Remembering the Lexus LS+ Concept

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For Lexus fans, today’s reveal of the 2027 Mercedes-Benz S-Class might have made you recall that Lexus recently cancelled the LS sedan. The two were long time competitors and this is the first time in 36 years that there is no “Japanese S-Class” to do battle with the standard bearer from Stuttgart.
Seeing that the 2027 S-Class is a major refresh of the W223 2020+ model made me wonder what the LS would have looked like if Lexus took a similarly evolutionary approach instead of cancelling its flagship.
The good news? That already existed as the Lexus LS+ Concept.
The bad news? It was never produced.

Debuting shortly after the...
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Stretched out 5GS concept known as LS+ for some reason. They've never showed the interior of this concept and we could only assume why. LF-LC on the other hand had a pretty close to production interior.
 
DarkSpace6383

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I wish we had a next-gen LS sedan. It is still theoretically possible (with LS not being a single model but a range of models) but still.
 
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DarkSpace6383 said:
They do both? Quite literally every single automaker does this
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Mercedes, BMW, and Cadillac, are regularly churning out new models - and flagship ones at that. New S-Class, Celestiq, Escalade V, Escalade IQ, and we now have rumors of a BMW X9 and a 7 Series refresh. Genesis has shown more flagship aspiration recently than Lexus has in the last 5 years, and they're far more tangible, not to mention GV90 debuting soon.

Lexus has shown:
  • LS Concept 6 wheel van = purely a concept
  • LS Micro Concept = purely a concept
  • Electrified Sport/LFA = 5+ years away before it would be produced, and it's unclear if it's even actually viable
  • LS Coupe = something they should have done ten years ago but wouldn't invest in, looks FWD
  • Yacht, house, drone, boat, teepee, hoverboard, whatever = Lexus has gotten bored and lazy with building cars so now Toyota has to try to pimp them out as a lifestyle brand, a marketing play from the early 2000s
On the lot and near term, Lexus has a FWD minivan and Land Cruiser rebadges as their flagship vehicles now.

Otherwise the only thing Lexus has been delivering are GA-K 50th percentile products when compared to their competitive set, all while the EV market is eroding and Lexus hasn't issued any follow up from their 2021 EV brand announcement.

We can debate the business case of enthusiast products vs. volume sellers as a chicken or the egg scenario, but the plain truth is Toyota has fully abandoned Lexus as a dedicated luxury brand and is now only focused on a Toyota+ profit maximization strategy. With no LS, GS, RC, LC, F, and soon IS, this brand is just going to be premium or restyled versions of Toyota crossovers. Will that be enough to sell to soccer moms and old ladies as a business case? Maybe... time will tell. If not, what will they do then? For the first time in my life, I could see a strategy where Lexus fades out but dealers are placated by becoming GR and Century retailers, and maybe selling a handful of Lexus models that are still relevant.

I hope everyone realizes we're gonna have to stop making fun of Infiniti and Acura because Lexus is no better.
 
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Gecko said:
Mercedes, BMW, and Cadillac, are regularly churning out new models - and flagship ones at that. New S-Class, Celestiq, Escalade V, Escalade IQ, and we now have rumors of a BMW X9 and a 7 Series refresh. Genesis has shown more flagship aspiration recently than Lexus has in the last 5 years, and they're far more tangible, not to mention GV90 debuting soon.

Lexus has shown:
  • LS Concept 6 wheel van = purely a concept
  • LS Micro Concept = purely a concept
  • Electrified Sport/LFA = 5+ years away before it would be produced, and it's unclear if it's even actually viable
  • LS Coupe = something they should have done ten years ago but wouldn't invest in, looks FWD
  • Yacht, house, drone, boat, teepee, hoverboard, whatever = Lexus has gotten bored and lazy with building cars so now Toyota has to try to pimp them out as a lifestyle brand, a marketing play from the early 2000s
On the lot and near term, Lexus has a FWD minivan and Land Cruiser rebadges as their flagship vehicles now.

Otherwise the only thing Lexus has been delivering are GA-K 50th percentile products when compared to their competitive set, all while the EV market is eroding and Lexus hasn't issued any follow up from their 2021 EV brand announcement.

We can debate the business case of enthusiast products vs. volume sellers as a chicken or the egg scenario, but the plain truth is Toyota has fully abandoned Lexus as a dedicated luxury brand and is now only focused on a Toyota+ profit maximization strategy. With no LS, GS, RC, LC, F, and soon IS, this brand is just going to be premium or restyled versions of Toyota crossovers. Will that be enough to sell to soccer moms and old ladies as a business case? Maybe... time will tell. If not, what will they do then? For the first time in my life, I could see a strategy where Lexus fades out but dealers are placated by becoming GR and Century retailers, and maybe selling a handful of Lexus models that are still relevant.

I hope everyone realizes we're gonna have to stop making fun of Infiniti and Acura because Lexus is no better.
Click to expand...
To add to that... the new ES is in a way also a rejection of the tried-and-true Toyota+ strategy. Even though it's still GA-K, it's alienating its existing audience because it's designed for a completely different market (China) with the primary powertrain (EV) being something that this existing audience would never even consider, nevermind the radical shift to a tech and screen-heavy interior that obviously mimcs the Chinese brands in a much more blatant manner than even what the Germans have been doing lately. They're also, for whatever reason, continuing to invest money into variations of the RZ, which remains by far the worst-performing Lexus product in recent history with little demand.

It's been a long-running meme at this point that Lexus has been "ten years behind the competition" but that's usually been seen as a positive, especially when everyone else jumped into the EV hype with diminishing returns while Toyota and Lexus held onto hybrids and large-displacement naturally aspirated engines. Unfortunately, we're now approaching a nightmare scenario for the brand where it turns out they never rejected EV's, they're just running behind the timeline, and will now go all-in on them at a time when everyone else is pivoting away. They now remain "ten years behind the competition" but with the baggage of mistakes other brands made from ten years ago - bad EV's and poor-performing unreliable turbo engines; they have not went through the same cycles of learning to refine them. The saving grace are the hybrids, which they have continuously developed their cycles of learning on, but if the new ES is of any indication being the Lexus brand's new flagship, then the primary focus is on the EV, not the hybrid. The cherry on top is the "new LFA" and all these LS concepts being EV-only.

Given the situation this brand is in, Toyota+ is actually somehow less horrible. Like I said in other threads, Lexus USA made the brand successful last year because of the TX. But the TX is a stopgap measure, and the lack of funds given to its development also indicates how disinterested Lexus Japan is in such a strategy. Add to the further siphoning of resources from Lexus in favor of Crown, Century, and GR, I don't see much left on the plate for Lexus beyond being this bizarre EV startup mimicry based on research from a decade ago, released at a time when even Tesla has already cancelled the Model S and X while other brands withdraw investment from EV's back into ICE and hybrids. Saying that the new TTV8 is reserved only for the GR GT is perhaps the most tone-deaf thing Toyota could have done, and it demonstrates just how out of touch they are with consumer trends right now.

As for Acura... they also just cancelled the RDX. I don't know if they're interested in even being their own brand anymore and it wouldn't surprise me if they just got folded back into Honda at this point since they have only three models for sale now, two of which are barely modded Hondas.
 
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LCLFV said:
Given the situation this brand is in, Toyota+ is actually somehow less horrible.
Click to expand...
This is sadly true. If we take the "Toyota plus" strategy at face value the lineup can actually be somewhat exciting.

Crown sedan plus = GS
Crown sport plus = sportier, prettier NX
Crown cross plus = more competitive ES HEV
Corolla cross plus = UX but actually usable
Sequoia plus = bigger, more spacious LX
Tundra plus = Lexus pickup truck many buyers/dealers have been asking for
86 plus = the rumored "UC" 86 with hybrid powertrain
Supra plus = SC
BZ7 plus = actually competitive ES EV
 
DarkSpace6383

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Gecko said:
Mercedes, BMW, and Cadillac, are regularly churning out new models - and flagship ones at that. New S-Class, Celestiq, Escalade V, Escalade IQ, and we now have rumors of a BMW X9 and a 7 Series refresh. Genesis has shown more flagship aspiration recently than Lexus has in the last 5 years, and they're far more tangible, not to mention GV90 debuting soon.

Lexus has shown:
  • LS Concept 6 wheel van = purely a concept
  • LS Micro Concept = purely a concept
  • Electrified Sport/LFA = 5+ years away before it would be produced, and it's unclear if it's even actually viable
  • LS Coupe = something they should have done ten years ago but wouldn't invest in, looks FWD
  • Yacht, house, drone, boat, teepee, hoverboard, whatever = Lexus has gotten bored and lazy with building cars so now Toyota has to try to pimp them out as a lifestyle brand, a marketing play from the early 2000s
On the lot and near term, Lexus has a FWD minivan and Land Cruiser rebadges as their flagship vehicles now.

Otherwise the only thing Lexus has been delivering are GA-K 50th percentile products when compared to their competitive set, all while the EV market is eroding and Lexus hasn't issued any follow up from their 2021 EV brand announcement.

We can debate the business case of enthusiast products vs. volume sellers as a chicken or the egg scenario, but the plain truth is Toyota has fully abandoned Lexus as a dedicated luxury brand and is now only focused on a Toyota+ profit maximization strategy. With no LS, GS, RC, LC, F, and soon IS, this brand is just going to be premium or restyled versions of Toyota crossovers. Will that be enough to sell to soccer moms and old ladies as a business case? Maybe... time will tell. If not, what will they do then? For the first time in my life, I could see a strategy where Lexus fades out but dealers are placated by becoming GR and Century retailers, and maybe selling a handful of Lexus models that are still relevant.

I hope everyone realizes we're gonna have to stop making fun of Infiniti and Acura because Lexus is no better.
Click to expand...
"Looks FWD" is a shitty excuse, it is good they are producing that vehicle (though imo it should be made an an LFX). The LS Van Concept seems pretty likely to reach production in around 5 years also. I am okay with Lexus shifting towards lifestyle given Merc BMW and Porsche are already like that. That being said they still are not living up to their full potential
 
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DarkSpace6383 said:
"Looks FWD" is a shitty excuse, it is good they are producing that vehicle (though imo it should be made an an LFX). The LS Van Concept seems pretty likely to reach production in around 5 years also. I am okay with Lexus shifting towards lifestyle given Merc BMW and Porsche are already like that. That being said they still are not living up to their full potential
Click to expand...
The German trio can afford being lifestyle brands because they 1. have the heritage and 2. still have the products to back it up. We can make fun of their styling direction and whatever costly mistakes they made pivoting too quickly into EV's but it doesn't change the fact that they all have a full lineup of RWD vehicles with high power 6-cylinder and V8 options shared across their lineups at their disposal. And even their clumsy early attempts at EV's have paid off with the cycles of learning they've attained from that, as exemplified by Neue Klasse and the normalization of 800V architectures. As it is now the new Lexus ES is behind EV's that the Germans released five years ago.

Unlike Lexus, the "lifestyle" is not a distraction from the lack of product. Lexus does have a heritage, the problem is that neither the products nor the lifestyle branding have anything to do with that.
 
Kelvin2020

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DarkSpace6383 said:
"Looks FWD" is a shitty excuse, it is good they are producing that vehicle (though imo it should be made an an LFX). The LS Van Concept seems pretty likely to reach production in around 5 years also. I am okay with Lexus shifting towards lifestyle given Merc BMW and Porsche are already like that. That being said they still are not living up to their full potential
Click to expand...
Lexus’s biggest problem is that they don’t even realize they have problem.
 
DarkSpace6383

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LCLFV said:
The German trio can afford being lifestyle brands because they 1. have the heritage and 2. still have the products to back it up. We can make fun of their styling direction and whatever costly mistakes they made pivoting too quickly into EV's but it doesn't change the fact that they all have a full lineup of RWD vehicles with high power 6-cylinder and V8 options shared across their lineups at their disposal. And even their clumsy early attempts at EV's have paid off with the cycles of learning they've attained from that, as exemplified by Neue Klasse and the normalization of 800V architectures. As it is now the new Lexus ES is behind EV's that the Germans released five years ago.

Unlike Lexus, the "lifestyle" is not a distraction from the lack of product. Lexus does have a heritage, the problem is that neither the products nor the lifestyle branding have anything to do with that.
Click to expand...
Kelvin2020 said:
Lexus’s biggest problem is that they don’t even realize they have problem.
Click to expand...
I do agree. In an ideal world Lexus would be both a lifestyle brand but also a brand that puts out genuinely compelling products. I am calling it right now: the ES will be a total flop. It is not advanced enough for the asian market and not well-optimized for the european and american markets.
 
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DarkSpace6383 said:
I do agree. In an ideal world Lexus would be both a lifestyle brand but also a brand that puts out genuinely compelling products. I am calling it right now: the ES will be a total flop. It is not advanced enough for the asian market and not well-optimized for the european and american markets.
Click to expand...
Since production has shifted from Kentucky back to Japan I think they're intentionally scaling back volume for the US. Coincidentally they're building a new factory in China so that's where they expect the brunt of ES sales to be.
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