(Not-So) Wild Ass Rumor Of The Day: Lexus HS250h Getting The Axe
Quick, name the Toyota product least affected by Asian floods and tsunamis? How about the Lexus HS250h? While its junior “dedicated hybrid” brand-mate, the CT200h took a nasty lick straight from its launch, which occurred just as the tsunami hit, the HS has been Mr Reliable. Mr Reliably Unpopular that is: the instantly-stodgy, $37k base price sedan has found between 150 and 300 buyers every single month this year. You can’t pin that on any tsunami, the car is simply a sales stinker. And when high-profit luxury vehicles flop this badly, you have to wonder how it will affect the brand’s the reputation. In any case, I don’t have a [sub] to Wards, so I don’t know why they’re reporting that the HS will be dropped… but I’m not in the least surprised. The market has spoken, it’s time to kill it with fire.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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I imagine that the CT200h makes the HS250h somewhat redundant. I think somebody called the CT200h "the entry-level Lexus." Certainly, $30K for that car is not as daunting as $37K for the 250. And it seems to me that the 200 gets favorable reviews. Also, as a hybrid, the 200 seems to get significantly better fuel economy, which is a must have feature for a hybrid to get the interesst of people with green tendencies. The HS250h probably didn't cost Toyota all that much to develop and they didn't tie their reputation up in it, so there's no reason not to cancel it.
Lets see. Lexus hoped to sell 20 to 22K of these a year. They have sold 2000 so far. Toyota hoped to sell 40K Sequoia's a year and sold 9K so far. They expected to sell 200,000 Tundra's a year and sold 67,000 so far. IIRC the sequoia is getting renamed to Land Cruiser pretty soon. The HS is perfect car for the Lexus customer base who like buying overpriced Toyota's so everyone will think they are rich.
I can't believe the HS even made it to the showroom floor, given its low-rent exterior styling and proportions. Others are right; they should have hybridized the ES with this powertrain and left the CT as the entry model. At least the CT is sharp looking and is rumored to handle well. If the HS dies alone in a corner, maybe the CT can inherit the new Camry hybrid powertrain; it's more efficient and MotorTrend just clocked that car at 7.2 seconds to 60.
The HS is ugly AND overpriced. Now Acura needs to dump the even worse selling RL and the hideous and impractical ZDX.