Batten down the hatches and prepare for rough seas, we are taking on water and our future looks grim!
While it sounds like a line from a B movie, it could also be words being echoed around Lexus office after the February sales figures for the industry were announced.
While competition may have slowed a bit, Lexus is continuing to fall behind. After resorting to unprecedented incentives last month, parent company Toyota finally started showing signs of life with a 48.5% gain in February, but its beleaguered luxury arm could only muster a gain of 0.2%. That is only 27 more vehicles than last year! Remember this is a year the industry is in recovery.
As you can imagine recalls might have weighed in as a factor, but way we see it, the kick in the groin for any Lexus fan is reliance on model refreshes rather than new vehicles. In a nutshell almost every one of their competitors has a few new models up their sleeve for the next year and Lexus has nothing on the books match No fresh recruits to do battle with new blood.
To give you an idea how far the 2010 top luxury car brand maker has fallen in just two months, I did a tally of the figures so far for the year. Here is the lay of the land for all of the competitors that will cross shop the premium market at the end of the month.
1. 32,321 BMW
2. 31,321 Mercedes-Benz
3. 29,076 Buick
4. 28,349 Cadillac
5. 26,674 Lexus
6. 18,757 Acura
7. 16,549 Infiniti
8. 15,565 Audi
How in the world do you drop from first to 5th in such a short time? This time last year Lexus was leaving everyone in the dust and only to have the recall-a-thons begin to take their toll. Amazing, but better yet just how are you going to make it through the storm or new models without anything of substance?
If you were in charge of Lexus what would you do to turn the tide and salvage the year?
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