Lexus lays out aggressive model expansion plans

Lexus will expand its model range to meet European competitors head-on in a growing number of market segments and niches by introducing new mid-size and high-end coupes and a much needed compact SUV to fit in below the RX range.

At a preview event this week for the upcoming ES sedan, which is set for launch on November, Lexus Australia boss Sean Hanley told media the strategy is designed to close the perception gap that ostracises the 25-years-young brand from premium European competitors with a century or more of history behind them.

“Eventually, we’ll have a car in every segment,” he predicted, adding that the current L-Finesse design language and spindle grille will anchor a design path the company expects to evolve over time in the manner of the long-established Europeans.

“There’s no 30-day fix here – this a sustainable strategy to inject excitement into the brand.”

The last two years have seen the company roll out a raft of concepts set for production. There’s the svelte, hi-po hybrid LF-LC coupe to partially maintain the halo value of the LFA supercar.

And the LF-CC coupe, an IS sedan-based two-door expected to be called the RC, is likely to spawn a successor to the hot-rod IS F, taking up the cudgels as a brand builder against Audi RS, BMW M and Benz AMG models.

Perhaps most important in the short term is the LF-NX, the compact SUV concept revealed at this year’s Frankfurt motor show. Looking like a black-belt origami exercise, the NX show car will likely reappear in tamed down form to slot into a hotly competitive market segment against Audi’s Q5, BMW’s X3, Volvo’s XC60 and Jaguar’s upcoming contender based on the CX-17 concept. The likelihood that it will share its basic underpinnings with parent company Toyota’s RAV4 points to a front-wheel drive entry model.

The company has been frustratingly slow in confirming or scotching production rumours surrounding any of these vehicles, instead allowing speculation to build to what it no doubt hopes is fever pitch.

Lexus is currently adding fuel with the promise of a major reveal at the upcoming Tokyo motor show, widely mooted to be a high-end production derivative of the LF-LC sportster. Given the company’s other major strategic direction and the regularity with which it’s mentioned a 378kW hybrid powertrain, it’s likely to at least offer a petrol-electric option.

Expect the production RC Coupe to emerge at the Detroit show in January, followed by the production NX crossover at the Geneva show in March, before all three additional models go on sale globally next year.

At the ES preview, Hanley and his colleagues stressed that the new mid-size sedan car creates a new segment of its own, blurring the normally clear line between volume large-car and entry-level executive models.

“It’s neither a D-segment [large] nor an E-segment [executive] car,” he said of the ES, which hits showrooms in November.

This opens it to a particularly broad prospective buyer base, he explained. Among its prospects, the company has identified “step-up” buyers, making their first move from volume to luxury segments and “downsizers” – luxury buyers looking to reduce their financial exposure on their car.
He also nominated salary package buyers – executive “user choosers” looking to maximise their bang-for-buck on novated lease schemes – and the luxe end of the rental market.

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