Toyota unveiled three models on Tuesday, marking the introduction of the Lexus luxury brand in Japan, 16 years after it rolled out in the United States.
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The Associated Press (AP) said Japan’s top automaker already sells many of the same models in Japan under the Toyota brand although the cars are slightly different from – and cheaper than – the sedan models shown Tuesday, the GS430/GS350, SC430 and IS350/250, priced as expensive as 6.8 million yen ($US61,000; €51,000).
Toyota reportedly says it’s trying to sell “an experience,” and set up luxurious-looking dealerships, complete with leather furniture and hotel-quality service, especially for the Lexus. The showrooms open on August 30.
“This is the realisation of our dream to create a global luxury brand,” Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe told AP at a giant tent pitched in a Tokyo park, similar to tents for fashion shows and other gala events here. “This is something we have wanted for many years.”
Watanabe reportedly said Toyota is targeting 3,000 vehicles a month sales for the three models combined, and other Lexus models will start selling in coming years, including a hybrid GS next year. Toyota sold 7,900 of the planned Lexus three models combined last year in Japan as Toyotas.
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By GlobalDataThis year, Toyota expects to sell 84,000 Lexus vehicles around the world, 20,000 of them in Japan, Watanabe told the Associated Press. Next year, that will climb to 500,000 worldwide – 50,000 to 60,000 in Japan, he said.
The report said Toyota is counting on the success Lexus scored since its debut in 1989 in the United States, including excellent JD Power and Associates rankings, to woo rich Japanese, who now buy imports such as BMW and Mercedes Benz.
Japanese aren’t that familiar with the Lexus brand name, and its prospects in this notoriously finicky consumer market are uncertain, the news agency noted.
The Associated Press said that, over decades of modernisation, conformist Japan has lived under the ideal that everyone is middle class. As a result, most Japanese tend to favour cars that don’t stand out. Import buyers are viewed as a flashy crowd, the antithesis of Toyota’s everyman image prevalent in Japan.
But Toyota officials reportedly say Japan is changing, and a growing upper class is willing to spend.
AP said Toyota has set up a special training centre to groom classy, courteous dealers to sell the Lexus brand in Japan. That’s proved a challenge because Japanese dealers are already superior to what people are used to in the United States and other nations.
Toyota has sold more than 358,000 Lexus vehicles around the world, about 80% of them in North America, the Associated Press added.
