This is being unnecessarily pedantic. "Premium" is synonymous with "entry-level luxury" (one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_vehicle#Premium_compact...).

Cars in the 35-45k range are routinely referred to colloquially as "luxury" cars. I agree you can quibble with this terminology, but it is absolutely common to refer to these cars as luxury, albeit the absolute low end of luxury.