To be honest the LS was already at death's door with the 460 when Toyota kept refreshing it for a decade instead of releasing a brand new model earlier on. That's probably why they took such a different path with the 500 that eschewed the traditional luxury in an attempt to catch onto the most fashionable sedan trend at the time, which was the Panamera and other 4-door coupes. But Akio's disastrous product planning prevented the 500 from reaching its true potential because Lexus was never able to give it the TTV8 it was designed to have with its completely wasted front mid-engine layout that ate up all passenger space.

It's actually rather ironic that the closest parallel to the LS500 wasn't anything German, it was the Cadillac CT6 which made the exact same mistakes and also got cancelled - but at least it died with the Blackwing V8 that it was designed for. One of the few times GM's poor product planning actually managed to do better than Toyota.

 

Self-parking wasn't bad at all, it actually worked. Slow, but it worked. Lexus just didn't know how to market it properly to right people who would want that. They most likely thought that was grandpa & grandma assistance feature instead of targeting tech savy individuals with it. So they dropped another world's first feature after only one or two model years later. Such a waste.

My biggest impression when it came to LS460 was how thick the door trim was. It looked badass but it had purpose. Isolation from everything outside and it worked so damn well.

 

TTV8 wouldn't have saved LS500. People who wanted that kind of engine performance and Panamera styling would have never looked at Lexus LS just like how they never looked at Jaguar XJ. On the other hand, I find LS500 and Jaguar XJ the only flagships that I would actually drive, all other flagships looked like chauffer cars at the time. Unfortunately, LS500 never had any of the cutting-edge tech to be considered flagship competitor. All other LSes before it came with plethora of tech and many world's first but they didn't have styling. LS500 on the other hand oozes styling but it lacks everything else.

 

G90 doesn’t sell either. I think the remaining luxury sedan buyers are really big fans of luxury sedans and we buy the best ones, and it doesn’t leave much left over for the LS or the G90.

I agree 100%. LS should have been all new for 13.

 

Maybe all large luxury sedans sales will continue to sink no matter how good they are. SUV/Truck/EV luxury seems to dominate now.

I posted LS sales from peak to trough in another thread. It's really bad. No way there's another gen LS.

 

They will all continue to sink yes

 

It will. The benefits a sedan use to offer over a SUV are diminishing. SUVs pretty much does it all now, ample space, decent mpg, great handling, etc.

 

It's not so much whether it would have saved the LS as it is a demonstration of how little faith Toyota had in their own product that they couldn't see it to completion as they originally planned.

 

I don't think Genesis will make it in the luxury market unless it's a "bargain luxury" offering.

They're going up against major Icons in the segment like BMW and Mercedes, I don't think it will end well for them.

I see them dialing it back to a premium offering eventually but not luxury.

 

Genesis is doing fine, the G90 was always planned to be a very niche low-volume offering in the US because its intended target market was South Korea where the brunt of its sales are. Not many dealers are actually slashing prices or offering good lease deals on them. This is in stark contrast to the LS where its primary market is the US, and it's failing in the only country it has any relevance in. LS isn't even popular in Japan.

 

Lexus has to be a value play too

 

Yes, a 5LS released in 2013 as a 2014 Model Year.


Yes, I think all sedans will continue to sink - but not at the rate of the sporty 5LS; I think it will continue to sink at the rate of the S Class and 7 Series.
Had Lexus continued to design a traditional full size luxury sedan like the 1st to 4th generation LS, the LS would have continued to outsell the S Class just like the previous 4 generations of LS's.
The Millennials and Generation Z will drive their hi riding SUV's and trucks.


IMO, I don't think a V8 TT would have done much for the 5LS sales.
I think: arguably tidied up styling, and certainly a less sporty yet more luxurious design to cater for mainstream full size luxury sedan consumer tastes would have made 5LS outsell S Class like usual, with 7 Series sales depressed as always.
Instead, the sporty 5LS went down, while the 7 Series finally rose to fill the gap in full size luxury sedan sales.

 

I was looking at Genesis G90 US sales for Jan-June of this year and for the 6 months they've sold 697 cars, and for Q2 255 cars (85 per month). Their SUVs are selling the huge majority of the vehicles here. I could see them possibly pulling the G90 from the US market while keeping in other markets where it does better.

 

You say this all the time but it’s actually not true. The LS did outsell the S Class some years but not consistently at all. In fact since 2006 the only years the LS outsold the S Class was 2007 and 2008. Prior to 2006 you saw the LS outselling it consistently but that was 20 years ago and there was a huge price difference then

 

Nothing would have saved the LS because like I said before, it was already a dead man walking when it was the 460. But the issue with the 500 wasn't so much the direction as it was the fact that Lexus gave up halfway and released an incomplete, unfinished product before calling it a day. They wanted to chase the Panamera instead of the S-Class but didn't have the commitment to go either direction.

They aren't going to pull the G90 unless there's a direct flagship replacement for it in the Genesis lineup. It'll stick around for the rest of this generation in the US at least because they've already spent the money to certify and crash test it. Kia kept the K900 around even when its sales were only three digits and the only reason they pulled it from the US was because they were afraid it would step on the G90's flagship status.