Lexus will only bring in to the UK hybrid versions of its RX sport utility vehicles when the new model is launched next year. Miguel Fonseca, UK managing director of Lexus and Toyota in the UK said that sales of petrol-only versions of the current are disappointing. He admitted that Lexus sales in general are suffering as consumers shy away from luxury vehicles as they tighten their belts.
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Fonseca said: “The luxury market is down and the only part of it where sales are increasing is in the medium-size C-segment. Unfortunately we do not have a C-segment car and our year-on-year Lexus sales in the UK are 20 percent down and are expected to fall to 12,500 sales this year against 15,000 in 2007..
“It’s a difficult time and we are working with our dealers to get the balance right for the franchise and concentrate as much as we can on our service and aftersales business. We do have very good customer loyalty in terms of people bringing their cars back to dealers.”
On the credit side, the Toyota brand is doing well and demand for the Prius hybrid is outstripping supply. Fonseca said the company will sell a record 9,351 of the environmentally-friendly models this year.
He added: “We could sell more but we can’t get enough of them.”
Toyota has scrapped plans to build sport utility models at a new North American factory, opting instead to assemble Prius. “That will open up more allocation for us from the factory in Japan,” added Fonseca.
