09 Lexus Rx350 Navigation/rearview Camera/power Glass Moonroof/leather Seats on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Lexus LF-NX Concept takes aim at the small crossover herd [w/video]

Lexus is drawing crowds with its sharply styled LF-NX Concept, a car that previews a competitor for the likes of the BMW X1, Mercedes-Benz GLK (also debuting at Frankfurt) and Audi Q3. We previewed the LF-NX last week, but we've since gotten a bit of in-person time with the compact crossover on the Frankfurt show floor.
There's a lot of show-car tinsel here, but the makings of a production model are fairly visible. That trademark Lexus face, with the separate headlight and running light arrays and an even more extreme version of the "spindle" grille, is present and accounted for. The styling is sliced and carved, like the Lexus IS, although it's difficult to tell if the production model will be quite so extreme in its looks. We'll bet yes.
Take a look above for the full set of live images from Frankfurt, then scroll down for video and some of the stock images from the original, online unveiling. Finally, click over for our complete coverage of the LF-NX from its debut, last week.

US buyers show little interest in big hybrids

The idea of producing large, luxury-vehicle hybrids is turning into a "what were they thinking?" exercise in futility, USA Today reports. General Motors is discontinuing hybrid versions of the Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon SUVs, while Mercedes-Benz and Toyota's Lexus division are doing the same with their S-Class hybrid and LS hybrid sedans, respectively. The culprit? Big price increases for fuel economy improvements that border on the unimpressive. Granted, the Escalade hybrid gets 31 percent better fuel economy than the standard version, but that still maps out to a combined fuel-efficiency rating of just 21 miles per gallon. That can be seen as a worthwhile increase, if it didn't cost over $8,000 extra. The 2014 Escalade Hybrid, for example, starts at $74,425 while the non-hybrid can be had for $66,295. Meanwhile, the Lexus full-size hybrid costs $6,000 more than the regular version but only gets 1-2 mpg better combined fuel economy. The result of all these high costs? Low sales. Through April, GM sold 82 of its hybrid SUVs and pickups, down from 541 a year earlier. And the LS hybrid sales were in single-digit territory for April. That isn't stopping Lexus from promoting its hybrids as the right solution (with the wrong facts), though. There are still automakers giving big hybrid vehicles a shot, though. Nissan's Infiniti division is selling a hybrid version of its QX60 and says an impressive 10 percent of QX60 buyers choose the hybrid, which costs just $3,000 more. Looks like money talks. Featured Gallery 2015 Cadillac Escalade: First Drive View 35 Photos News Source: USA TodayImage Credit: Copyright 2014 Brandon Turkus / AOL Green Infiniti Lexus Mercedes-Benz Hybrid lexus ls gmc yukon mercedes-benz s-class infiniti qx60 chevrolet tahoe

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.