Lexus Paves Road to Success
When the 8.9 earthquake hit three years ago along the coast of Northeastern Japan, it wreaked havoc and devastation, ultimately leading to a massive tsunami which ultimately affected many companies including Lexus.
Toyota Motor Corp. was among the many companies and suppliers that suffered from the tsunami’s effects, reporting a 72 percent loss between April and September of 2011 and was down 18.5 percent from the year before.
It wasn’t long before Toyota embarked upon a huge cost-reduction mission that eventually spurred on a whopping 572 percent profit increase for the first half of 2012. Sales in 2011 amounted to close to 81.5 million. By April 2012, the car maker’s profits jumped to 548.2 billion in each one of its units – from North America to Asia – despite the downtrend in sales and profits other automakers were experiencing at the time.
In the first three months of 2012, Toyota had sold more cars and trucks than any other automaker in the world. It was at this point, that the Japanese automaker had fully reentered the race.
How did they go from sagging sales and poor production to becoming the number three in the U.S. auto market? Simple. Toyota went back to its roots, employing the method of lean manufacturing.
Lean manufacturing enables a company to cut back on waste in order to decrease the cost of production. Because of it, the automaker was able to triple its quarterly profit in a year’s time.
As of today, Lexus is on its way to passing its arch rivals Mercedes and BMW – and if the current sales trend is any indication of what the future holds, Lexus of Highland Park is pretty confident that the brand might end up on top.
While it sells more compact and midsize sedans on a monthly basis than competing luxury vehicles in that time, the rate of growth Lexus is experiencing is on track to outpace both Mercedes and BMW this year.
With the addition of the 2014 IS, Lexus has more than doubled the sales of its compact sport sedans.
Where it really plans to challenge the status quo, is with the introduction of the Lexus RC Coupe, a high performance, entry level vehicle, offering a 314 horsepower, 3.5 liter V6 with an eight-speed and a 2.5 liter hybrid.
This will be followed by its NX 200t and NX 300h hybrid, which will be in direct competition with the Mercedes GLK and BMW X3 crossovers.
Trouble’s a-brewing and at Lexus of Highland Park, we think the heat is about to be turned up in the three brand luxury vehicle race.
