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Lexus leads J.D. Power's Vehicle Dependability Study for 2021

J.D. Power's latest Vehicle Dependability Study is out, and, not surprisingly, Lexus sits at the top for the ninth time in the last 10 years. Right behind Lexus is Porsche, followed by Kia, which is the highest-ranked mass-market brand in the study. Genesis, last year's top-ranked brand (in its first year included in the results), fell from first to eighth, though the G80 sedan did earn an award in its midsize luxury segment. The Porsche 911 was called out as the Most Dependable Model by J.D. Power for the second time in the last three years. The vehicles being studied are from the 2018 model year, which means owners have had three years to get to know their cars and trucks. It's notable that this year's study shows a marked improvement in overall vehicle dependability as tracked by J.D. Power. The overall level of problems, scored by the number of problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), declined by 10% compared to last year.  "The study results validate what we have known for some time," said Dave Sargent, vice president of global automotive at J.D. Power. "Automakers are making increasingly dependable vehicles — but there are still some problem areas that need to be addressed and some warning signs on the horizon." Tesla makes its inaugural appearance on the Dependability Study, though its score of 176 PP100 isn't official. Tesla is the only automaker that has chosen not to grant J.D. Power permission to survey its owners in all 50 states. As we've pointed out in the past, the Vehicle Dependability Study includes eight major vehicle categories grouped by J.D. Power as follows: audio/communication/entertainment/navigation (ACEN); engine/transmission; exterior; interior; features/controls/displays (FCD); driving experience; heating, ventilation and air conditioning; and seats. All issues reported by owners are all tracked equally, which means a problematic phone pairing procedure dings an automaker's rating the same as a blown engine or transmission. And in fact, the ACEN category has more reported problems than any other, which means the majority of problems reported don't lead to a vehicle that leaves its owner stranded. Green Land Rover Lexus Porsche Car Buying JD Power dependability reliability

Autoblog fan favorite car ads from Super Bowl XLIX

Super Bowl XLIX is in the books, and the New England Patriots emerged victorious. Of course, if you're like us, the big game wasn't so much about the battle between the east coast and west, so much as a fight between the world's automotive advertisers. We collected and collated all of last night's new ads and put them together for you to vote on. And yes, we're limiting this year's contest to last night's new features. That's why you aren't seeing Dodge's epic Wisdom among our collection of commercials, and it's a similar story with Chevrolet's Truck Guy Focus Group series, which highlights the new Colorado. You can still vote for your favorites. We won't be closing the voting on our Super Bowl page, so while the winners and losers are correct as of this writing, it's entirely possible that there could be some changes in the rankings as time goes on. So, without any further ado, here are the winning ads based on your voting. Nissan: With Dad Fiat: Ready For Action Jeep: Beautiful Lands BMW: Newfangled Idea Mercedes-Benz: Fable NASCAR: America Start Your Engines As for those ads that failed to impact you, loyal readers, Toyota was the absolute, undisputed loser. The Japanese brand ran four ads in total – two for Toyota and two for Lexus – and all of them have negative tallies as of this writing. Lexus' Make Some Noise and Lets Play and Toyota's One Bold Choice and My Bold Dad both had very weak showings among the commercials that aired, although they weren't alone. Neither Mazda nor Kia scored particularly well, despite featuring celebrity magic act Penn and Teller and former James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, respectively. Chevrolet was the winner of the losers, as of our writing, recording the fewest downvotes for its audience-punking The Big Game ad. If you want to take a second look at the losing ads, you can head back to our Super Bowl page for the complete collection. But for now, head into Comments and let us know what you think of the results.

Anything but boring | 2018 Lexus LC 500 First Drive

This is it, the headliner, the main event. After years of Lexus promising to make less-boring cars and instead giving us countless spindle-grille facelifts, the 2018 LC 500 is here as the brand's new North Star. It's the official halo to mark where Toyota's luxury brand is headed. This is the car that we hope can bring an end to the relentless mentions of boring cars - which are themselves needlessly boring. And besides, "not boring" is a terrible metric for evaluation. What Lexus is really trying to do is give its cars some spirit, to transcend the paint-by-numbers stereotype that made this brand the luxury juggernaut it is today. By that yardstick, the LC 500 is a success simply based on how it looks. It's beautiful in a way that we couldn't predict from the 2012 LF-LC concept that foreshadowed it. The kind of beauty where instead of reflexively grabbing your phone to take a picture, you just stand there and keep looking. And pictures don't do this car justice, anyway. They soften the edges and reduce the massive draw of the wide shoulders. In person, looking straight at the LC, the car looks like it's 80 percent hood. In the rest of the lineup, the trademark Lexus grille's execution ranges from caricature (RC) to botched nose job (LX). Here it pulls everything together. From every other angle, the LC has some feature that seems excessive – in the best way possible. The proportions of the LC give off a distinctively functional vibe, and it's genuine. That hood is so long because the 5.0-liter V8's center of mass sits three and a half inches behind the front axle. The extra space up front is mostly empty - Lexus uses high-strength steel cross-braces to shore up torsional rigidity instead of adding structure ahead of the front wheels, and the battery sits under the trunk floor. For all the visual excitement, the LC is still a conventional vehicle. Aside from some advancements in the LC 500h's hybrid powertain, the innovation here is of the iterative type. It's interesting, in that Lexus is betting on emotional appeal and driving character at a time when the future relevance of both is up for debate. If anything, the LC is a car for the current automotive world, not the one to come. And despite extensive use of aluminum and sheet-molded carbon, the LC 500 weighs in at a hefty 4,280 pounds. That's right in line with the BMW 6 Series and a good deal below the Batali-esque Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe's 4,700 pounds.