Crossovers are key to BMW pursuit of Lexus

Lexus widened its lead over BMW as the best-selling luxury brand in the United States last year. But BMW’s top U.S. executive aims to overtake his rival in 2011 or 2012 after three new crossovers are introduced.

“Ask me in 2011 and I will say we have a chance,” Jim O’Donnell, CEO of BMW of North America, said here this month at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention. “Come 2012, I would think we have a very good chance.”

Lexus has long been the luxury champ, but BMW narrowed the gap in 2007 and 2008 before losing ground in 2009.

Last year, BMW — excluding Mini and Rolls-Royce — sold 196,502 vehicles, down 21 percent from a year earlier. Lexus sold 215,975 vehicles, down 17 percent.



Hi Welcome back. Have you subscribed to my feed to remain updated on new posts? If not, click here to subscribe to Are You Car Crazy. Thank you!

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 12:15 am and is filed under Auto company news, Automobile News, Toyota. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.