Lexus Aiming Low For UX Price, Wants America's Youth Behind the Wheel

With its new UX crossover in tow, Lexus now has a utility vehicle competing in every segment. However, it wants to make sure its getting the right customers behind the wheel. If the gargantuan GL is intended for large families with a fair amount of pocket change and an abundance of parking space, the UX is certainly aimed at childless urbanites who want something upscale but haven’t yet amassed the same level of wealth.

Lexus is aiming low for the subcompact luxury crossover’s base price, hoping to tap into the youth market. That’s important because the average owner for a Lexus-badged vehicle is around 60-years old. However, a cheap and youth-oriented vehicle for Lexus doesn’t mean the same thing as it does for Toyota and the MSRP is going to reflect that — despite UX’s downmarket push.

Mercedes-Benz has the GLA starting at $33,400 and Audi has the Q3 at a somewhat leaner $32,900, so we’d expect Lexus to attempt to undercut them with the UX ever-so-slightly. But that might not be the case. The brand has previously said $30,000 would be too low for a luxury model and, in an interview with Automotive News, Lexus General Manager Jeff Bracken said the target market will still have been out of high school for quite some time.

“We are trying to get at an audience that’s probably about 35 years old, men and women by the way, and I suppose you could throw in the millennial group as well,” he elaborated during the New York Auto Show. “And that would be a huge win for us because, clearly, with our current average buyer with all our vehicles at 60, we have a ways to go.”

Dave Sullivan, manager of product analysis at AutoPacific, suggested a UX starting price of around $33,000 — which would keep it a comfortable distance from the larger NX’s pre-destination MSRP of $35,985. But the littler Lexus is down on power against its German rivals. Both the GLA and Q3 are equipped with engines producing at least 200 horsepower. Meanwhile, the UX’s “Dynamic Force” 2.0-liter inline-four is only expected to make 168 hp in its base trim.

While that is a significant increase in might over the C-HR, which it shares a platform with, it’s still likely to be a noticeable downgrade in power against the German offerings. Therefore, the UX will have to wow consumers with superior polish and practicality.

This is not inconceivable. The C-HR offers 27 city / 31 highway, according to the EPA, and there is no reason to think the UX’s impressive thermal efficiency won’t adhere closely to those numbers. Lexus also has the benefit of the UX 250h, which adds some extra power, all-wheel drive, and improves economy through hybridization. While the Direct Shift CVT isn’t the most enthralling of transmission types, Lexus says it will feel more natural and fun than a standard unit.

There is also the matter of the UX’s ludicrously tight 17.1-foot turning radius and the inclusion of Toyota’s safety suite. We don’t yet know everything that will be on the crossover but Lexus made mention of a pre-collision system that uses radar to detect pedestrians and bicyclists, two things that are incredibly important during city driving.

However, none of that guarantees a younger audience will take notice. “Our take on millenials is that it’s really, really difficult to tell them, ‘We’re building a car for you.’ That’s almost a turnoff,” explained Bracken. He claimed the solution to that was aggressive market research and the utilization of the brand’s first female chief engineer, Chika Kako. “ The styling is polarizing but in a way that people won’t mistake it for the Lexus their grandmother drives,” he said.

Lexus is targeting the UX at the same volume benchmarks it had for the launch of the NX — 20,000 units per year. Also like the NX, it’s hoping the smaller crossover will surpass expectations. The NX moved 43,764 units in the UX during it’s first full year (2015) and sales have increased to almost 60,000 annual deliveries in the United States. Bracken is hoping the addition of a subscription service will help bolster appeal to the younger crowd. “A subscription service is what all the cool kids are doing these days,” he said.

Both the hybrid UX 250h and conventional UX 200 will go on sale in the United States late in the fall.

[Images: Toyota Motor Corp.]