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Lexus back in luxury sales race after three-year absence

Think the only challengers for the title of best-selling luxury brand hail from der Vaterland? Wrong. Lexus outsold the likes of Mercedes-Benz for the second time in 2014 last month. In fact, the Japanese luxury marque's total sales this year are a mere 12,000 units behind BMW.
Lexus was able to move 26,921 vehicles last month, a year-over-year increase of 21.1 percent, respectively. Mercedes, meanwhile, was just barely beaten, moving 26,617 units in April. The difference, though, is that Lexus has made far bigger year-over-year gains than Mercedes, which recorded a YOY increase of just 4.13 percent.
This is particularly troubling for the Germans, as it marks a return to form for Lexus that we haven't seen since before the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that decimated Japan. Prior to that natural disaster, Lexus enjoyed nearly a dozen years at the top of the luxury heap.

Lexus gets new boss, and he's a designer

A reshuffle in the uppermost ranks of Lexus could see the Japanese luxury brand further energize its recent focus on design. Tokuo Fukuichi, Toyota's global design boss, is the new head of Lexus International.
Fukuichi will retain his role as the overall head of design for Toyota, Lexus and Scion, and will assume his new position at the head of Lexus and on its board on April 1 (no fooling). This is going to be an interesting move for fans of design to watch, as Fukuichi has repeatedly been mentioned as a designer that enjoys pushing the edge of the envelope and experimenting. He is, after all, the man responsible for designing the most awesomely odd minivan of the 1990s, the mid-engined, rear-drive Toyota Previa, and more recently, he signed off on the controversial Lexus LF-NX concept, which is said to presage a new production small crossover.
"Regarding changes in design, no one has 100 percent confidence," Fukuichi told Forbes back in January 2013. "No one can really say with pure certainty that, 'In two years, this will sell well.'" As Akio Toyoda continues to demand more assertive, edgier designs, it's that point of view that should make Fukuichi a valuable addition to Lexus, as it continues to challenge the competition from Germany.

Toyota offered $146.5 million to build Lexus ES in Kentucky

Toyota posted a media advisory yesterday saying that Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, and Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America, would be making a production announcement tomorrow in New York City, and Automotive News reports that the automaker will be announcing a plan to domestically produce the Lexus ES. According to the report, numerous plants are competing to build the ES in North America, and the State of Kentucky has offered the automaker up to $146.5 million to build the luxury sedan at the Georgetown, KY assembly plant.
If Georgetown gets the ES, which has been built in Japan since its debut in 1989, it would be built alongside the Toyota Camry, which is somewhat ironic since in our review of the 2013 Lexus ES350, we wrote that this ES finally says "goodbye to its Camry roots." In order to get the whole amount offered, the article states that Toyota would have to invest $531.2 million and hire 570 full-time workers at the plant, which doesn't sound all that unreasonable since the plant would require an additional 50,000 units of annual production, not to mention the fact that the Georgetown facility is already at its capacity for building the Camry.