Industry Report: Lexus Undaunted by Lackluster European Sales

Lexus Planning to Triple European Deliveries by 2010

Auto producers have long understood that what may sell in one jurisdiction may only be of little interest in another. This

Considering its success in North America, why hasn't Toyota's Lexus division made a larger dent into Europe's luxury segment?. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press)

has been true of subcompact cars in the U.S., which sell extremely well in Canada, and full-size SUVs which only sell moderately in Canada but have long thrived south of the border, up until recently at least.

So why hasn't Toyota's Lexus division made a larger dent into Europe's luxury segment? After all, Toyota has been selling the Lexus brand across the Atlantic for more than thirteen years, almost as long as it the luxury marque has been available in North America, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. So far this year Lexus has reached a volume of more than 210,000 units in the U.S. And Europe? A mere 20,000 and change, hardly enough to write home to Japan about, especially considering the old world

Lexus cars are more about precision engineering rather than passionate styling. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press)

has a larger luxury market than North America. In comparison, Volkswagen AG's Audi division and BMW both sold more than 400,000 units in Western Europe, while Mercedes-Benz delivered close to 530,000.

Of course it's no wonder Lexus is having difficulties selling in Europe. Its cars are more about precision engineering rather than passionate styling. After all, Europe is a completely different market, one that has fostered radically individual styling exercises such as the Fiat Multipla, Renault Vel Satis and BMW 7- and 5-Series, and continued to support automakers such as Fiat, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, and Skoda, among others, that have long since been driven out of North America due to reliability problems and even poorer service.