Lexus: Smooth, Powerful and Green

Driven

I’M AN AUTO ENTHUSIAST who owns a sports car, an SUV and a motorcycle. I don’t name these toys. Assigning monikers to anything other than a boat just seems weird. They’re not puppies, and they’re not my children. So it’s surprising when someone asks me what I’m driving this week and I blurt out, “She’s a beast. I call her Stealth.”

The Lexus LS 460 has enjoyed an illustrious career. The car company that took the luxury market by the tail and swung it around confidently starting with the first LS 400 in 1990, Lexus has since raised the bar, converting Mercedes loyalists and topping consumer ranking lists like J.D. Power & Associates in multiple categories for several consecutive years.

But some detractors dubbed the fullsize sedan “boring” and “too soft.” These criticisms moved the brand through a slow evolution of a more powerful and sexy profile with each redesign. The culmination is the 2007 LS 460——a vehicle that earned a “World Car of the Year” vote from 15 countries at the 2007 New York Auto Show. Already a best-selling luxury brand, the new-generation LS raised the bar even higher. Powered by a 4.6-liter V-8, it boasts 380 horsepower, a unique eight-speed automatic transmission and more standard luxury technology than any other brand. Available in two sizes——the regular 116.9-wheelbase LS or the 121.7-inch LS 460L extended wheelbase——it is the new darling of the full-size luxury brand market.

But that was just the beginning. Part the curtains for the hybrid version of the 460: the 2008 LS 600h. A super-luxury ride with a deceptively quiet demeanor, the 600h blows the doors off performance cars half its size——and can operate on purely electrical power at low speed.

Almost identical to the LS 460L, the 600h is no Toyota Prius. This is a high-performance hybrid built to compete with 6-liter V-12 engines——thus the 600 badge——yet achieve the mileage of a V-8. Confusing to some who equate hybrids with 40-mpg mileage, the 600h gets 22 miles per gallon in the city.

But it does this while generating 438 horsepower from the combined power of a 5-liter V-8 and an electrical drive motor. The result is almost complete silence, at both 70 and 20 miles per hour. Add a planetary gearing system that has no gears, and accelerating on a freeway feels like taking off in an airplane. One continuous, smooth, silent burst of pure power is both baffling and exhilarating. It has an allwheel drive system and a 0-to-60 number of 5.5 seconds. It also has a $104,000 base price.

Before Prius owners faint, the competition for the 600h is the BMW 760 Li, a V-12 with an identical 438 horses that gets 14 city miles to the gallon and demands a base price of $122,600. The Mercedes V-12 comes with even more horses (510), but its base price is $194,000, and it gets 11 miles per gallon in the city.

Some might argue that folks buying these cars don’t worry about gas mileage. But with environmentalism gaining momentum, CO2 emissions are a huge consideration. With an electrical motor that has the capacity to power the vehicle without assistance from the gas engine at low speeds, the 600h can achieve a zero-carbon footprint much of the time. This is the ride we can expect to see delivering the celebrity “green” crowd to high-profile events in the future.

Call the LS 600h an innovative and responsible approach to high-performance luxury. Or simply call her Stealth.

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