Lexus struggling on home turf, still not ready to give up

oh, I get..it was a joke!

+1

I said this a thousand times. Lexus never FIRST intended for to sell the "Lexus" means "Luxury EXport United States" to it's home turf. The name and whole car theme was orginally design to sell here in America. Why do you think it's so sucessful here. If they wanna make it big on thier home turf the entire theme design is going to have to change but if that happens it probably will hurt American sells.

I say forget about Japan and keep on ticking with U.S. since the Lexus is name after the U.S.
Not sure if Japan will even buy a car name after the U.S. even though they are our alley...

We did blow up Hiroshima, and surely the Japanese will never forget it, so to drive a car around with the US intials on back is kinda a disgrace to their History.

"still not ready to give up"?!?!? WTF?!

They just started selling their cars in Japan. It will take a couple more generations (read that as: far enough away from the rebadged versions/designs + introduction of exclusive models) to get Lexus to take in Japan.

give up? GIVE UP? Seriously, I am not the smartest dude in the world, but I can see right through this type of "article"...

This is like saying: "C63 has more brute horsepower, but the M3 prevails overall: Time for Merc to hang up AMG?"

What does it take to post an article on this site lately?! I know 009's M.O. is to headline EVERY ONE of his "articles" with a Question, as to provoke fanboy discussion (aka page hits) rather than just give us ACTUAL articles to read.

Just make this site into a forum based site if this is the direction we are going in, oh wait, maximum ads on the site, not legit auto journalism/discussion, is what you want.

There, you have got me to respond, and you have made your 3 cents in ad revenue, but this site is losing credibility with poo "articles"....

I guess if we can get the same post every couple weeks talking about how environmentally friendly Lexuses are, we can keep getting this story rehashed too.

Well then I will respond the same way I have before. The article does not give the full story, because the full story is much less inflammatory.

Lexus is actually beating Mercedes, and demolishing Audi in Japan. The figures are hard to find on the internet, but the last one I found was for January, Lexus app 3000, MBZ app 2300. And yearly, Lexus app 35K, Audi app 15K. The only luxury brand still beating Lexus is BMW, which sells about 45K a year. So Lexus, after just 2 years is competing quite well.

As for Toyota's projections. They threw out the 50-60K figure before the brand was released. Toyota quickly revised the projections to 40K a year when they realized that some models would be coming out later than anticipated and that overall Japan auto sales were slumping.

So 2 years in Lexus, with 4 models is the second best selling Luxury brand, and is selling at close to 90% of its projected sales.

Not nearly as exciting as the "news" story, but the truth often isnt as exciting as hyped up stories designed to sell magazines.

Delusional aren't we?

Only the Americans are stupid enough to pay MB/BMW money for a Toyota. The rest of the world knows better.

only badgewhore fanbois are stupid enuff to pay premium prices for overhyped, underreliable, eurojunk that give more problems after 5 years than TOYOTAs (say nothing of Lexi) have after 15 years.

unlike MBs that still had 3-valve heads for far too long, ALL toyotas from the cheapest to the priciest all have state-of-the-art 4 valve engines, with VVTi.

toyota also RARELY relied on turbo- or super-charging to get decent power; their brilliant engineers get high specific outputs with NATURAL aspiration.

"ALL toyotas from the cheapest to the priciest all have state-of-the-art 4 valve engines, with VVTi."

it was good in the 1st gen IS, but that was it.

"toyota also RARELY relied on turbo- or super-charging to get decent power; their brilliant engineers get high specific outputs with NATURAL aspiration."

toyota used turbos in the supra, and celica gt4. where are getting this from? and the ISF is the only N/A they've made.

even corollas and camrys have VVTi.

with regard to turbos, i said RARELY, NOT NEVER.
where in their CURRENT line up is there a turbo?

most people, AND engineers, know that resorting to turbos is the CHEAP EASY way to get a power boost. just about any 2-bit operation can slap on a turbo. look at how often GM just slaps in a turbo to get a "performance" model.

otoh, it takes a high level of engineering expertise to get high outputs from a naturally aspirated engine.

the 170/180/190 hp 1.8 toyota was selected over several other choices to power Lotus Elises.

"with regard to turbos, i said RARELY, NOT NEVER.
where in their CURRENT line up is there a turbo?"

your assuming toyota never uses them in their sports cars when they actually have.

"most people, AND engineers, know that resorting to turbos is the CHEAP EASY way to get a power boost."
and they also know that they create turbo lag, more costly and are more frequently maintained.

"look at how often GM just slaps in a turbo to get a "performance" model."

as far as I know, its found on the cobalt ss and solstice. so?

"it takes a high level of engineering expertise to get high outputs from a naturally aspirated engine."

like the Z06 and mercedes-benz's 6.3 n/a, right?

"the 170/180/190 hp 1.8 toyota was selected over several other choices to power Lotus Elises."

because it could fit into its engine bay.

"look at how often GM just slaps in a turbo to get a "performance" model."

as far as I know, its found on the cobalt ss and solstice. so?


SO... it proves my point. gm has NO n/a engine that can compare with the efficient state-of-the-art ones you get in EVERY toyota and lexus. (with the sole exception of corvette engines, which get truckloads of $$$ to maintain it's sports car image.)

no regular production v6 can match the toyota/lexus 3.5 in output AND fuel efficiency. even engines with more displacement by .3 to .5 liters.
even the germans resort to turbos to get more than 268 HP out of sub-4 liter engines.

the elise used to use an Opel (?) engine before finding the gem of the hi-output toyota 1.8. there are MANY engines of similar dimensions. at one time, only honda's 2.0 in the S2000 produced as much hp/l.