Gadgetory

if you want everything Lexus knows how to put into a production car this is your huckleberry but are you a dumbass for buying one let's drive the 2013 Lexus LS 600h L Hybrid check the deck now before we get inside three things that make an LS hybrid a hybrid aside from being a hybrid first of all they're all long wheelbase five inches more that's all about the back seat second of all they all have the bigger v8 not a smaller engine by being a hybrid and third they're all all-wheel drive now I'll categorize the interior under two buckets wood and won't the wood is everywhere this bamboo wood sure it's an optional color scheme but man there's a lot of it especially down here this big chunky piece on the wheel looks like somebody was drunk when they were driving hopped the curb and drove through a flooring store now let's get to won't I won't be using most of these drive controls this car is amazingly busy in that area let's go through them first of all at your shifter you've got Drive of course then Sport within sport shiftable gate for up and down no paddles by the way which is interesting now down here you've got your drive controller which gets you a push for normal mode of suspension transmission and engine one turn left gets you to comfort mode which moderates down the throttle response and softens of suspension another turn counterclockwise takes you to Eco mode which really dials things back and also turns down the accessories to use less fuel now let's go clockwise our first stop is the land of sport that's going to sharpen throttle response transmission behavior and the suspension but another one takes you to Sport Plus and on top of that you've got an Eevee mode button but the car will also go into easy mode on its own so by pressing this you make it do more of it more often that's an awful lot to choose from how about just three simple modes go normal go fast or use less gas now right adjacent to our drive controls is the Lexus remote touch controller which I'm becoming less a fan of every time I Drive it you really have to think about your hand motions where you are and where you're going to land and that's just too much of a diversion from what I should be doing on top of that the Lexus interface is a little bit ragged it lacks a sort of structure that Audi has with four corners or BMW has with a left menu here it's kind of different on every screen the way things are organized and it just gets a little bit chaotic now once you do get into your radio and media setups you got everything you could want here HD radio with tagging am/fm satellite radio your apps sweet through in tune we'll bring you some music but also you've got lots of media choices got SD card USB streaming Bluetooth iPod connections standard aux jack it's all here and luckily there's no dumb hard drive to rip to so they've made smart choices unfortunately meta tag information for bluetooth streaming just isn't happening and that dates the system rather seriously this one has 19 speakers around the cabin including two over the rear passengers heads 450 watts and it's 7.1 surround the screen as you can see is huge I believe it's a 12.1 inch display nothing is in small type it doesn't need to be now under apps here is where you're going to find your inform suite of apps Bing I Heart Radio movietickets.com Pandora open table so you've got a mix of media information services and things that are contextualized to driving now of course you do have voice command on this guy and the recognitions excellent but it still requires you to enter an address one little chunk at a time that's pretty old-school full mobile San Francisco San Francisco we have what they call the executive class backseat for example here's our shiatsu massage controller with more settings and choices than even the most we toidy spa in your neighborhood now the seat over here on the right where I'm sitting does amazing stuffs I push that my seats reclining now that seats getting out of my way the downside about the ottoman is unless you're pretty damn short you can't use it if I put the ottoman up struts to push your legs up your feet get trapped underneath the front seat and your legs get broken somewhere about six inches north of your ankles on the other hand if you're 2 foot 1 like the bear you'll find it palatial a spacious we've got a big old motor in here even bigger than the v8 in the conventional LS it's a 5 liter this is clearly a car not using hybridity for efficiency but mostly for performance 438 horsepower 385 foot-pounds of torque the only transmission here is a CVT interesting choice cvts don't normally handle massive torque all that will 0 to 60 for this 50 150 pound sedan is a remarkable 5.6 seconds while the mpg is 1923 for an average of 20 not exactly a fuel zipper is it this car is only four tenths of a second faster than a gas l all-wheel drive now big part of a virtual wash on those numbers is because this guy weighs four hundred and sixty pounds more than a standard LS long wheelbase with all-wheel drive this is a lot of extra weight because of the hybrid gear and really it's battery this is what they do that no one else does I really think this is one of the great comfortable luxurious driving cars of all time that said this model is just not working for me there's no particular efficiency here the hybrid numbers are not great on that front it's got plenty of power but it's crippled by the fact that initial tip in on the accelerator and initial decel when you back off are both numb and kind of buttery doesn't work even in sport plus there is no sharp heel-and-toe on this car so why have months the other thing you notice about Sport+ is it never really conquers body-roll hmm it should do that it doesn't another reason for it not to exist now we do not have but there is this advanced collision package which brings you active lane drift prevention forward adaptive cruise control that same technology gives you low-speed collision avoidance not on the highways but around town it will break and keep you from running into something and a few other technologies it will basically keep you out of trouble okay let's price our Lexus LS 600h l it's big piece of change to start with about 121 base now to go seen that style you got to add that executive class backseat that's just plain fun but it's gonna add $7,500 the collision avoidance package which we didn't have is definitely interesting at $6,500 now you're up around 135 grand with those numbers this car makes no sense at any point in fact by my calculations it takes 115 years or 1.8 million daily driver miles to earn back the penalty on this hybrid versus a conventional engine LS L with all-wheel drive so you don't do this logically you do it cuz you're in love with an LS that happens to be a hybrid and because you're paying for it with out of the company's money or the taxpayers