Motoring in Spain - Lexus RX 400H - Comments

Lexus RX 400H

Poster: Charlie Flindt 01/01/2006

Just when it all seemed so predictable in the world of motoring, Charlie Flindt discovered some stunning innovation in a new SUV "the world needs".

I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but sometimes writing about cars becomes a bit of a chore. As the years go by, they seem to be getting more and more uniform. As car companies merge, originality seems to vanish. Many cars are just different packaging of the same global underpinnings. If it weren’t for the freebie trips to expensive hotels for car launches, and glamorous PR girls who are paid to laugh at my jokes, I’d get a bit fed up with this line of work.

But every so often, something new comes along which really makes you sit up and take notice; something that stands out as an innovation.

Who can forget the arrival of the Mazda MX-5? Just when everyone else thought that a "sports car" meant putting an octagonal badge on a woeful hatchback, along came Mazda to remind us what it really meant. They weren’t all successful innovations: the Sinclair C5 certainly got everyone talking, once they had stopped laughing, of course.

The Lexus RX 400h is another innovation, a vehicle of such stunning originality that it has got us car anoraks quite hot under our fur-trimmed collars.

Why all the fuss, you may ask? It’s a fair question; after all, it’s a Lexus, which is the luxury division of Toyota. It says a lot about Toyota’s incredibly high standards that when they decided to launch a premium range of vehicles, they thought the Toyota name not worthy of gracing the bonnets. Lexus have established a superb reputation for quality and reliability with a range of saloons, roadsters and SUVs. So, the RX 400h is another Lexus and it’s another SUV. Just what the world needs, you might scoff. Another off-roader guaranteed to go anywhere but off road.

Scoff no more: here is a machine with a genuine innovation. The only problem is that the innovative bit is hidden under the bonnet. Oh, and under the back seats, and under the boot, and just about everywhere that you wouldn’t normally look. The Lexus RX 400h is a hybrid vehicle. It is driven by petrol and by electricity.

You are going to have to concentrate very hard now, because it all gets a bit complicated. In normal driving conditions, the petrol engine drives the front wheels. That’s simple enough. However, it also drives a generator. The electrical output from this generator is split into two; some helps power the front wheels, some goes into recharging the banks of batteries sitting under the back seats.

The splitting of the generator’s output is constantly monitored and varied. Put your foot down, and everything is sent to the front wheels, with the batteries supplying extra power to back up the engine.

There is also another electric motor above the back axle, which powers the back wheels. This spends most of normal driving conditions twiddling its thumbs and doing the crossword, but when the incredibly clever computer picks up a slight loss of traction for the front wheels – under hard acceleration or loose ground – it kicks into life, giving four-wheel drive.

The computer also spots times when energy can be recovered: rolling downhill and braking, for instance. The electric motors turn into generators – I told you you’d have to concentrate – and use the car’s kinetic energy to recharge the batteries.

Most of this amazing technological wizardry goes completely unnoticed; there’s a small screen on the dashboard which gives readouts of what’s doing what, where and when, but for the vast majority of the journey, the Lexus just gets on and does all its clever stuff.

The only time that things seem a bit odd is when starting off. The Lexus rolls away in complete silence, and the engine almost silently pops into life only when it’s needed. This is highly unnerving – but nothing compared to the feeling when stopping: the ghostly silence that has you cursing, convinced that you’ve stalled, reaching for the ignition key.

What is even more amazing is how quickly all this unorthodox stuff becomes perfectly orthodox. All the techno stuff gets forgotten, and you realise you’re driving an otherwise normal SUV, with all that that implies. Nice high driving position, loads of interior space; what you also get from this particular SUV is lots of leather and luxury on the inside, and elegant and fashionable styling on the outside.

But does all the fancy mechanical stuff do its job? Let the figures speak for themselves: 0 to 100 kph in under 8 seconds, and a top speed of 199 kph. Yes, you may ask – as I did - but does it all save energy? Well, a combined fuel consumption of 8.1 l/100km is not to be sneezed at in any vehicle, let alone a luxury SUV with these levels of performance.

Where the hybrid Lexus really scores is in town - the stop-start urban grind. Picture the average traffic jam. Take away the noise. Take away the fumes. Imagine the difference. Then you realise that the Lexus RX 400h really is what the world needs.

Lexus RX 400h

Engines/motors: 3,311cc, V6, 24 valve/650 volt

Power: 208 ps/165 ps/66 ps

Maximum speed: 198 kph

Performance 0 to100 kph: 7.6 seconds

Combined fuel economy: 8.1 l/100 km

Summary: The world’s first guilt-free SUV.

Comments

There are currently no comments for this entry.

Back to top