Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus outsold Mercedes-Benz in May in the United States for the second time in five months and has reduced the difference to BMW to about 12,000 deliveries so far this year. The gap may be further closed after the introduction of Lexus’ newest models later this year, the NX compact crossover (pictured below) and the RC sports coupe.
“The volume is not the goal, it’s to do the right things. It’s nice to know that people are responding to the new products we’ve launched. Over the last two years, we’ve had a string of hits,” Mark Templin, executive vice president of Lexus, told BusinessWeek.
In 2011, Lexus lost the No.1 spot in U.S. luxury vehicle sales after the earthquake and tsunami disrupted production of almost every model in its lineup. Toyota builds every Lexus model in Japan except for the RX SUV and ships those vehicles to the U.S. market.
It will be interesting to see whether Lexus can get closer to BMW without offering an entry-level model like most premium brands, as the company said last year that it won’t build models under $30,000. Lexus U.S. boss Jeff Bracken said that by not offering a cheap model the brand image will benefit. Furthermore, it will allow Lexus to concentrate on more premium and higher-margin vehicles.
For 2014, Lexus doesn’t expect to top its 2007 record of almost 330,000 deliveries in the United States. However, the brand is expanding from last year’s global all-time best sales results of more than 523,000 vehicles.
By Dan Mihalascu
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