2023 Lexus Es 350 on 2040-cars

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Consumer Reports says infotainment systems 'growing first-year reliability plague'

The Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Survey (right) is out, and the top two spots look much the same as last year's list with Lexus and Toyota in first and second place, respectively. However, there are some major shakeups for 2014, with Acura plunging eight spots from third in 2013 to 11th this year, and Mazda replaces it on the lowest step of the podium. Honda and Audi round out the top five. This year's list includes six Japanese brands in the top 10, two Europeans, one America and one Korean.
Acura isn't the only one taking a tumble, though. Infiniti is the biggest loser this year by dropping 14 spots to 20th place. Other big losses come from Mercedes-Benz with an 11-place fall to 24th, and GMC, which declines 10 positions to 19th.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's not traditional mechanical bugs hauling down these automaker's reliability scores. Instead, pesky problems with infotainment systems are taking a series toll on the rankings. According to Consumer Reports, complaints about "in-car electronics" were the most grumbled about element in new cars. Problem areas included things like unresponsive touchscreens, issues pairing phones and multi-use controllers that refused to work right.

2019 Lexus ES300h has a quiet and comfortable interior

The 2019 Lexus ES is the latest version of the japanese luxury automaker's best-selling sedan. The car is based on Toyota's TNGA platform, the same basis for the new Toyota Camry and Toyota Avalon. The ES is available with both V6 and hybrid powertrains, with the latter rated at 43 mpg city, 45 mpg highway, and 44 mpg combined. Pricing was announced earlier this week, with a starting price of $40,525, just $550 more than the outgoing model. The car's interior and exterior design is all new, taking cues from both the Lexus LS and Lexus LC, the latter of which won our Technology of the Year award. The interior is both stylish and comfortable and packs a design that feels very Japanese. Watch the videos above for a brief design walk around and take a listen to the quiet hybrid powertrain.

Lexus RZ electric SUV will be shown (with a yoke) on 4/20

Lexus will reveal its production RZ electric SUV on April 20, the company announced Tuesday, steering well clear of April Fool's Day with a teaser package that would be right at home in Elon Musk's Twitter feed. And yes, there's a yoke. If it weren't for the fact that we already knew about the Lexus RZ, coupled with confirmation from Toyota that the bZ4X's yoke is the real deal, we'd be highly suspicious of this early-April announcement from a traditionally conservative manufacturer. Welcome to 2022, when none of that really seems to matter anymore.  We already suspected that the RZ was based on Toyota's bZ4X, so the indication of an available yoke is not that surprising, really.  In the Toyota, it's paired to a variable-ratio, steer-by-wire system. Toyota says it also improves steering feel and ensures road and tire vibrations don't make their way to the driver. The latter seems obvious since there's no physical connection between the wheel and road, but whether that makes for an "improvement" in steering feel is not something with which we're inclined to automatically agree.  Lexus offered no further info apart from the reveal date and time (6 a.m. EDT April 20) and these new teaser photos. The psychedelic lighting job on the car seems a bit on-the-nose for something debuting on 4/20, but again, this isn't a Tesla, so clearly somebody just thought it would look cool. Fortunately, we have the bZ4X's spec sheet to go on. The 4,232-pound Toyota is powered by a single electric motor with 201 horsepower or a dual-motor setup with 214 horses (107 per motor). Clearly, getting all-wheel drive into the equation mattered more than performance, as Toyota says it'll still take 7.7 seconds for the bZ4X to hit 60.  Regardless of motor count, the bZ4X gets a 71.4-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack said to deliver about 310 miles of maximum driving range in the front-wheel-drive model and 285 miles in the all-wheel-drive version based on the Japanese testing cycle. It's not outrageous to think the RZ might get a more potent powertrain, but we'll just have to wait and see what Lexus has in store.  Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.