5th Generation (2018+) Lexus LS 500 & LS 500h Megathread

[CRSKTN]

Lexus was once Toyota’s cherished child, but now it feels like an orphan.

I doubt it ever was. I bet you it burned Toyota deeply that they had to workshop an entirely new brand identity to be able to pass for luxury because "Toyota wasn't good enough".

Unfortunately for them, using Lexus as a testing ground for ideas and tech too risky to be a Toyota just meant Lexus was the only thing people cared about or had passion for in TMC. So they would take whatever Lexus proved up and corporatize it and ruin it and let Toyota cannabilize it.

All of Toyota's best, most brand building products were skunk works or opportunistic projects that weren't made terrible by the "if-beige-was-a-person" deadweight human beings warehoused in the Japanese jobs program that is TMC.

I refuse to believe that when doing the design competitions for recent models Toyota of Camry & Sienna that it wasn't intentional to go with designs aping touches from cars like the LC and LS (like the rear light shape and treatments).

Get people to pay a premium for something, shamelessly lift from those products for your down market offerings which you will also dedicate more resources to, laugh at your customers, cut corners on the next generation, use momentum and reputation to release more corner cutting minor refreshes, laugh at your customers, get backlash, atrophy your key models while simultaneously tying to maintain positioning in the market, laugh at your customers, use those product shortcomings to shoehorn toyota/crown/century offerings in their place, and so on.

 

[Flagship1]

I doubt it ever was. I bet you it burned Toyota deeply that they had to workshop an entirely new brand identity to be able to pass for luxury because "Toyota wasn't good enough".

Unfortunately for them, using Lexus as a testing ground for ideas and tech too risky to be a Toyota just meant Lexus was the only thing people cared about or had passion for in TMC. So they would take whatever Lexus proved up and corporatize it and ruin it and let Toyota cannabilize it.

All of Toyota's best, most brand building products were skunk works or opportunistic projects that weren't made terrible by the "if-beige-was-a-person" deadweight human beings warehoused in the Japanese jobs program that is TMC.

I refuse to believe that when doing the design competitions for recent models Toyota of Camry & Sienna that it wasn't intentional to go with designs aping touches from cars like the LC and LS (like the rear light shape and treatments).

Get people to pay a premium for something, shamelessly lift from those products for your down market offerings which you will also dedicate more resources to, laugh at your customers, cut corners on the next generation, use momentum and reputation to release more corner cutting minor refreshes, laugh at your customers, get backlash, atrophy your key models while simultaneously tying to maintain positioning in the market, laugh at your customers, use those product shortcomings to shoehorn toyota/crown/century offerings in their place, and so on.

If Toyota believes they are going to upsell centurys in the north american market, they should study maybach when it relaunched and now.

 

[Ian Schmidt]

Not being called Toyota obviously burns Akio (the decline of Lexus neatly lines up with his ascension to president of Toyota), but I'm not sure that was (or is) a widespread opinion at TMC. And if Century is a brand that would presumably have the same problem. (I assume they wouldn't call it the "Toyota Century" and then sell it at Lexus dealers, but who knows).

In related news my lease was up so I have a '24 LS now. Had to take Caviar to get the Luxury package which I wasn't initially super happy about but when I actually saw it in the sunlight I loved it. With some caveats (interior room, lack of mythical TTV8) this is the car the '18 should have been. LSS 3+ and Lexus Interface are massive improvements over the previous versions, and the self-parking does work, if slowly. The ability to change the climate settings when you remote start is obvious Tesla envy but I'm happy to have it. The wireless phone charger, wireless CarPlay, and phone-as-a-key stuff all make it feel finally like Toyota's actually paying attention on the tech features.

 

[Falcon]

Here is the website for the Century in China. It is branded as 世极. There are zero references to Toyota. So naturally it will be branded as just Century internationally. There are zero Toyota badges on a Century even in Japan and they are starting to separate it from Toyota over there.

 

[Gecko]

Not being called Toyota obviously burns Akio (the decline of Lexus neatly lines up with his ascension to president of Toyota), but I'm not sure that was (or is) a widespread opinion at TMC. And if Century is a brand that would presumably have the same problem. (I assume they wouldn't call it the "Toyota Century" and then sell it at Lexus dealers, but who knows).

In related news my lease was up so I have a '24 LS now. Had to take Caviar to get the Luxury package which I wasn't initially super happy about but when I actually saw it in the sunlight I loved it. With some caveats (interior room, lack of mythical TTV8) this is the car the '18 should have been. LSS 3+ and Lexus Interface are massive improvements over the previous versions, and the self-parking does work, if slowly. The ability to change the climate settings when you remote start is obvious Tesla envy but I'm happy to have it. The wireless phone charger, wireless CarPlay, and phone-as-a-key stuff all make it feel finally like Toyota's actually paying attention on the tech features.

Congrats! Share some pics if you can. I love Caviar but I'm partial

 

[mediumhot]

I restrained on commenting on the Century SUV cause there is very little info about it but what the heck now. I know they tried really their best to give it ultra-premium flagship SUV road presence but the freaking wheelbase and FWD proportions just make it look like two door Range Rover. These little details matter. This thing might fly in Asia but in Western markets a big nope.

 

[Flagship1]

Here is the website for the Century in China. It is branded as 世极. There are zero references to Toyota. So naturally it will be branded as just Century internationally. There are zero Toyota badges on a Century even in Japan and they are starting to separate it from Toyota over there.

Century is an established marque in Asian markets. Literally everywhere/elsewhere they would need to convince each buyer in that demo, that their product is not just a more reliable Culinan carbon copy.

No offense to the incredible product that is the century, but this would be an effort the size of when Toyota introduced Lexus to the US market and launched the F1 program. Lots of capital investment with near zero room for error. I wish them the best, but they really need to start poaching hypercar fame sales and marketing talent to get this off the ground.

 

[mediumhot]

Century is an established marque in Asian markets. Literally everywhere/elsewhere they would need to convince each buyer in that demo, that their product is not just a more reliable Culinan carbon copy.

No offense to the incredible product that is the century, but this would be an effort the size of when Toyota introduced Lexus to the US market and launched the F1 program. Lots of capital investment with near zero room for error. I wish them the best, but they really need to start poaching hypercar fame sales and marketing talent to get this off the ground.

They tried with bespoke & ultimate high end vehicle LFA and they couldn't move a needle when it came to marketing break through and positioning shift that they expected before and after the launch. LFA built its legacy on its own because it was indeed the ultimate flagship product that did not cut any corners, but it took almost a whole decade to come to that point while Lexus sales and brand marketing & positioning needed that from 2008 to 2012 in order to drive the brand into hyper space territory. Outcome? Upcoming "LFA successor" that was born like Toyota ends up being Toyota again to try to position and break through GR performance brand. Something they already tried with LFA and F brand. Can we place bets if they have learned their lesson?

 

[CRSKTN]

Not being called Toyota obviously burns Akio (the decline of Lexus neatly lines up with his ascension to president of Toyota), but I'm not sure that was (or is) a widespread opinion at TMC. And if Century is a brand that would presumably have the same problem. (I assume they wouldn't call it the "Toyota Century" and then sell it at Lexus dealers, but who knows).

In related news my lease was up so I have a '24 LS now. Had to take Caviar to get the Luxury package which I wasn't initially super happy about but when I actually saw it in the sunlight I loved it. With some caveats (interior room, lack of mythical TTV8) this is the car the '18 should have been. LSS 3+ and Lexus Interface are massive improvements over the previous versions, and the self-parking does work, if slowly. The ability to change the climate settings when you remote start is obvious Tesla envy but I'm happy to have it. The wireless phone charger, wireless CarPlay, and phone-as-a-key stuff all make it feel finally like Toyota's actually paying attention on the tech features.

Century has lots of brand cache in Japan. It's typical Japanese blinders-on nationalism. They think it should be that way globally vs Lexus.

Surprise! Nobody gives a s***!

You think you're going to neglect your customers for 2 decades and then expect to sell a car for double the highest priced offering you currently have?

Sure, let me just waste an afternoon being ignored by mediocre, reads-below-a-6th-grade-level morons so I can hand them a fat cheque at the end of the day.

Then i'll go home and punch myself in the b**** because apparently I am an idiot as is everyone they think will go for this.

Show up to my house in kimonos and bowing and yeah, maybe i'll consider it.

Until then Aston Martin isn't treating their customers like passionless consumer-bots these days I hear.
That's the nature of your competition.

 

[ssun30]

In China they charge ¥50k ($7000) for the drink cooler. How is it not standard?

At least their company strategy of fleecing customers is consistent from the bottom to the top.

Oh I just checked the charging cable need to be optioned for ¥7500 ($1100).