What's the difference between a Camry and a Lexus?

A lot of manufacturers have cars that share the same chassis. Car ≠ chassis. There any many many parts that sit on top of a chassis to make a car. Even paint quality is a huge difference between the brands.

You can compare the Camry to the Lexus on the Lexus website. The "comparably equipped" Camry XLE V6 (same engine as the Lexus) costs $32,500 while the Lexus is $37,600. What does $5,100 get you? - Lexus has a standard warranty that's 12 months longer than the Toyota's - Lexus has wood trim on the interior, which is not available on the Toyota - Lexus has exterior mirror memory settings, n/a for Toyota - Lexus has Optitron Electroluminescent Instrumentation (lulz), n/a for Toyota - Lexus has front airbag occupant sensors, n/a for Toyota - Lexus has rain-sensing windshield wipers, n/a for Toyota - A few optional Lexus items that are n/a or optional for Toyota: "Telematics" roadside assistance, cooled front seats, adaptive cruise control, extra wood trim bits - Lexus is slightly longer, has slightly more leg and hip room and a bigger fuel tank - Lexus is slightly heavier and has slightly worse fuel efficiency (-2 mpg diff) I'd bet the "retail" value of all those differences probably add up to $5,100, but most are fairly frivolous items. The customer service and ride/noise characteristics don't have an obvious dollar value but are probably more relevant than what I listed above. Still, a fully-loaded Camry is pretty damn nice and $5k is a big enough "discount" to make it a tough choice.

One of the biggest differences you'll notice between a Camry and its Lexus cousin is sound insulation. A Lexus is much quieter. Also, they tend to come with more gadgets as standard (bluetooth, nav, heated seats.) You can also add more toys (adaptive cruise control, secondary start system, better radio). The perceived prestige also plays a part in the added cost as does the perceived luxury. So, yes, the underlying structure is the same, but what is built on top differs significantly. Whether or not that's worth an extra $10k, well, that's one of those questions only you can answer.

This isn't answering the question, but Noka chocolates were once the most expensive chocolates in the world by a factor of 10. The whole thing was a branding scam exposed by a local food blogger. The whole (long) story is http://dallasfood.org/2006/12/noka-chocolate-part-1/. This may be relevant to a discussion on branding.

Differences in the trim and gadgets can add up and it's not all visible. I was in a colleague's Lexus the other day. It wasn't a 2012, because he's had it a while, but it was whisper quiet in the cabin. I don't know what they do it or how they do it, but that level of quiet is my new top requirement in any future car buying decision.

I'm doing a business presentation where I talk about brands, and how similar products are separated by branding - Coke vs. Pepsi, Microsoft vs. Apple, etc.Sounds like your reasoning is flawed to begin with. Coke and Pepsi are extremely similar carbonated sugar-water drinks. Windows and Mac OS are technically very different operating systems; Microsoft and Apple are radically different businesses. There is a lot more than branding that separates these two.I've found that Toyota uses "twinning" -- using the same chassis for two different cars, the Camry and the Lexus. So basically they're the same car, but with a $10,000 difference in cost.The Camry is a specific car, Lexus is a whole range of cars. You should work on figuring out what the right names for similar things are. Regardless. a Toyota the same as a Lexus in the same way that a coach airline seat is the same as a first class ticket. There are real, substantial differences, it isn't just branding. If you want to study platform cars that differ mostly by branding, you should check out the products of Ford and the VW-Audi group. There are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_C1_platform that are used by Ford in the Mazda, Ford, and Volvo (now owned by Zhejiang Geely) brands . Similarly, VW-Audi has a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_A_platform that is used across the VW, Audi, SEAT and Å koda brands. But I was wondering: how different are they? Does the difference in engine or fuel injection come with a price tag? What about interior and electronics? Is the difference really $10,000 or more like $3,000?You seem to be conflating the retail price of the car with the cost of putting the car together. The two are related, but not the same. The British magazines Car and Top Gear (not the TV show of the same name) used to be very good at identifying cars that share a common platform and calling out the differences. If you went back to 1999 and read through every issue of Car, you would get a lot of insight into how VW's platform system played out for their various brands.What I'm asking is, how much does a Camry, and a Lexus, cost the company to make?You might be able to get close to this via annual reports. I don't know if VW-Audi and Toyota break out their margins by product lines, but they might. Also, if you compare the annual reports of Apple and Microsoft, you will see that they are more different than the cold-war-era US and Soviet Union. You might be able to get some proxy prices by looking up replacement part costs for vehicles within a similar platform. Some parts will be common across the platform, but carry different prices. Other parts will be completely different and carry still more radical price differences. There are probably companies that specialize in this kind of tear-down analysis as a competitive business intelligence service to the auto industry.

This is a widespread practice. Honda and Accura also have the same relationship, as does Nissan and Infiniti. In the 60's and 70's General Motors sold through Chevy, Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac. The were all selling more or less the same cars with slight differences in trim levels, engine choices and minor design differences. For the few years that Ford own Jaguar the Jag sedans were built on the same platform as the Ford sedans.

I apologize for not being clear. What I'm asking is, how much does a Camry, and a Lexus, cost the company to make? The difference in price is $11,100. Does that mean the company makes $11,100 more on the sale of a Lexus than the sale of a Camry? Or is the Camry price the "real" price? If the difference isn't really $11,100, then what is it? Thanks again for your efforts.

What I'm asking is, how much does a Camry, and a Lexus, cost the company to make? Car companies don't release this information. You can look for the dealer invoice price to get a sense of what they charge their dealers for the car, but that doesn't reveal their internal mark-up.