{UAH} Is Lexus better than Toyota?
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2:27 PM |
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Yes, Lexus is many times better than Toyota. As Toyota is to Volkswagen of Germany, Lexus is to Mercedes-Benz or Audi or Porsche.
At the end of World War II, Japan realized one of the reasons they lost the War was because their War products didn't have quality. They had quality only in one area, their Navy.
Just look at their tanks compared to the US Sherman or German Tanks, Japanese tanks were literally junk. But they won in the Pacific Rim theater because although their tanks were junk, everybody in all the countries they were fighting in Asia didn't have tanks "at all" until the U.S. showed up.
During World War 2, any U.S. Military Contractor that wanted to supply arms & munitions were required to take a Quality class at UC Berkeley (aka Cal) with Professor Dr. W. Edwards Deming and use his Statistical sampling method to produce quality products.
At the end of WWII with the Japanese surrender, General MacArthur wanted to take a post war Census. To do this, MacArthur invited Dr. Deming's to take the Census.
The Japanese learned Dr. Deming's was coming over and they knew exactly who he was. The Japanese at the end of the war were so poor they didn't even have money to buy him a plane ticket over. So they wrote to Dr. Deming's and asked him when he got to Japan, if he would teach them Quality.
In Dr. Deming's reply he wrote, (Sure, on One Condition. Dr. Deming said, "when I get to Japan, I don't want to talk the the regular worker, the line man, the foreman, manager, supervisor, etc, etc. I only want to talk to the "Shacho's" of the company, aka President, Chairman, whatever. I want to talk to only the highest person in the company." He said because Quality & Authority or Directives 'do NOT flow up'. Quality & Authority flows down. Therefore, Quality was 'their job' the Highest person in each company.")
The lineman, doesn't tell his foreman/manager what to do. That foreman doesn't tell his supervisor what to do. That supervisor doesn't tell his manager what to do, and so on, and so forth. Authority flows down, not up. So Quality is the job of the top guy at each and every company not the little guys. Authority and Quality Both flow down.
When Deming got to Japan he told these top Executives, if you follow everything I teach you, in 10 years you will start to Surpass America. Their jaws fell in awe and disbelief because they couldn't believe what they were hearing from Deming's but they did everything he said and proved Deming's was right.
Thus one of the companies that followed this Deming Quality philosophy to the "T" was Toyota.
If you ever go to Japan and tour the Toyota Factory HQ, you will see along one wall giant pictures of all of Toyota's past Presidents. And, And, And, in the middle of all these pictures, the BIGGEST picture of all, about 3 times the size of all the other pictures, is this picture of an American, Dr. W. Edwards Deming. The "Father of Quality for Toyota".
One of Deming's philosophy was quality was not only the Engineering and Design teams and assembler teams job but also the Marketing and Sales teams to find and develop and go after new markets.
Another company that did this was Honda. So in the 1980's Honda kept growing with their legendary little 50cc Motorcycles (you see them all over Asia) to their first car venture the CVCC, aka Later Civic's and Accords success. Honda did their research and homework and found they could create an upscale market and conquer it.
Hence the "Acura" upscale brand. And Honda's benchmark were 'not' American cars of the 1980's but German Cars. E.g. Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Porsche.
The first few Acura Legends were a success. And continue to be a success for Honda. Also Honda's dominance in racing also helped their brand using the moniker, Race on Sunday Sell on Monday. You notice all of Honda's past Presidents, most if not all were former F1 and Indy car Engineers as part of that race effort that they dominated. Especially in their Turbo Engines. So much so that F1 had to 'handicap Honda' just so Ferrari could keep up. And finally they got rid of the Turbo engines altogether because Honda Turbo Engines were just so 'dominating'.
Toyota saw this and created their upscale brand "Lexus". In their selection of upscale brand, the research showed the name "Lexis" was too feminine, but "Lexus" was more masculine so they went with that spelling of their brand. and their benchmark was high-end German cars. E.g. the same Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Porsche. Toyota also chose the name "Lexus" because they wanted their upscale brand to appear first before the letter "M" for Mercedes-Benz in the Western and Latin alphabet when people searched for cars in their newspapers, and Phone Books, this was before the proliferation of the Internet. Because Mercedes-Benz was Lexus's main target.
Nissan saw this and built their flagship "Infinity" upscale line the same way. Also the Letter "I", which was before "L" for Lexus and "M" for Mercedes in the alphabet. And Honda chose their Acura "A" which was first in most western Alphabets. They were ALL three targeting not only the US market but the European affluent market. and European and American English alphabets are very similar.
In Europe "All roads lead to Germany". The Germans are the power-house of Europe.
Also, After WWII, American cars designs and technology had nothing to offer for the Japanese to emulate. Japanese streets were small and narrow much like European streets small and narrow. So it was a Natural for the Japanese emulated European cars and divided up the body styles and technology designs to emulate.
If you look at the early Toyota sedans they looked like the Peugeot 404's. The early Nissan's (aka Datsun's look like Fiat's some say they looked like BMW 2002's) and Datsuns Z car copied the Jaguar XK 2-door sports coupe; Mazda took the German Wankel rotary and made it work with better seals in the rotary engine. Subaru (Fuji Heavy Industries) took the VW/Porsche 4 cylinder air cooled boxer engine and water-cooled it.
Thus it was a natural and a shoe-in for Japanese car manufacturers to also emulate the high-end Luxury German cars as well. The bar was held high and Toyota/Lexus had to make their luxury brand as good if not "better" "much better" than the Germans. And to do that they had to build their cars for the Nuremberg track and the Autobahn in Germany, because this is where the Germans tested their cars. So Nuremberg race track was where a lot of High-End Acura, Lexus, Infinity did their testing in Europe.
J.D. Powers statistics are misleading you have to read the fine print. But they had one Category that Lexus and Acura were shooting for. That category was the "Most reliable drive-train" category. This category was always dominated for 20 years by two German companies; Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. One year it would be Porsche taking the number one spot. Another year it would be Mercedes-Benz taking the number one spot; and they would flip-flop and trade places with each other.
Mercedes-Benz started to lose that spot to Lexus. Because Lexus "used" the Deming philosophy they had learned with their Toyota. Plus to keep prices down Mercedes-Benz started to "OUTSOURCE and contract some of their work out", like the electronics. Hence their cars now have lots of electronic bugs and issues. Up to that point Mercedes had built "everything" in-house.
Lexus has now claimed the J.D. Powers most reliable car for 15 years running.
Also, Toyota/Lexus have "all their employees" sign a NDA/NCA (aka Non-Disclosure Agreement & Non-Competitive Agreement). This is a "lifetime" ban that there are certain companies they may never work for, even after they retire or voluntarily leave the company. Former Toyota Companies employees are 'prohibited' from working for major Toyota competitors such as: (GM (and any GM brands); Ford, VW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Saab, Jaguar, Peugeot, Fiat, Tata, Chrysler, and in Japan: Nissan aka Datsun, Mazda, Honda, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Subaru, just to name a few.
However one company that was not on this 'prohibition' list was "Porsche". Because Porsche is more of a small 'niche market' player and not a real threat to Toyota/Lexus. They are not even in the same market segment. Thus Porsche reached out to some 'retired Toyota' staff and hired them to teach Porsche "Toyota / Deming Quality". That was in the mid 1990's and Porsche quality has vastly improved as a result to this day. Thus you noticed to stay viable Porsche did what Deming suggested "find and develop new markets and sales". Porsche to stay afloat and in business did just this. Porsche branched out to other segments such as SUV market, sedan market(s). Had Porsche "built only sport cars" they would have gone the way of the doe-doe-bird and went out of business. Porsche had no choice but to expand their lineup if they wanted to stay viable in business. To Porsche 'purist' who thought it was blasphemy for Porsche to build SUV's and Sedans, they are clueless. Porsche would have gone bankrupt and gone out of business if they hadn't matured and branched out their brand name. Indeed it was Ferdinand Porsche that built the first VW Beetle/Bug sedan aka "The Peoples Car for all of Deutschland". Today Porsche is working on a full EV all Electric sports coupe to compete with Tesla's 2nd Generation Roadster that was just announced in Nov. 2017.
Ferrari founder was once quoted as saying, "I build and sell cars (Ferrari's) so I can race". Translation: there's not enough money to stay in racing or in business from just racing. You have the Constructors or Manufacturers title and the Drivers title. The driver gets to keep his earnings and the Manufacturer gets his from the Race Title.
Porsche would have gone under from just building race cars, if they hadn't hired those former Toyota employees to improve their quality and branched out their brand to other types of body styles like the SUV & Sedan and now EV All-Electric Porsche Taycan is on the way.
As such it was a natural for Toyota likewise to find and build their upscale Lexus brand to High-End Quality standards which has been and is still very very successful for them.
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