The premium small crossover segment has quickly established itself as one of the fastest growing in the auto industry, with virtually every luxury automaker scrambling to field an entrant. While Infiniti certainly wasn’t the creator of the segment, it was by no means late to the party with its EX crossover. However, the EX has failed to gain any real traction in the market place, forcing Infiniti to take the EX back to the drawing board.
The EX hasn’t yet been on the market for a full year, but the small crossover is fielding enough customer complaints to warrant and update from Infiniti. The trouble seems to stem from where Infiniti placed the EX in the market: While the Japanese automaker originally targeted singles and couples as the main EX audience, more people have been shopping the EX as a family hauler. Since the EX was designed more for good looks than soccer practice duty, buyers with families have been turned off by the EX’s lack of rear seat legroom.
In fact, the competition has a fairly significant lead over the EX in rear seat legroom. The Acura RDX isn’t huge by any stretch of the imagination, but offers a full 9 inches more of rear seat legroom than the EX. The Lincoln MKX offers even more room, with a 10 inch advantage over the EX.
Buyers are obviously taking note of the EX’s cramped rear quarters with sales falling short of expectations by about half. According to Automotive News, Infiniti expected to sell 20,000 EXs per year, but has only tallied 10,289 sales this year.
But Infiniti hopes to turn around things for 2010. Infiniti will be updating the 2010 EX with more rear legroom, although it remains unclear if rear cargo room – which is already cramped – will be sacrificed for more people room. The 2010 model will also see a boost in standard equipment to boost sales, including Infiniti’s Around View Monitor.
