LM pricing announced

[ColinBarber]

Anyone who feels the new LBX is a little too small should maybe look at the LM 😉 

 

[Spacewagon52]

Oh no Colin!

 

A re-badged Previa!

[Linas.P]

And somebody said I was wrong to suggest it will be £110k... indeed I was - it is £112k.

1 hour ago, Spacewagon52 said:

A re-badged Previa!

Alphard actually...

[Mr Vlad]

I actually saw a Toyota Alphard when I was in Bowness in August. I was pleasantly surprised just how good it looks in 'person'. Photos simply don't do it justice. 

Although it was a Toyota the interior looked very very Lexus.

Definitely though this car is a Marmite car. Some like me really like how it looks. Probably a majority won't. 

[Linas.P]

I don't think it is bad car - family MPVs were kind of staple since like mid-90s, I think they kind of lost their popularity to SUVs in last ~10 years, but there is nothing inherently wrong with MPV. Sure they look maybe a little silly with small wheels and SUV kind of have nicer proportions and maybe even slight "offroad" capability, but I am not hating on MPV in principle. 

What I am hating on is the cost - £112k from MPV?! These suppose to be family cars slitting somewhere between saloon and SUV, they just can't replace the limousine. And this is exactly what LM is trying to do here. Note - LM basically is now Lexus "flagship". Because it is more expensive than LC and it is more expensive than most of LS (LS starts at £95k and end around £125k)... who... WHO in their right mind would chose LM over LS (outside of Southern Asia obviously, where they have different understanding about cars and different values)?

Now what counts as "sales flop" for Lexus I don't know, as I can't imagine they are selling many of LS right now. maybe even single digits. So if they sell 50 LMs of them, say 10 each to Malaysian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Philippian and Chinese embassies in London... then does this counts as a sale success? I am sure this will be sales flop with general public, like literally NOBODY will buy them as personal vehicle in UK. Again - with Lexus selling such a small numbers maybe 50 cars makes sense for them? I mean surely they would have sold way more IS350s and RC350s, but they decided it was "too small fish to fry", so I am just surprised that they decided LM is worth it. Perhaps their profit margin is astronomical on it... which to be honest is most likely - Toyota Alphard is like £35-50k car, turning it into LM cannot cost more than £10k to Lexus, so the rest ~£50-60k must be profit.

So not only I find it ugly and overpriced, but it seems to be the most overpriced, highest margin (so by default worst value) car Lexus has to offer. On the positive note - these will absolutelly sink like rocks in value, so when Chinese embassy offloads them in 5 years time I would not be surprised to see them at £10-20k used. At which point they probably will be great value!

[MartinH]

Cannot see the China embassy equipping itself with Japanese cars tho?

[Boomer54]

5 minutes ago, MartinH said:

Cannot see the China embassy equipping itself with Japanese cars tho?

Watch that space, they could be taking a lot more than cars 🤨

[HGUS]

When I first saw this I thought ummmm, a posh Vellfire.  £110K+, think I'll give it a miss.  Not saying that it doesn't look nice but ..... 

[Linas.P]

42 minutes ago, MartinH said:

Cannot see the China embassy equipping itself with Japanese cars tho?

Sales just dropped to 40 cars per year then!

I mean they won't get ChongChi either... so that leaves them with German cars... which it is indeed most likely. But the point remains - MPVs are only considered "luxury" in Southern Asia, in Middle-East they could be considered "luxury for servants", so for very posh household they would have maybe a Royce Royce and their body guards and cooks and nannies could sit in LM... 

[wharfhouse]

3 hours ago, Linas.P said:

I don't think it is bad car - family MPVs were kind of staple since like mid-90s, I think they kind of lost their popularity to SUVs in last ~10 years, but there is nothing inherently wrong with MPV. Sure they look maybe a little silly with small wheels and SUV kind of have nicer proportions and maybe even slight "offroad" capability, but I am not hating on MPV in principle. 

What I am hating on is the cost - £112k from MPV?! These suppose to be family cars slitting somewhere between saloon and SUV, they just can't replace the limousine. And this is exactly what LM is trying to do here. Note - LM basically is now Lexus "flagship". Because it is more expensive than LC and it is more expensive than most of LS (LS starts at £95k and end around £125k)... who... WHO in their right mind would chose LM over LS (outside of Southern Asia obviously, where they have different understanding about cars and different values)?

Now what counts as "sales flop" for Lexus I don't know, as I can't imagine they are selling many of LS right now. maybe even single digits. So if they sell 50 LMs of them, say 10 each to Malaysian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Philippian and Chinese embassies in London... then does this counts as a sale success? I am sure this will be sales flop with general public, like literally NOBODY will buy them as personal vehicle in UK. Again - with Lexus selling such a small numbers maybe 50 cars makes sense for them? I mean surely they would have sold way more IS350s and RC350s, but they decided it was "too small fish to fry", so I am just surprised that they decided LM is worth it. Perhaps their profit margin is astronomical on it... which to be honest is most likely - Toyota Alphard is like £35-50k car, turning it into LM cannot cost more than £10k to Lexus, so the rest ~£50-60k must be profit.

So not only I find it ugly and overpriced, but it seems to be the most overpriced, highest margin (so by default worst value) car Lexus has to offer. On the positive note - these will absolutelly sink like rocks in value, so when Chinese embassy offloads them in 5 years time I would not be surprised to see them at £10-20k used. At which point they probably will be great value!

Yes that's what I can't understand - Lexus decide not to bring the latest IS to UK/Europe as they said it won't sell enough and leave us with just the ES which is no substitute and doesn't seem to be selling that well, or multiple sizes of SUV - but then continue to have LS, LC and now this LM that all together will only make up a few sales a year... 

[Linas.P]

10 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

Yes that's what I can't understand - Lexus decide not to bring the latest IS to UK/Europe as they said it won't sell enough and leave us with just the ES which is no substitute and doesn't seem to be selling that well, or multiple sizes of SUV - but then continue to have LS, LC and now this LM that all together will only make up a few sales a year... 

I guess LS/LC I can understand... they have to be there for branding... it is like 911 for Porsche... sure they sell 10 times more Cayennes and Macans, but without 911 Porsche is not Porsche. But why LM?! One - they don't need it, Two - it won't sell, Three - they have not brought much more desirable models on the excuse they won't sell despite the fact they would sell at least more than LM... sure IS350 won't sell 1000s, but it would sell 250 cars a year, RC probably more... in general latest gen IS if released 2 years ago when they introduced it in US would have sold easily a 1000+ cars across the range in first year alone, I assume most would be 300h and that is fine, but nobody would hurt from having 100 odd IS500 in UK. So yes that is not ridiculous numbers, say 1000 first year, 500 second year and then sliding scale.. say 3500 cars per model run. Still that would be like 10 times more than LM will sell. 

[Gary H]

I’m really struggling to see Lexus’ justification in the pricing on this. Obviously, I’m missing something major about it but for a starting price of £90k for a van with windows and leather seats seems...steep. That’s probably the politest way I can put it.

I will be genuinely surprised if they can shift anything more than double digits in any given year before it’s quietly dropped from the UK market. It’s something I can imagine being used by exclusive London hotels as taxis for the rich and famous. I couldn’t see why anyone would want one as a personal car. Not from new, at least. Not when I would choose practically any other Lexus model over it.

[hockeyedwards]

@Gary H lets hope it flops, but a few reallyyyyyy high spec ones get purchased by dealers or customers, only to become absolute steals for the second hand market! 😉

On the pricing front, everything is just insane money, not that I would ever really consider buying new, but having looked across the board at everything from little to large and sporty, nothing is 'good value' in my eyes. Not until it's two years old 😛 

[Linas.P]

22 minutes ago, hockeyedwards said:

@Gary H lets hope it flops, but a few reallyyyyyy high spec ones get purchased by dealers or customers, only to become absolute steals for the second hand market! 😉

On the pricing front, everything is just insane money, not that I would ever really consider buying new, but having looked across the board at everything from little to large and sporty, nothing is 'good value' in my eyes. Not until it's two years old 😛 

That is exactly what is going to happen... I mean if it is coming to UK then there will be at least like 100 of them in the country. And they will absolutelly sink in value, there is no sort of second hand desire from them, they are basically a single purpose things and once that purpose is served they are worthless. That is the same reason why stretched limousines are worthless when used.

As for why it is priced as it is - I am not sure what Lexus have missed, but their priced it with the prices that are acceptable in Southern-Asia as they simply do not look into the cars same as we do. It is like Americans with pick-ups and Australians with "utes"... we will never get why MPV is luxurious, but the yare regarded as such in that region. But the key point - NOT in UK... so it is just madness to bring that model here or expect it to sell for LS money.

[wharfhouse]

8 hours ago, Linas.P said:

That is exactly what is going to happen... I mean if it is coming to UK then there will be at least like 100 of them in the country. And they will absolutelly sink in value, there is no sort of second hand desire from them, they are basically a single purpose things and once that purpose is served they are worthless. That is the same reason why stretched limousines are worthless when used.

As for why it is priced as it is - I am not sure what Lexus have missed, but their priced it with the prices that are acceptable in Southern-Asia as they simply do not look into the cars same as we do. It is like Americans with pick-ups and Australians with "utes"... we will never get why MPV is luxurious, but the yare regarded as such in that region. But the key point - NOT in UK... so it is just madness to bring that model here or expect it to sell for LS money.

Could be turned into a nice mini campervan...? 

[Linas.P]

3 hours ago, wharfhouse said:

Could be turned into a nice mini campervan...? 

Isn't it better to start from Transporter van then? 

[wharfhouse]

43 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Isn't it better to start from Transporter van then? 

Yes it is - just if there was an LM in the future going really cheap...!

[Linas.P]

7 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

Yes it is - just if there was an LM in the future going really cheap...!

Funny enough - yeah it is likely they will be cheaper than transporters used for delivery of potatoes, just because transporters are being usually converted so there is certain group of people looking out for them, whereas LM may go under the radar as quite unusual choice... 

[wharfhouse]

Lexus is confident that there will be a market for such a car here in Europe, and it’s a confidence that’s been ratified by the fact it’s already over-subscribed. As it stands, Lexus UK has over 170 units already on pre-order, which is nearly nine times the typical annual volume of its LS flagship. 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/lexus/lm

[Linas.P]

Funny enough I was just reading same article...

Malaysian embassy going all in... the only sad fact - those 170 cars are all the cars they will ever sell. I have no doubt there is niche market for them and that niche is desperate enough to pre-order them, but I just can't see any random British person walking into Lexus dealer and saying "yeah - I will have that please".

[Malc1]

Strange your saying about “ experimental” Embassy cars by Lexus 

My newly acquired 1991 Ls400 began its illustrious life as an Embassy car ……. maybe that’s the way brand new really expensive models begin life from Lexus 

Malc 

[Linas.P]

Except LS could be used as personal cars and have certain appeal to certain type of people, whereas LM are only possible to use as car for chauffeuring somebody, you can't just buy it and let's say drive your family around. I guess it is not impossible, just doesn't make sense.

[dutchie01]

from todays autoexpress.

Lexus is confident that there will be a market for such a car here in Europe, and it’s a confidence that’s been ratified by the fact it’s already over-subscribed. As it stands, Lexus UK has over 170 units already on pre-order, which is nearly nine times the typical annual volume of its LS flagship. 

So while the luxury saloon market might be shrinking, luxury car buyers now have one more van-shaped reason not to bother going back.

[Linas.P]

I think pre-orders are meaningless. Take for example LC500 which is by the way absolutelly excellent car - pre-orders were oversubscribed as well. I believe they planned total of 2000 cars worldwide and only UK has pre-ordered like 500. How many cars were sold "organically" since then, seems like none!? And we are talking about car with wide public appeal, strong second hand values and genuinely good car.

So I am really sceptical about the sales outside of group of very specific people who really needed it. I think 170 is all the sales that will be achieved overall, maybe single digits in years after that.

[Malc1]

2 hours ago, Linas.P said:

maybe single digits in years after that.

just 1 or 2 then ............. 🤣

I'm thinking I read last year or whenever that the final Ls600 sale was just a single car in the UK  that year 😥

Malc