford F150 which sold 300,000 units but was on the lot 10 days... does that somehow make the IS more popular?

nhk704

I agree. the article does not provide sufficient data to be credible at all. I highly doubt that any new Lexus cars will be very hard to buy/find.

Tom44

Looks like Lexus IS sales in jan 2021 and feb 2021 were 1609 & 1905, respectively.

Approximately 1000 ISs for sale currently on cars.com vs 3000 BMW 3 series & 2500 MB C class

not sure how many BMWs or MBs were sold in jan/feb.

wtwo3

Yeah looks like BMW/MB haven't released their figures for 2021 yet. But if you take a look at historical sales, BMW sold an average of ~3,200/month 3 series over the course of 2020. If you just look at Jan/Feb they've been averaging ~3,600 and ~4,000 over the past 5 years for those months respectively. If you look at the last 3 months of IS sales compared to earlier sales, you can definitely see an uptick in sales so that is indication that they ARE selling better, but still not nearly at the pace of the 3 series.

So yeah.... and based on your finding of 3X as many 3 series up for sale - I'd say that's consistent with Lexus either doing a better job of managing their supply chain to predict demand, or just flat out supply issues. I do know BMW has been having their fair share of supply issues as well, so it may just be as simple as Lexus doing a good job of supply/demand planning.

Tom44

In addition to favorable reviews, the car has been marketed well and lease/finance rates are very favorable. 540$/month approx gets you into an IS350 F-sport AWD here in NY including tax. That helps a lot.

I always felt that the 4th gen GS suffered in part from unfavorable lease/finance rates compared to the german competition.

GaryJG

Same here in California. I leased my IS 350 Fsport for approximately $450 per month. Zero down, zero due at signing for a 3 year/ 15,000 mile per year lease. It will cost me in total just under $16,000 to drive a car 45,000 miles that MSRP'ed at $47,000

E46CT

^Yeah I got a screaming offer for an IS350 F Sport when I got my ES. Actually well below $400 a month but also less miles @ 10k so probably a wash (which would've been fine for me) -- w/ tier 1. Considered it but I wanted to try something new.

I got my ES for around the same deal, w/ lexus loyalty, incentive, rebate etc turned out to be pretty affordable to drive a nice car for three years.