Lexus Wins First Round Of Luxury Race
Didn’t BMW make noises that they “want to be the number 1 luxury carmaker in the United States by 2012?“ If that’s still the case, then the boys from Bavaria better get their act together. Currently, they don’t look so good. In the March 2010 sales round-up, they came in with a measly 3 percent growth, while the market grew 24 percent. Then, as Automotive News [sub] points out, there is a dark horse:
Lexus. They were invisible in our list, because they were bunched into the Toyota numbers. AN broke the numbers out and came to the conclusion that “Lexus — the leading luxury-auto brand in the United States for the past decade — used a 42 percent gain in March to inch ahead of rival Mercedes-Benz after the first quarter.”
AN cleaned up all the data, removed all the non-luxury goods, such as Mercedes Sprinter vans (and most likely the odd Smart and Mini) and came to the following conclusion:
Lexus sold 49,523 luxury cars in the first quarter.
Mercedes is just a few behind with 49,229 for the quarter.
BMW comes in third, with 46,323 sold in the first quarter of 2010.
(In case you are missing Audi: They were listed under Volkswagen. A separate press release shows that Audi isn’t even close: They closed out the first quarter with 21,315 units.)
Does that mean the already counted out luxury segment is coming back from the near-dead? Jessica Caldwell, senior analyst at Edmunds is surprised: “We assumed when times were tough that luxury sales would fall. It has held its share of the market. The luxury market is doing pretty well.”
The numbers show a tight neck-on-neck race. Currently, the luxo-brands with the strongest acceleration are Lexus and Daimler. However, it’s a long time until the end of 2012, and a lot can happen in an endurance race.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I don't know where the status image of owning a BMW comes from in the USA. In Germany, BMW's are just considered regular cars. Mercedes has much more status in Germany. BMW's marketing department seems to be doing a heck of a job over here. Personally, I did not buy my BMW for status, I bought it for the driving dynamics. Almost anyone can buy a CPO BMW, as they are fairly cheap. It's the maintenance at the dealer that will kill you. If you can DIY, a BMW is actually a reasonably cost effective car to own. I also try to drive more carefully when I am in my BMW as to not perpetuate the "BMW drivers are pricks" mentality.
BMW's marketing department is jumping off the deep end by ditching "ultimate driving machine" for the vague "joy". As for the earlier Saab 9-5 comments: the quality of the interior is great. The 9-5 at the New York show had an interior trimmed with REAL aluminum. Not the painted, "aluminum look" interiors of the CTS and XF, but the real thing. Its the little details such as this that are encouraging to see. If that attention to detail carries over to the 9-4 Saab will have a fighting chance. until then I will consider Saab to be still hungry for brains. BRAINS!