Test drive Lexus RX 2004 - 2008 SUV

The batteries are asking for fire

I let go of the gas pedal, and it even seemed to me that I heard the noise of the surf. Sundant, like a trolley, the car rolled along the Aegean Sea. Everything moves, nothing stands still, ”said Hercitel. Greek has long been excluded from school programs. Now next in line are the audit of the training manuals of driving schools. Very little time will pass, and the discipline of the car will look completely different. On visual aids, the places of float chambers and other anachronisms will take completely different details. Such as the Lexus RX 400H.
I turned the ignition key, the instrument panel broke out, but the engine did not start. Maybe you have to squeeze the brake? - put forward a version of a colleague. Or does the engine work, but excellent sound insulation does not allow you to hear it? Again, there is no tachometer - instead of it, a scale that measures kilowatts. The Japanese, who watched through the open window after our mustard attempts, was clearly pleased: everything was already working, he smiled, “you can go.”
If you press the pedal, which the tongue now simply does not turn to call the gas, then the hybrid RX will silently move. The gasoline engine is silent, only electric motors work. In this mode, we drove a kilometer and a half and even accelerated to 50 km/h. The gasoline engine instantly turned on only when the posts of indication of the battery charge on the display became very small. Now we had a gasoline engine and the front electric motor - the rear axle rested, and the battery, judging by the same display, began to charge.
They tried to press the gas harder. With intensive acceleration, the horsepower and gasoline and electric units are folded, and the driver has the opportunity to use all 272 hp. On this Lexus there is a unfavorable transmission - a variator, so acceleration proceeds exclusively smoothly, without jerks. Another detail: when the hybrid car accelerates, the force is transmitted to all four wheels. Moreover, the rear axle is driven exclusively by an electric motor, there is simply no cardan shaft in the Lexux RX 400H.
It is worth releasing the gas pedal - the gasoline engine immediately falls silent. At the same time, electric motors work as generators: expressing more scientifically, convert kinetic energy into electric, accumulating in the battery. At the same time, the economical driver will be very pleased to look at the flowmeter. If with intense acceleration, when the gas pedal is drowned to the stop, it sometimes shows a flow rate of 65 l/100 km, then with a pedal released - 0 l/100 km. You can roll and roll without polluting the environment and not facilitating your own pocket. So today the Crimean taxi drivers save fuel - after the pass, they turn off the ignition and further, under the mountain, go for a roll.
The same is in a traffic jam or on a long traffic light, when gasoline seems to be not necessary either in vain either. Dry the motor? Some do this with us, making the then standing behind listen to how the starter is twisting, and the engine does not grasp. Everything is simple here: in the rest position, the car is like non -living, but it is worth clicking on the pedal, and she went, thinking, she needed a gasoline engine now or not.
Lexus RX 400H sales have already begun in Russia. It costs a car of $ 77,300. Recall that $ 66100 is asked for RX 300 in the maximum configuration, so there is a reason to discuss what we get by paying an electromechanical toy of extra $ 11,200.
Environmental protection issues are not enough for us - we throw bottles and cigarette packs from the car window, therefore that we are extra cubic meters CO. Fuel economy? Let's count. The RX 400H consumes a hundred by 4.1 liters less than the RX 300. It means that if you usually pass, for example, 20,000 km in a year, then the savings will be 820 liters of AI-95, which is approximately equal to $ 475. Consequently, the money spent will be repaired in 23 years and 5 months.
Lexus does not call for counting these pennies. The company positions the Lexus RX 400H as a more dynamic car addressed to those progressively thinking people who are in a hurry to buy a new mobile phone not because it needs its new functions, but because it is relevant and fashionable. The dynamics of the hybrid is really impressive - up to a hundred it starts in just 7.6 s, which is 1.4 more faster than RX 300. As for fashion, we will allow itself to argue. The new mobile phone necessarily emphasizes his novelty with the design of the case, its transformations, backlighting and other jewelry. Therefore, it would be logical to expect that Lexus will enable customers of hybrid versions to somehow show off before others. Well, there is an antenna on the roof to style under a trolleybus pantograph or draw a skull, lightning and write on board: 288 V Don`t Touch!
In fact, the hybrid almost does not differ from the gasoline version. The RX 400H has a slightly different design of the rear lights and fog heads, a slightly different design of the radiator grille is a plus of 18-inch alloy wheels specially designed for this model. The interior changes, of course, will be hidden from strangers tinted glasses, and therefore only the fellow travelers will be able to see them. This is a 7-inch information display, on which, among other things, when the rear gear is turned on, everything that the camera, mounted on the fifth door, a new design of the devices, a slightly modified transmission modes, as well as aluminum decorative inserts will see, will see everything that will see the camera. , under the tree. They look more modern, but not quite logical, because the metal, unlike plastic, conducts electricity. Well, how will it shorten?
By the way, we asked the question of the reliability and durability of the battery to the responsible Japanese person. After all, if you continue the analogy with a fashionable mobile phone, then we must admit that the tube can serve much longer than its battery. We were replied that nickel-metallological battery is capable of holding a charge even at minus forty Celsius, and its service life is equal to the service life of the entire car.

Lexus marketers have already managed to compose photobots of potential buyers of their hybrid SUV. 36 percent is 38-year-old men who are most interested in their own status and sports in life. The same number of 42-year-olds, characterized by increased requests for the quality of life and interest in new technologies. The rest of the buyers are more than 52 years old. Apparently, this is the intellectual elite of mankind, the first to try on all the technical innovations.

Text Dmitry Gronsky, photo Lexus

Lexus RX 400h
 
V6 gasoline engine
Working volume (cubic cub) 3311
Power (L.S. at rpm) 211 at 5600
Moment (nm at rpm) 288 at 4400
The total power of the hybrid sulfide installation (L.S.) 272
Gearbox E-CVT variator
Length/width/height (mm) 4755/1845/1670
Wheel base (mm) 2715
Equipped mass (kg) 2040
Maximum speed (km/h) 200
Acceleration to 100 km/h (c) 7.6
Fuel consumption (city/highway/100 km) 9.1/7.6
Price in Moscow $ 77 300

During the trip, I was haunted by Dejavu - I was already sitting behind the wheel of this car and saw a cartoon on the display, explaining exactly what processes are taking place in a hybrid installation. Then he remembered: two years ago, at the Toyota plant, not far from Tokyo, journalists were demonstrated by a hybrid Harrier - a double of RX 400H, which has long been sold in the intra -Japanese market. Now it was the turn of the rest of the world - the next year the Lexus put a plan, sell 8,000 copies of 400h - as much as the RX gasoline.

The basic equipment of the RX 400H includes nearby xenon headlights with washers and the adaptive lighting system of the road, alloy wheels, hatch, separate climate control, 9 eirbags, steering wheel, leather salon, integrated car dynamics, audio system Mark LevinSon with 11 speakers with 11 speakers , the rain sensor, as well as a 7 -inch display inside and the rear view camera is outside.
 
 
 
 

Source: "Autopilot"