Lexus LX 600 set for India launch
Year end launch for the all-new full-size LX is on the cards says Naveen Soni, president, Lexus India
“WE WANT TO BE SEEN AS AN ‘EXPERIENCE SELLING’ COMPANY”
LEXUS INDIA IS WORKING TO SECURE allocation of the all-new LX 600 full-size SUV for India, with launch planned for the year end. In an interaction on the sidelines of the Lexus NX 350h media drives, Lexus India president Naveen Soni confirmed to evo India that, “We are looking at various options to delight our customers, but by the middle of this year we should be able to come up with a concrete idea.” On a pointed question whether the launch will be at the year end Soni says, “Somewhere around that time the global [right-hand-drive] launches are happening so we are raising our hands too to secure our cars for that period.”
Globally unveiled in late 2021, the Lexus LX 600 uses the same body-on-frame construction as the LC300 Toyota Land Cruiser and gets a new 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 that produces 410bhp and 650Nm of torque. It is mated to a 10-speed automatic gearbox with four-wheel-drive including low ratio. The big talking point is of course that enormous grille that takes everything that BMW is doing and raises it by a factor of 10. There’s even an ‘ultraluxury’ version with an even more elaborate grille for even crazier road presence. The LX 600 is a full seven-seater with a third row of seats but can be optioned with the executive rear seat package that makes it a four-seater where the front seat can slide all the way forward while opening out a foot rest to make for a business class seat for the rear passenger. No word on expected prices but it is safe to assume it will be north of `2 crore, approximately `2.3 crore is our expectation. And it will be a CBU.
Naveen Soni was also forthcoming on Lexus India’s plans and here are some excerpts from the interview where he insists that, “We don’t want to be seen as a ‘car-selling’ company. We want to be seen as an ‘experience selling’ company.”
We have started this journey merely five years ago
“There is a very good future ahead for the brand because we have just begun. We have understood the market, the initial brand seeding has been done, consolidation has been done, now what you are looking at is sustainable growth for all stakeholders, including when the customers drive their car, which is sustainable. 97 per cent of the cars in our portfolio are hybrid. Our dealerships represent a sustainable future. We want to immerse the customer in the Lexus experience and through that, create good word of mouth. The only way we can now move forward is to offer more and more global products to meet customer expectations, and go deeper into the Indian customer’s psyche.”
We have ‘Guest Experience Centres’
“We started with three and added one more, so we currently have four Guest Experience Centres, in the main cities of the country. By the end of two months, we will add another three. These seven centres represent 56 per cent of the luxury car market. Dealers at the guest experience centres are doing an excellent job so that they can provide more than 66 per cent of the volume. That means they have a better market share and provide better customer service. That’s why they are able to grab a deeper foothold in the market. Having said that, this is still leaving out a large part of the country which is unattended to. For that what we are trying to do now is enhance the network through other mechanisms such as the ‘Brand Experience Centre’. These centres may not even have a car, but they will at least have a Guest Experience Centre feeling to it, in terms of how the customer has to be treated, what is their aspiration, where you meet them, without even showing a vehicle. With these surrogate showrooms that will be coming up soon, we intend to go from 56 per cent of the market to 93 per cent of the market, by the end of this year. [We will be providing] service at the doorstep, so that gives the customer confidence when they’re buying a car, that at least their service needs are taken care of.
Response [to NX 350h] has been beyond our imagination
“We had a waiting period of more than six months. What we are now trying to do is negotiate with our head office, to prioritise India as a market, so that we can get more and more cars of this type so that we can reduce that waiting period because it does not give us joy to say that the customer has to wait for six months to get this car.”
Definitely it [local assembly] would help
“Volume is important. Even for the ES, when we took that decision, it would have been a very difficult one because parts localisation requires a certain volume, otherwise to do those mandatory localisations you’ll invest more through yourself or your local vendors, which would offset the duty benefits that might come by making it from CBU to CKD.”
Luxury truly is being sold now the way it has to be sold
“Luxury is no longer associated with some kind of discounts. Today, maybe because of the semiconductor shortages, maybe because of the market dynamics, but today we are at a position where customers are really enjoying buying luxury cars. Had the semiconductor crisis not been so severe, I think we would have seen a bigger revival than what we are seeing now.”
Indian customer is always concerned about price
“1 per cent of the population controls 76 per cent of the national wealth. This is very unique compared to other countries where the average is at 50 per cent. This one per cent, if you’re thinking he’s not price-conscious, he is still very price-conscious. But as long as he sees a value commensurate to the money that he’s paying, whether it is through the product or whether it is through the service that you provide, then he’s willing to come ahead. But he is still very much value-conscious.”