How Lexus aims to turbocharge sales
SINGAPORE — Can a new engine do for a carmaker what a heart transplant does for people? That’s something Lexus is about to find out, as the 26 year old brand launches its first turbocharged car in Singapore, the NX 200t.
German rivals like BMW and Mercedes-Benz have had turbo engines for years now, but Lexus has taken a deliberately slow approach to designing its own powerplant.
Its new 2.0-litre turbo took 10 years to develop (although some of that entailed a disruption caused by the Lehman Brothers meltdown in 2007), but the result has been an engine that feels uniquely, well, Lexus.
“It’s about having a turbo in a Lexus way,” says Klaus Redomske, the marketing director for Lexus at local distributor Borneo Motors. “It’s about refined exhilaration.”
MORE: Full details of the NX 200t, Lexus’ first turbo car
A huge amount of effort went into dampening NVH (or Noise, Vibration and Harshness), says Kirk Edmondson, Smoothness and what Edmondson calls “turbine-like” performance were high priorities.
MORE: A quick review of the Lexus NX 200t
But the new engine is meant to deliver something relatively new to a brand that previously concerned itself with refinement and fuel-saving hybrids: fun.
The turbos are more fun to drive than the hybrids,“ says Edmondson. "It had to be fun to drive first. Once we got that we could figure out the fuel economy and the smoothness.”
The stopwatch suggests that the turbo will offer more of what a keen driver wants, at least. The NX 200t sprints to 100km/h in as little as 7.1 seconds, compared to 9.2 seconds for the NX Hybrid.
MORE: A deeper look at Lexus’ turbo strategy
But the true measure of the new engine’s performance will be whether it can help to drive Lexus’ sales, chiefly by winning new customers over to the brand.
By switching to turbo power, Lexus is will hoping that people who viewed the brand as dull and unexciting will undergo a similar change of heart.
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