It is not great to be negative or create negative discussion, but it is very telling that there are serious problems with Lexus. Toyota brand is thriving, which is great. I very much acknowledge that. However, at the end of the day this is a LEXUS website!
I cannot blame anyone who is concerned with the future of this brand and their upper-level products on this basis. From 2012 on, people swallowed the discontinuation and limited production of the LFA as a halo product, a redux of an already 6 year old LS flagship (for another 5 years!), a late to the game entry level coupe, that should've come over a decade earlier during E46 3-Series/IS 300 days, or in the early years of the brand. The endless, underlying hope for kaizen for GS, as the case with the ES. Apply the same underlying, relentless hope to many other Lexus models!
HS flopped and was removed. CT was removed from Lexus' founding market. LX and GX have been kept past their sell-by, struggling to incorporate new technology's offered by their competition while replacements are years away, based on domino theory development for GA-F strangling their ability to go into production sooner.
Apologists for these mistakes are very quick to forget, in their heyday the GX 470 and LX 470 were actually contemporary and high tech out the gate. In 2002-04, these vehicles were considered the pinnacle of their respective segments, alongside German and American competition. Lexus coasts on those reputations established wayback.
As for the LC and LC F, I am delighted that Lexus followed through with the cabriolet. That being said do I think it is on time? F**K NO!
You are supposed to have A, B, & C teams for your vehicle programs. "A" team works on the main model line, while another works on variants or derivatives. BMW would not be able to survive, if just one team existed for a nameplate.
B team should have been working on the Cabriolet, once styling was frozen in 2014 or once the first verification cars were built by early 2015. Why? To ensure it would be ready in time.
C team is high performance versions. BMW started developing M versions, of what was going to be the M6 (now called M8) in early 2016. WELL BEFORE production even began for regular G15 coupe in the summer of 2018. Heck, the cabriolet G14 version was in development from 2012 as the 2018 6-Series Cabriolet! I can forgive Lexus for not committing to a cabrio version pre-2014, but barely getting to it in 2017 is what annoys me.
You don't wait until after production begins, to get to work. You ensure certain pre-production parameters are met, then get started to time it well. A mid-2020 launch has made that very obvious to me, as 3 years gives that away succinctly. 2017 to 2020. We saw a mule of this cabrio in February 2018. Figure out what happened, because that should've been 2 years earlier.
The LC-F project should've been underway since no later than 2015. If I recall, BMW started developing a performance variant roughly 3.5 years after the main vehicle program. M3 launch came slightly under 4 years later. Total years since base vehicle inception? 7.5 years! Still stands true today.
Lexus needs to be timing vehicles in this manner:
- General model launch: May 2017 (coupe)
- Co-variant launch: Q3 2018, as 2019 model (cabrio).
- January 2019: Early planning and studying of replacement generation.
- High performance version launched: Late 2019 as MY 2020
- MMC life: Autumn 2021 as MY 2022
- Program approval of next generation model & styling aspects: Late 2021/Early 2022.
- Redesigned vehicle launch, retirement of current vehicle: Late 2024/CY 2025.
2023 is extremely late, since the LC will be a beautiful, yet 12 year old design overall, to be sold another 4 years?
also I will be very disappointed if Lexus delays the LC F even more. The competition never take more than 2 years to release a performance variant of their models, even for low-volume SUVs. It will be 4 years since the LC was unveiled next January. I'm really hoping that I will see the LC F at the next NAIAS.
NAIAS is 7 months away, so that can change focus. I agree with you though. Cabriolet should've been a 2019.5 model at latest, followed by LC-F for MY 2020, followed by MMC circa Q4 2021.
One thing that you pointed out very well is how the unveiling was in January 2016, for a car shown originally in early 2012 in advanced design form. The product cadence is being botched, to some of the standards and failures past British automakers were guilty of.
I can believe expected profitability for RWD vehicles is a huge problem for the Toyota board, because of a fickle buyer base and also their own failures in some areas, which further feed into the problem.
My .02: The LC F has probably been put on hold or cancelled, and this rumor is born out of that. The fact that it hasn't already happened is concerning, and leads me to believe the project is dead. Dealers were shown the LC F a year and a half ago - where is it now?
We've had rumors of a TT V8 with over 600hp since 2007. We've known the LC was coming since 2012 LF-LC concept. LC finally came in 2018 and we're now heading into the 2020 model. Sales are less than half of what Lexus expected, and the passenger car market continues to tank. ... and this is allegedly another 4 years away?
Lexus has squandered their chance to deliver this car in a meaningful way, as they always seem to do. 600+hp is now table stakes for the competition, and many are moving to high performance hybrid + ICE for even more power. Rethinking the execution and making LC F even more expensive isn't going to help the case anymore. It should have been delivered this year, or at the latest, now for 2020MY.
In 2023, LC will be 5 years old which Lexus used to think was time for a redesign, though now that seems about mid-way through a model cycle for their product management strategy. They're going to introduce a $185k version of a five year old car, three years from now (and 11 years after the LF-LC concept)?
Another DOA flagship/F Lexus product.
So well said.
The LC was developed and debuted as a 2017 model on January 11, 2016, which became a 2018 model within days of debut (thanks to perceived delays/cynical marketing) Targeted start of production was November 2016 for January 2017 launch, things got delayed 4 more months. There was a time, it was even on deck for fall 2016 launch for 2017. Look what happened to the LS too (went from mid-2017 to early 2018).
The facelifted cars should be arriving by the fall of 2021 as 2022s, which is already 5 years after the initially targeted release date and 4.5 years after actual launch. The LC-F should have arrived before that point and I say the same for the GS-F, which also arrived too late (should've been a 2014 model).
The RC-F was launched right out the gate in Nov 2014, IS-F was launched in January 2008 before the first XE20 facelift in late 2008., despite being belatedly created in 2004.
There are way too many people in the Toyota organization, to be making these amateur mistakes. The lack of consistency has hurt their brand power.
The failure to plan out the LC in a well timed fashion, frustrates me as someone who works in the capacities that I do.
This vehicle despite being delayed into MY 2018, should've been a convertible the very next model year. NOT 3 model years later! LC-F needed to be launched between initial sales start and mid-cycle changes, thus this year alone! Why? Two year point, before 4 year point when facelift arrives.
In their worst cases, BMW experienced with the E90-E93 M3, where their performance variants arrived very late in early 2008, following E90 3 sedan's December 2004 SOP.
They still managed without a hiccup and refreshed the E90 at the end of 2008 anyway, M3 sedan included (coupes for 2011). Similar issue they had in 2000-01 with new '01 M3 coupe barely preceding refreshed 2002 3 sedans. Just like IS-F in 2008, which is tolerable.
Not this case, where the LC has seen little to no changes since 2017, then a belatedly introduced cabrio after 40 months in production! At 40 months, is when MMCs occur. Now it is being speculated it will be a total of 70 to 81 months, before an LC-F variant surfaces? Or even dead altogether? Okay...
It feels like the company is barely functioning at the moment as it couldn't conduct any independent project that is not a by-product of its parent company in a meaningful timescale. At this rate we would see a Highlander GRMN before the LC-F.
My biggest concern for a long time. Acting independently. They have created this situation for themselves now. Lexus should be simply owned by Toyota Motor Corporation, not shared in any significance with the Toyota brand.
The ES sedan is a great success, but at the expense of their flagship and other products. By market default, the packaging of their crossovers allows them to sell at lower prices than their European competition.
This LC-F will have to do it 2x better than the current competition at this rate or is entirely DOA. They really need to avoid making the same mistakes as Infiniti has. Or is the Japanese market not as promising as they hoped 14 years later?
Or canceled territory
All jokes aside I don't think it was reasonable to expect LC-F before refresh/facelift but at this pace it seems facelift will be at least 2 years late or maybe this is another 10 years plus long model cycle.
It should've been here before a facelift. You don't commit to derivative or high performance variants internally, so close to start of production. You start as soon as the general body design and specifications are set, midway through overall model planning.
The second generation IS design was finished in 2003 (began effort in January 2001), in which a high performance IS-F variant barely got off ground in 2004, just as IS 220d/250/350/etc sedan prototypes were in testing.
In the end it took under 4 years and paid off, by launching timely by December 2007 and January 2008. 2006 IS V6 sedans came out in October 2005. Only 26 months elapsed. Not 6 years!
RC-F was already in development since 2011, following RC start in 2010. Final design freeze was in mid-2012. Wasn't the best approach, as the RC hadn't been fully conceptualized before RC-F development began. Both arrived parallel in 2014.
