Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky recently unveiled the all new 2019 Lexus ES 350, which is manufactured at the company’s production plant in Georgetown.
The 2019 Lexus ES takes advantage of a recently implemented Global Architecture platform that allows team members to build a car that is longer, lower and wider than before, with wheels pushed closer to the corners, Toyota Kentucky president Susan Elkington said in announcing the new model. Elkington detailed the Global Architecture platform and recent initiatives at Toyota Kentucky in an interview with Business Lexington earlier this year.
“The 2019 ES starts with a newly developed, more rigid chassis and delivers class-leading handling and power you can feel and hear,” Elkington said.
Lexus began production of the ES in Kentucky in 2015 after investing more than $360 million in a new production facility on the Toyota Kentucky campus. The 2019 ES 350 the first new Lexus model change to be produced at the plant. In addition to the ES 350, the Lexus team of more than 800 Lexus-trained employees will also build the all-new, high-performance Lexus F SPORT model.
Lexus team members at the company’s U.S. facility spent more than 150,000 hours training to build the ES model, company officials said, including sensory training that teaches assemblers to feel for an abnormality as minute as a thread of hair.
“After extensive sensory training, our team members rely on sight, sound and touch to know that the craftsmanship of the car is of the highest standard,” said Mike Bridge, Lexus assistant general manager. “A machine can’t make those judgments, and that’s why we take so much time to train before a new model goes into production.”
Bridge said an example of this sensory training can be seen in body weld, where team members are taught to feel gap differences measured in fractions as little as 0.3 millimeters. “This is equal to the thickness of three sheets of paper and can be felt even with gloves on,” he said.
The 2019 Lexus ES 350 will be in dealer showrooms in September. According to the company, the price for the Lexus ES 350 starts at $39,500 and the F SPORT starts at $44,035.
