Gadgetory

the doubters will call this Alexis Prius but there's more going on here than that let's drive the 2014 Lexus ct200h with the F Sport package quite different than a Prius and check the tech ok what is a CT it is definitely a sporty er cousin of the Prius there's no getting around that but it's a very different car as you can see both outside and in if you're having a hard time wrapping your head around exactly where the CT fits don't feel bad it was originally aimed at the European market still is that's where a hatchback of these proportions makes more sense to people on the outside spot the current one pretty easily by the fact that they now have the family spindle grill they used to have this more suburban face on these things didn't do it any favors and because we have an F Sport it also has a mesh panel on that grille also look for a blackout roof it's a dead giveaway hotter Seventeen's on all four corners and more aggressive chin and rump bumper it's a pretty good-looking car to be honest they finally got it dialed in I think now inside this Lexus CT cabin you get some of the best ergonomics out there everything Falls to your hand exactly as it should this is the first car I ever talked about that had every angle on the dash and console actually naturally matching the way your wrist wants to move what a thoughtful idea if you head into navigation you're going to see that things haven't changed much for Lexus that's pretty standard traffic though is via HD radio so you'll get your traffic whether you have an active satellite radio account or not which is nice under your Lexus app suite you've got inform which is like Toyota Entune what does that include if you're new to this it's Bing for search but the search results are oriented toward locations I heart radios Clear Channel stations here's your movie tickets calm open table Yelp Facebook Places you're never going to use that and Pandora you're going to use that perhaps the most useful thing in this Lexus enform app suite is Bing because it's a Swiss Army knife you can search for just about anything let's try it with voice CBS Interactive and then once I get my result I can either say or click on what I want and I can either call or then say take me there connectivity in this car is through your phone and it's data plan not a dedicated onboard internet radio but do you see how many clicks I had to go through I had to do a list refine a list say take me there say take me there again ah now right about now after we've been playing with this interface a bit hopefully you've noticed the thing that distinguishes it and also drives me nuts that little floating marshmallow icon and this controller that drives it the Lexus remote touch controller I've been kind of on the fence on this one for a while and I've now decided I simply don't like it it's a haptic touch kind of a sliding Mouse apparatus the problem is this doesn't make any sense while you're driving it's too touchy you overshoot and undershoot all the time so you're constantly fiddling with it it's not a touchscreen so you can't default that way you do have voice we'll look into in a minute the other big failing on this thing is that they used to have a back button right over here under your right thumb in the early editions of this and they got rid of it why I want back to be quick simple and easy to use instead I've got to always go up here and navigate to the back arrow and start that if I should have to play a video game every time I want to go back now in terms of your audio choices radio still holds primarily radio choices although it's odd because all you have to do is go up here to source and you'll see all of your media choices why isn't that your main menu why still break it up into radio and media it just makes no sense am an FM with HD radio XM Sirius by the way if you're an HD radio fan know that it's only available when you get the navigation package CD player we still have optical discs in this guy here's my ipod interface it's a well laid out iPod interface as it is for most media but again this damn controller gets in the way note that for each of your media sources you've got a separate set of tone settings I like that so you can buy us one different than another because most sources have a very different baseline tone this is good now I've got an iPod Touch hooked up which we use for our demo purposes but if you hook up your iPhone 4s and above you'll get Siri eyes free which will also respond to this voice button but take you into Siri and operate those functions on your phone instead go into reverse and you've got your backup camera which is pretty good it's got trajectory and distance markings there nothing fancy beyond that no particular different views and there are no other cams on this car if you don't option nav or at least what they call display on the back-up camera gets relegated to a small part of the rear view mirror not great it's also got a curious lack of most driver assistance we'll talk about that when we get on the road your shifters this odd-looking upside-down golf putter looking thing and alongside that is a separate button for Park this is a little bit of nonsense I don't think it's necessary but it distinguishes the car but I don't need to have park a separate interface from the gear changes that to me is just not worthwhile this controller over here is your drive mode controller dead on as normal or push to go back to normal go counterclockwise you go into an eco mode it dials back throttle response crank it to the right you get to a sport mode now you're going to hold shifts longer and also tighten up the ratio on the electric power steering or hit the e V mode button right here and that's going to encourage the car to run on pure electric with no combustion as often as possible which isn't that often as well find out up front we have Toyota hybrid synergy drive rebranded Lexus hybrid drive at the same basic technology a 1.8 liter atkinson cycle that's a lean burn inline 4 sitting sidesaddle driving front wheels only in this car it accounts for 98 horsepower there's an electric motor a 60 kilowatt electric motor bonded to it that has another 80 horsepower but you can't just add those up in hybrid math doesn't work that way instead total horses 134 hmm kind of tepid so you might say uh electric motor plenty of torque well Twitter does not quote a total torque number on this vehicle so I can't really tell you I can't tell you this 0 to 64 this mere 3,100 pound car is a pokey 9.8 seconds so clearly the numbers are not very healthy here's where it is healthy mpg EPA rated at 43 city 40 highway and as we're gonna find in my experience that ain't no lie let's get this out of the way right off the bat this cars got less zero to 60 in nearly ten seconds is not a typo there's just nothing under the pedal partly because I believe it's been tuned to be obviously efficient we'll talk about that in a minute but partly because this CVT is rubber band II real elastic and seems to have no bite need some grit thrown inside the thing so it makes for a very non responsive driving experience unfortunately the payoff of course is the mpg I drove this car for three days primarily on twisty up-and-down mountain roads and I couldn't get it below thirty eight miles per gallon it really delivers but just like I told you I'm craving a back button on this controller I'm also craving some way to shift it there is really no way no paddles no shifter of any gear ratio type about all you can do is pop this little lever here into the B mode the brake mode which does additional regenerative braking that gives you kind of a sort of a layer of permanent downshift but it's not the same as having shift ability or fake shift points once you build that into your expectations driving the C T is actually quite pleasant there's good room in here even though I'm six-two that doesn't feel cramped at all and we've also got just a great layout of this cabin not just the ergonomics I showed you before but just the whole quality of it and complete difference from a Prius this car has got a very different feel part of that of course is our F sport suspension which tightens things up underneath I wouldn't say it's harsh that's a good thing because Alexis can't be what is harsh is that constant meandering wandering engine note of a lean burn for which isn't pretty and meandering all the time because hooked up to that rubbery slippery CVT as I mentioned driver assistance is kind of sparse you have adaptive cruise control and a forward collision warning and pre collision technology but nothing in the area of blind spot tech Lane Departure or self parking it's not what you have here is a hybrid with far more sporty pretensions and to some degree execution than a Prius but which be nice to have a powertrain responsiveness that remotely matches the suspension upgrades and the pretty hot look inside and out okay let's do a CT seen that style start off about thirty three grand for this car delivered and then just go all the way and spend sixty four hundred dollars for the full package of f-sport technology and premium trim another thousand dollars on sporty-er sway bars and lowering springs why not that's the cars mission is to be a sporty or Prius and now you're just about forty thousand dollars all in some are going to swallow hard at that price for a car that does zero to sixty in nearly ten seconds but the CT turns out to be more than the sum of its parts undeniably enjoyable as compact upscale urban transportation that delivers serious MPG in the real world and calf and tech that is better than most but also more frustrating than many