Lexus Drops The CT200h Leaving It With No Dog In The Hunt Against The A3 And CLA

Why bother? The A3 is simply unbeatable.

CLA is a terrible car with a sad, broken transmission. It doesn't help that it looks Korean designed.

The 2-series is missing two more doors somewhere.

I think the biggest mistake is that Lexus put an expensive battery to cater to the green energy libertards, which make the car unnecessarily more expensive than it needs to be.

I guess Lexus just can't get a break nowadays. It's getting slaughtered by everyone! Even Hyundai.

Get rid of the bizarre Lexus/Toyota designers and maybe Lexus could turn things around. People don't give a shit about the "emotional language" of a car. All we care about is that it looks good, is built well, and drives great. I'm not sure why Asian car designers can't fathom this. They consistently produce eyesores that either have the flowing "breath of the wind" curves, or look like origami-on-acid vehicles from the Transformers movie franchise.

LOL the A3 is a Corolla?

Well the A3 is a rebadge Golf, I won't even deny that. At least the Golf is brilliant to drive.

Wait till the A1/Q2 comes to the states. Then the haters will just slam them as rebadged VW Polo's. Oh, what will we Audi fans do? Oh, the humanity! Meanwhile, Audi takes the luxury crown in sales and laughs all the way to the bank!

@dpalmo Audi would have to increase its yearly volume by more than 100K units to catch Mercedes in NA. All is not rosy.

100k units? Very easy once the A1 gets sold here. With a starting price of just $16,000 in Mexico (probably even cheaper here in the US), anyone can afford the A1. Too easy. Audi will be posed to overtake MB as the luxury leader in the US.

I just hope Trump won't go forward with the 35% import tariff on cars. I mean, I'm all for everything Trump says or does, but a 35% tax is just unnecessary and uncalled for.

@facepalmo I'll give you credit for making me laugh when you said "100k units? Very easy once the A1 gets sold here. With a starting price of just $16,000 in Mexico (probably even cheaper here in the US), anyone can afford the A1."

An Audi $4K BELOW the cheapest VW on sale in the USA? That was a knee slapper.

Now factor in getting 100K units out of a tiny hatchback and I was rolling on the floor.

Let's look at sales:
A3 32K per year
CLA 26K per year

and a niche vehicle is going to sell 3-4X that volume???

Jeez, you're an idiot.

If that's what they had then they never had a dog in the race.

(1) The CT was never aimed at the A3/CLA.
(2) Lexus has stated it has no interest in going that low in the premium segment.

Good for Audi and bad for Lexus.

Going for the subcompact segment is the best strategy nowadays, especially subcompact crossovers. Meanwhile, Audi sales are at an all time high, and leases are down. Average age of buyers are lowering. Millennials are buying Audi's. Profits are way up! Easy money.

Part of the problem with this car is that they tried to market it to the wrong audience.

This changes nothing. The CT200h sold in such small quantities, no one will notice.
The truer reality here is that Lexus is probably playing the entry-level space better than anyone at the moment. Their NX is priced close to the A3/Q3 and CLA/GLA and is selling 4k-5k units per month, more than the A3/Q3's or CLA/GLA's combined sales. Similar can be said for Acura's RDX, which sells about an average of 4k units per month while its ILX dies on the vine. If Audi/Mercedes/BMW really want to dominate the entry-level space, they need to provide better products than the Q3/GLA/X1, as they are all smaller but priced similarly to the NX. Very similar to how brilliant Lexus has been with the RX all these years - offering a nicely executed SUV with space rivaling the GL and X5 but not at the same price.

The CT was at end of model life. What may happen is a new version or model based on the new Prius/TNGA platform. Maybe leaning more toward a crossover.