Toyota completely forgot what made Lexus special.
Don't mind me for quoting you to start the rant
What has made Lexus special was what American customers have thought made the luxury vehicle brand special. 40 years later it's now up to Chinese customers to give their say what makes a luxury vehicle special. There's been a global shift in car industry in regards who is in a position to make demands and pay for it.
I don't mind the car actually, Chinese market is the largest sedan market in the world. It's the place where sedans are still sold in big numbers. If you don't like CUV invasion you can partially thank Lexus for that and their RX which set the course for the future of good ol US car market. After all what did you expect when they announced Lexus will go BEV all the way? Be reasonable, there was no way Toyota could have pulled out some surprising BEV architecture and powertrain out of their arse by being late to the BEV game. Toyota being late too BEV is whole another topic that's been discussed to death before, electrification leader falling behind and handing out the cake to someone else; Tesla.
US market is very .. don't have an exact word for it but it's very one dimensional. When Prius was a thing it was identified as the whole Hybrid market. You wanted a hybrid you get a Prius, period. You don't get a Ford, Honda, GM, not even a Lexus hybrid, no, you buy yourself a Prius. US identified hybrid as Prius much like how it now identifies EV with Tesla. You want an EV, great buy a Tesla. No matter if other have a better product (Lyriq) it doesn't matter Tesla is the EV and others are not. Tesla made us accept that EV car is all about autopilot, range and performance and not about interior experience, quality control, road noise and all other basic car stuff. I mean we have accepted to swipe our fingers on a touchscreen to switch gears and that's beyond idiotic. We are at the point where US market has already been allocated and it's in crawl mode when it comes to change. Tons of examples of a market not being ready to change and adopt like self-parking feature from 20 years ago to headlight regulations not being up to par with the rest of the first world. That's why single models like Prius or Tesla have become synonyms for pioneer change that rarely has been accepted across the board, heck even RX has been a synonym for the only premium CUV for a very long time. Chinese market is still a up for grabs because domestics manufacturers are fighting to survive and they are going head-to-head with foreign brands like never before (besides going head to head too),
It was inevitable Toyota would rely on their Chinese partnership as some stop gap solution before their bespoke BEV comes along. Not to spoil the party but I seriously doubt they will ever bring out anything significant of their own as long as they can rely on Chinese tech and logistics. My gripe with that strategy is of course total lack of focus on interior and exterior design but more importantly lack of application of the latest technology. If you are partnered up why not bring the big guns then? Chinese EV tech is far ahead, and you would think adopting the cutting edge stuff is a no brainer? Well I guess it's a brainer for them for some reason. What ES500e offers here is nothing spectacular in regard to what premium brands offer in China. Actually it's very mediocre. But if the price is right it might be a great way to punch in the BEV card in western markets. If loaded ES500e costs less or equal to RZ500e Luxury I would be pleasantly surprised.
