Some interesting facts came out of a Europa Press interview with Lexus Europe vice-president Andy Pfeiffenberger — from the translated text:
…the vice president of the European subsidiary of Toyota said his company expected its sales this year on the European continent will be reduced by about 11%, to about 48,000 units, due to economic weakness, which has resulted in a sharp decline in car registrations in the region, particularly in the markets in Spain, Italy, Britain and Germany.
The new vice president of the company on the European continent stressed that “probably in the future” Lexus brand will become a “fundamentally hybrid,” in which the highest sales volume for this technology.
Pfeiffenberger explained that the subsidiary of the Toyota group is considering making a new compact model in order to compete with cars like the BMW 1 Series or the Audi A3, which are in a segment in which the Japanese firm is not present at present.
An 11% drop certainly isn’t good news, but at least it’s lower than the projected US number. It also gives us some insight to the overall brand growth in Europe, where statistics are far and few between.
As far as the Lexus competitor to the 1-Series or the A3, I’ve gone from one extreme to the other, where it’s now to a point where it’s probably the vehicle I’m most looking forward to in the Lexus lineup.
[Source: Europa Press via AutoblogGreen]
No discussion thread for this article yet.