The general manager of Toyota’s Lexus division predicts gas prices will keep rising and will stay at higher levels for the foreseeable future. “I don’t seem them coming back down again,” Mark Templin said in Dallas Friday. “I see them at $4 a gallon in the short-term. We’re already paying $5 in California. Long-term, I think they’ll go even higher.”
The top Lexus boss was in North Texas for something called “An Evening with Lexus,” one in a series of exclusive, focus-group-style dinners he’s hosting in homes around the country. Part of the carmaker’s “epicurean marketing” strategy, the dinners are attended by Lexus owners and their friends and are catered by celebrity chefs. The local one will be tonight at a house in Rowlett, where Casey Thompson will serve up salmon, veal tongue and buffalo to Templin and 13 others.