Lexus made a name for itself when it launched in 1989 by offering unparalleled customer service. Thirty-four years later, the Toyota Motor Corp.-owned luxury brand is dissatisfied with the experiences its initial electric vehicle owners are having trying to charge their cars.
Toyota’s home country is a prime example of a region where EV penetration isn’t going well because of charging infrastructure, Lexus President Takashi Watanabe said Wednesday at the Japan Mobility Show. The company is trying to spin this into a positive, he said, by using Japan as a testbed to accelerate its investigation into what’s going wrong and reduce customer anxiety about EV ownership.
Read More: Japan Is Miles Behind on EV Charging, Holding Its Carmakers Back
“We’re asking ourselves, how can we make the experience better?” Watanabe told reporters. “How can we utilize and work closely with our Japanese dealer network to testbed different kinds of services and new kinds of experiences to make the whole BEV experience better?”
“They’re still limited in number, but we’re also investigating and moving right now with a program for Lexus-specific charging stations,” he said.
Assuming Lexus ends up building more of its own chargers, it will be taking after EV leader Tesla Inc., which has raced ahead of incumbent automakers in no small part due to its vast global network of plugs. Mercedes-Benz Group AG is also following through on plans to build its own dedicated stations and will be opening its first locations before the end of the year.
