2002 Lexus Gs300 on 2040-cars

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Lexus teases Frankfurt Motor Show concept... is it the RC Coupe?

With the teaser image of the concept car above and the announcement that Lexus will be premiering it to the world at the Frankfurt Motor Show on Tuesday, September 10, you know pretty much what we know. The Japanese luxury brand has decided to to say nothing more. Picture sleuthers have, however, suggested that it is a conceptual preview of either the RC Coupe or the hotter RC-F that will be revealed in Tokyo, or, less likely, the coming NX crossover - and that covers all the bases that we know of.
Along with that, Europeans will get to lay eyes on the GS 300h for the first time, the sport sedan powered by Lexus' 2.5L hybrid powertrain. You'll find a skosh more information in the press release below.

Anti-EV, pro-hybrid ad from Lexus gets a whole lot wrong

Tell us if you're surprised that Toyota (through its Lexus brand) is putting out some questionable information about electric vehicles. While it's one thing for company executives to be anti-EV, it's quite another to put out obviously false information when you speak ill of plug-in vehicles, especially when you also sell them. The automaker offers the RAV4 EV and Prius Plug-In, albeit in limited numbers, First, let's look at what Lexus is saying. On the company's consumer site, in the hybrid section, there are a number of slick videos. In one ("Hybrid Overview"), Lexus makes it look like charging an EV takes four hours. That may be true in some situations, but the video shows an anonymous driver plugging a Nissan Leaf into something that looks like a AeroVironment DC fast charger, which takes around a half hour to charge. Granted, the site has a disclaimer that says, the "charge time represents the average time to charge from empty to full using typically available 240V commercial charging stations," but in everyday use, that's not something EV drivers often do. Charged EVs mentions two previous studies that show how most EV charging is done at home. Lexus knows all this, of course, but doesn't mention it. Lexus says that there are 20 states with an "established infrastructure" for hydrogen. Another video on the site, one that talks about future alternative powertrain technologies, says that there are 20 states with an "established infrastructure" for hydrogen and 37 with the same for electric vehicles. It also blatantly says that we need to consider all of the emissions from the fossil fuels used to make electricity (carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, etc.) but does not say anything about the fossil fuel emissions used to make hydrogen. You can see some screen grabs in the gallery or watch the video yourself. It's all blatantly one-sided, especially since the official numbers from the Department Of Energy say that there are Level 2 public EV chargers in literally every state except Alaska and only 11 public hydrogen stations in the US. Ten of them are in California, the other is in South Carolina. A Lexus spokesman told AutoblogGreen it will ask TeamOne, its ad agency, and the Lexus marketing department for clarification on where the data in the videos comes from. We will update this post when we hear back.

Florida teen's crash almost ends his chance to grow into Florida Man

A Florida teen in a street race down a narrow residential street almost ended his budding career as Florida Man. As reported by CBS Miami and picked up by Carscoops, a homeowner's security camera captured two cars heading single file down a road in Golden Gates Estates in Naples, Florida. The road looks to be about a lane-and-a-half wide. The width then becomes a problem when both vehicles — a Lexus crossover and what appears to be a Ford Focus — turn around to race. For all the time the Lexus remains right-side-up, it's half on the grass. And this becomes a problem when the crossover swerves to avoid a mailbox, which residents have a habit of posting in the grass next to their streets that aren't made for racing. If we plug these variables into an equation: Crossover, teenager, racing, left wheels on the grass, swerve, culvert, elevated driveway, and Florida, what we get is a spectacular airborne flight and flip that slams the Lexus onto its roof. The two teens in the crossover were injured, but according to the driver's grandmother, the driver emerged with nothing worse than some broken ribs. The video is enlightening videographic testament to the safety of modern cars. And it shows that even Florida teens appear to have, like Florida Man, that special invincibility dust that allows them to escape incidents that would kill or at least severely maim residents of any other state.  Related Video:     Auto News Lexus Crossover Hatchback Luxury Police/Emergency Racing Vehicles Videos Florida Man