It failed because it was a Lexus. Lexus was a luxury brand of Toyota. For the United States primarily. Had it been a Toyota Something-or-Other, it may have done better internationally but not necessarily in US. But in reality, if wonderful craftmanship comes out of somewhere with no previous history of such, you value it less that subpar work by established brands. No matter the field. The same way the cutting edge of Seiko, Citizen and Casio is worth less than what any of the most known (or even less known) Swiss watchmakers produce. The same way Yamaha is worth less (or equal) than the western counterparts, be it music or motorcycles. Same also with Pagani vehicles. Like the Huayra, which had a list price of $1M, but now also cost at least 2.5x as much, used (if not more). All because some Argentinian, who once worked at Lamborghini, had a dream.

These days, it is worth more because of the exhaust note. And because it somehow embodies the (perceived) Japanese spirit of working on something until it is perfect. The craftmanship and the tale of no being satisfied with your first result and then starting over from scratch. If the exhaust note is 50% of the price (if not bothering with the details (like 25% of the exhaust note being craftmanship)), the story is 25%. Which conveniently leaves you with about 250k, which would be the actual price if all luck was favoring this vehicle (and had it had the same run as say Lamborghini Aventador).

It is simply about comparing sets of (expected) features at some sort of price point. And a car review has to appeal to the widest possible audience. All sorts of people buy cars for all sorts of reasons. And cars are expensive (compared to income) especially new cars and of those especially mass market cars that are mostly used for their utility of moving people from point A to B.

Buying a car is also by a great margin an emotional decision, and this may often come down to very small deciding factors, which cannot be universally quantified. And thus a car review points your attention to all those small factors that might be the deciders. Interior colors, materials and build quality is one such thing.