Sulu

Have you never heard of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" (or "a face only a mother can love")? What you believe is ugly, others may find to be exceedingly beautiful. Styling is also very trendy: a particular style or pattern will be fashionable for a time and then fall out of fashion. A style that goes against the current fashion can be seen to be "ugly". For a time, the Bangle butt was considered to be stylish and seemingly all cars had to have it; the same goes for the high-beltline / low-roof styling.

These surveys you advocate may not answer much either, especially when it comes to style and fashion. Afraid to be seen as "out of style", people will tend to answer what they believe -- what they have been led to believe -- is attractive. The questions asked in these surveys can also be very leading questions, sub-consciously leading you to the answer the questioners seek.

mmarshall

Good post, Sulu. You are correct that the public, the auto press, (and, yes, even designers), get swept up in automotive fads and consider that "progress". That's one reason why we have so many vehicles today with low-profile tires that ride like s*** on rough roads even if they are OK on smooth ones, are exceedingly difficult to see out the back of (which made the back-up cameras necessary), make you scroll through long electronic menus to do even simple adjustments that could be done with a single ****-twist, make even shifting the transmission unnecessarily awkward, and make you curl yourself up like a pretzel to get in and out of the rear seat. Unfortunately, newer is not always better.

peteharvey

That beauty is in the eye of the beholder is the "old adage".
If you read carefully, I did state in Post # 1873 that surveys and sales figures give us a good overall idea of the value, as opposed to a single individual opinion.
Hi sales figures in particular are not necessarily representative of what is actually best, but it does give us a good idea.

A single individual's opinion like my opinion or your opinion can be obviously grossly inaccurate, and this is why we have a democracy, as opposed to military dictatorship like Kim Jong-Un etc.
No two minds will ever think exactly alike, hence we must compromize via democratic voting and polling etc.

For example, if the market doesn't like the new ugly Prius or whatever, then we must accept that, and learn to improve on that.
If it's the styling, then we must rectify the styling.
If it's the lack of full EV range, then we must rectify the EV range etc...

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/car...ml#post9773712
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mmarshall

The point that I think Sulu was making, though (and I agree with him) is that many people don't really express their own opinion, because they aren't really thinking for themselves. What they express is what they have been conditioned to believe....a sort of automotive "political correctness". That's not quite as much the case in a forum like this, where we are all generally car enthusiasts and think for ourselves, as it is out there in the cookie-cutter world.

peteharvey

Yes, like I say, surveys give us a good idea, but unfortunately, surveys are not 100% accurate.
Just because something sells well, or surveys well - doesn't necessarily mean that it is good.

Presently, there is no 100% accurate way a measuring and quantifying certain parameters like styling.
We must compromise and quantify by using the democratic voting or polling process.
Sometimes, the constitution requires democratic victory by a minimum margin eg 2:1 to be statistically significant.

The bigger the sample number, the more accurate the results of the survey, and obviously specialist forums like ClubLexus is not necessarily representive of the real world out there...
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Sulu

No opinion is grossly inaccurate. An opinion is not fact -- it is a personal, unsubstantiated belief -- so it cannot be accurate nor inaccurate. Despite that, there are many people in this thread who have tried to bully others in their effort to say that their opinion is the only accurate and correct one.

You are correct in saying that in sampling theory, the larger the sample, the smaller the margin of error, but that does not mean that every survey of thousands of people gives us any great insight to whatever topic is being studied, especially if the study is about something as trendy and fleeting as fashion.

peteharvey

And that's exactly what I said in Post # 1873 & 1878 above.
Sales, surveys, voting, polling and democracy only gives "a good idea" of what's happening; there is presently no 100% perfect method to substantiate exactly what is happening - only God knows the real value.

However, democracy, voting, polling and surveying is how our civilisation works.
Toyota Motor Corporation products are designed to best fit the market.
Most of the times, they get it right; sometimes they get it wrong, but that's life.

At the end of the day, it is not personal opinion that counts.
It is the market's opinion via sales and surveys.
Sales and surveys are not necessarily the same.
A TMC product can sell well, but if polling or survey shows that the product/feature is unpopular, TMC will always do their best to improve the product/feature.

On ClubLexus Forum, it is difficult to do a proper full market survey.
However, I don't mind the odd CL Forum survey/poll here and there.
Like I say, it is not the be all and end all, but it certainly gives us a good idea of what people want.
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UDel

I am talking about the current S class. I am not wrong at all, if most of the population cared about brand and prestige nobody would by Lexus or Acura's, they would just buy Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche. Well buyers are choosing the G90 over the current LS by a pretty decent margin this month, 468 for the G90 vs 280 for the LS, I believe the G90 outsold the LS the previous month too. I don't see why buyers would not chose the G90 which has a V8 option over the new LS which may not have a V8 option especially if the LS is going to jump up significantly in price.

SW17LS

Nobody is schilling for the G90, its just that if you like the Toyota LS (I see what you did there) and what it always has been, you'll like the G90, as when you drive it its clear that the car was designed to be as similar to the LS as possible, and its much cheaper.

If the LS500 is a different sort of car, which it may be, people don't like the TTV6, it may be much more dynamic and tauter, stiffer, the G90 is an excellent choice for LS owners that the new iteration of the LS doesn't work for.

I may be one of those owners, have to wait and drive the LS500.

You may say that "very few" will chose the G90, but you have a 3 time LS owner here who is clearly a big Lexus fan telling you he might choose the G90...take that for what you will.

situman

It just goes to show that barriers to entry in the luxury segment are the intangibles like perception and prestige. Any car company with money and good engineers can create a luxury car or a multi billionaire CEO with a crazy vision. At the end of the day, what can MB or BMW realistically do that most other car companies can't? You can't engineer or buy prestige but that's a function of time.

SW17LS

Agreed. What you need though to break in is a hook, something unique about your product that makes people who own established luxury marques take notice. Tesla's hook is obvious. When Lexus was launched, it became a sort of counter-establishment in liberal "nouveaux riche" enclaves like metro DC where I live, New England, California, FL...it was cool to have a "Lexus" because it bucked the commonality and expectation that one would purchase an established luxury brand.

THAT is what Genesis is missing, they really screwed the pooch with their rollout by not doing a brand from the get go, and now their cars are unmistakably linked to Hyundai in a way Lexus was not as linked to Toyota, and they don't enjoy that "outsider but totally legitimate" feel that Lexus did. Thats whats going to hold them back from the sort of success that Lexus had had IMHO.

e325rkh

I agree with everything you've said. As for Genesis, are they planning on rolling out their own dealerships? I understand that you don't need the dealerships for service because of their pick up and drop off service, but what about initial purchase with the Hyundai's, which, along with Kia, were not great experiences. I think Ford has also done that with Lincoln (where there used to be Lincoln/Mercury dealers).

situman

Yes, Lexus succeeded by shocking the industry and continued to build upon that, although the decade before Akio was certainly a bit sketchy. People buy the G90 or whatever its call because its a really nice Hyundai and its a great value instead of it being a really nice luxury car.

SW17LS

I think they will need to, and should have already. For instance when I went to drive the G90, I had to drive 30 miles one way (very few Hyundai dealers sell the G90, all sell the G80), and I live in metro DC where you can't go 2 miles without seeing a car dealer. Where I drove it was a Hyundai dealer, it was parked next to an Elantra. Guy who took me for the drive had a Hyundai shirt on. That experience isn't going to cut it. Customers aren't going to do that much work to see the product, and that experience to somebody who is accustomed to the feel of a Lexus, MB, BMW etc dealer is going to color their perception of the car.

Its like I always say "cheaper" does not mean "better value". Something is cheaper if it costs less. Something is a better value if its just as good or better, and costs less. The car is great, its easily the peer of the LS and others, but the experience of shopping for it is not. And when you're making your capstone "I've made it" flagship luxury purchase, that experience matters. If you've had a bunch of them like me and that experience no longer wows you, yeah maybe you can get us but that first guy...no way.

I don't see "Hyundai buyers" buying the G90, I think people who buy them will come from cars like the LS, 7 Series, S Class who have had one or more of them, and see the value and move down to a G90. But, the way Genesis is now you need a buyer who is worn out of paying for the flash of a luxury brand.

Sulu

I must disagree. You are confusing the population of the Club Lexus forum with the general population; the contributors of this forum do not correspond to the general car-buying population. The general population DOES consider Lexus to be a prestigious, luxury brand.