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2018 Technology of the Year Award | We chat with Lexus about the LC 500h's hybrid system

Every year, Autoblog editors test dozens and dozens of the newest vehicles available, sometimes even before they're available. From those vehicles, we select the ones we think provide the most innovative technology in the industry. Then we pare the list down to the very best, test them again, and vote on our winner for Technology of the Year. This year, Lexus's multi-stage hybrid system — as tested in the LC 500h — came out ahead of the rest of the finalists. We chose the 2018 Detroit Auto Show to hand over the award to Lexus Group Vice President and General Manager Jeff Bracken. He was kind enough to sit down with Autoblog Senior Editor Alex Kierstein and Green Editor John Snyder at the Lexus stand to talk about the hybrid system, what it does, and what it means for the future of Lexus and Toyota. Check out the video above, and follow along for all our coverage from the 2018 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, where we are taking a look at all of the new cars and technology that we'll see in the near future. Perhaps the next winner of Autoblog's Technology of the Year award is sitting somewhere on the Detroit show floor. Related Video: Green Detroit Auto Show Lexus Toyota Fuel Efficiency Green Automakers Technology Technology of the Year Coupe Hybrid Luxury Performance Videos Original Video 2018 detroit auto show

Check out this awesome Lexus manga art with exploding cities and dragons galore

Lexus just did something a bit different, and it has to do with manga art. The headliner piece is the Lexus LC 500 with the masked warrior crouching on top of it, seen above. We think it's objectively awesome, as the car autonomously races away from an exploding city. The LC 500 was drawn by Bulgarian artist Daniel Atanasov. He says it's "heavily influenced by Japanese culture. The main character is wearing an oni mask, which in Japan are worn at festivals to protect from evil spirits. He is holding a nodachi sword (a type of Samurai sword), and the pose of the character has been influenced by martial arts." Atanasov says the LC 500 is self-driving, controlled by the character on top of the car. Next up is a drawing of a Lexus ES driving amongst dragons. We're not so sure how long the car will last in that landscape ... perhaps an LX 570 would be the more prudent choice for bombing through a rocky desert. This one blends manga with classical paintings from the west, making it more of a hybrid. It was drawn by Tim Kong — he says he chose to draw dragons in order to "highlight the brave design of Lexus cars." Lexus' last commission is of the UX. This one is much simpler, with fewer things going on in the background. There is simply a girl and her Lexus UX in the dunes as the sun sets. It's rather calming and warm in nature compared to the first two drawings. The artist, Yishan Li, says she drew the UX like this because this is where she envisions taking it if she owned one.

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.