Lexus is celebrating sales of its SUVs passing half a million units across its European markets. It’s a significant landmark for the brand that originated the concept of the luxury SUV with the launch of the original RX 300 model at the turn of century.
Cumulative figures up to the end of November 2019 indicate that more than 501,000 new Lexus SUVs have been sold since the RX’s European introduction in 2000.
Now in its fourth generation, the RX remains Lexus’ best-selling SUV model in the region, with almost 275,000 delivered to customers. The RX also had the distinction of being the world’s first luxury hybrid SUV, with the launch of the RX 400h in 2005.
Since that first step, Lexus has continuously improved its self-charging hybrid technology and made it fundamental to its development of new generations of SUVs, including the mid-size NX, added to the line-up in 2014 and the new, compact UX, launched earlier in 2019.
Customers are increasingly keen to embrace Lexus hybrid power for its refinement, well-proven reliability, increasingly rewarding performance, and excellent efficiency. Today, Lexus hybrids can travel up to 50% of the time in zero emissions mode in congested urban environment, without the petrol engine having to be brought into play.
Almost half the 500,000 Lexus SUV sales have been hybrid models, while the proportion compared to conventionally powered versions has grown steadily. So far in 2019, hybrids have accounted for 63% of sales in the region as a whole*, and 96% in the Western European markets.
Lexus’ stable of SUVs also includes non-hybrid LX and GX models, available in Russia and other Eastern markets.
