Lexus Australia CEO, Scott Thompson

LEXUS Australia hopes to have two more dealerships in place by the end of this year, in time for the arrival of is new compact SUV, the UX, in the first quarter of 2019.

The new stores will expand the network to 32 and cover open points in areas thought to have potential for plenty of sales opportunities for the small SUV that will be one of the most affordable and popular models in the Lexus range.

Speaking at the media launch for the new fifth-generation flagship Lexus LS limousine in Tasmania this week, new Lexus Australia chief executive Scott Thompson declined to disclose the locations of the new dealerships, but said work on them was already under way.

GoAutoNews Premium understands one will be in Berwick as part of a large franchise group.

“We would love them to be in operation for the new UX which we will launch in the first quarter of next year,” Mr Thompson said.

“But that is basically it in terms of our expansion.”

In recent years, the Lexus sales and service network has remained relatively static, with 25 dealers running 30 dealerships.

Mr Thompson – an Australian Toyota executive who until recently was posted in the United States where he helped to pull together Toyota’s new five-year global sponsorship deal for the Olympics – said one of the dealerships would be owned by an existing Lexus dealer and the other dealer was new to the franchise.

Mr Thompson said the new UX – revealed last month at the Geneva motor show – would be key to Lexus Australia breaking through the 10,000-unit barrier.

Lexus UX

To date, the Lexus annual sales record is 9027 vehicles set in 2016 when the company’s current best seller, the NX mid-size SUV, hit its straps in one of Australia’s most popular new-car categories.

“I think it (UX) is going to take us over the 10,000 sales mark which is a barrier that we have sort of been eyeing off for a couple of years,” he said.

A competitor for the BMW X2, Audi Q3 and Mercedes-Benz GLA, the UX sits on the new Toyota Global Architecture (TGA) modular platform that spawned the Toyota Prius and C-HR.

Toyota’s new 2.0-litre petrol engine that is claimed to be the most thermally efficient production engine in the world will be slotted into the UX in its pure-petrol and petrol-electric hybrid variants, dubbed UX200 and UX200h.

Mr Thompson said that despite the imminent arrival of the UX, he did not anticipate Lexus becoming an SUV brand in Australia.

“I think 60 per cent is a nice figure (for SUV sales),” he said. “While the UX will add sales, we also have to focus on our passenger cars.

“We have some nice stuff coming towards the back end of the year in terms of some special editions, including some passenger cars.”

Last year, overall Lexus sales dipped 2.5 per cent, to 8800 sales, even though NX sales continued to grow, up 2.5 per cent. The 3390 sales for the NX in 2017 helped drive Lexus’ percentage of SUV sales to about 55 per cent.

Mr Thompson said UX was likely to do for Lexus what the NX did when it arrived in early 2015.

“It is highly anticipated that it is going to bring in a new buyer to our audience, and based on what I have seen in Geneva and the US, it is a seriously good-looking car,” he said. “It will give our brand a real opportunity and a new market.”

Asked about the sliding fortunes of the one-time Lexus sales champion, the IS mid-sized sedan, Mr Thompson said the car had had been given a facelift that had steadied it in the marketplace last year.

But he indicated that such cars would get more marketing attention in future.

“We have to put some work into promoting the car,” he said. “We are very good at launching a car like the NX, but we have to broaden our focus in terms of our entire range.”

This year, part of that focus will be on the all-new LS flagship limousine, although so far, Australia’s stock allocation for the next eight or nine months will be just 120.

By Ron Hammerton

Lexus LS 500