European Boss Claims Lexus Can't Beat The Germans But Brand Is "Determined" To Be Number Four?

Really, why not give up entirely?

If the boss of the German three said that, he would be on the street by the end of the week.

Never admit defeat, outline how you are going to change things for the future.

He definitely should have done a better job of articulating his point and the direction the brand is going.

At the same time, he was being realistic. Lexus was about 30% of each of the Big Three last year, 523k units vs. 1.66mm, 1.58mm, and 1.46mm, respectively from BMW, Audi, and Mercedes. And each of the Big Three continue to experience growth every year. Additionally, Lexus' worldwide success remains to be seen as of the 523k units they sold last year, 52% of that number came from the US market.

Personally, I think a statement like that is the wiser approach. Nothing ruins the credibility of a leader more than stating unattainable goals or objectives. It would take decades before Lexus' global results came even close to the Germans, with everything that would be involved in increasing production by over a million units. On top of that, the Germans would essentially have to remain static for that period, which won't happen.

Since moving to Europe for work, I've noticed a huge difference between the American and European supply chain mentalities.

Europeans seem to be quite honest about their operations, so much so that they're comfortable telling clients, 'we're at 95% capacity, we won't take any risk, the schedule will take us twice as long, we're not willing to impact current production even if the order is worth 10x any single order on the books, but we would like to be strongly considered for this equipment', and then they're never available by phone, and always seem to be on vacation or sick leave or generally absent from the office.

Americans tend to BS more, and promise the world, and still end up in the same situation as other suppliers; they just don't tell you what you don't want to here. However, they're generally easier to contact by phone and will interrupt a production cycle if the order is big enough.

can't be beaten in terms of sales numbers..

Or really anything else. but give them a few decades and I'm sure they will get closer.

That is not a Boss is a pussy...

I do remember when American cars were the Best of the World,..now they were defeated...Germans, British, Italians or Sweden are not different. They can be defeated....Lack of confidence and Determination is their problem. Amat Victoria Curam.

Lexus is too unfocused to take on the Germans. They have the right hardware, but it's clothed in Sci-Fi styling, and tuned to drive like a Buick.

Lexus vehicles are more reliable than the Germans, but a 5 or 7 series is pretty hard to beat.

The Lexus NX design had to "stand out" because if not it would look too much like the Toyota RAV4 it is based on. This is exactly what happened to the Lexus HS, it looked like a "Toyota." The HS is history. With small SUV's being popular no wonder there is a demand. Interesting to see if the NX will hurt RX/ES sales.

There someone putting around in an IS220d in the village I'm in. It does not fit in with the Skodas, Citroëns, and Opels. It's the only Lexus I've seen since I've been in Europe.

Today's drive home was behind a LS400 and it looked like new. Clearly a historic landmark.