The 2008 Lexus LS 600h arrived in our garage amid great expectations from our staff. The non-hybrid 2007 LS 460 L had treated us so well during a trip to Los Angeles that we gave it a rating of 10. Would its more expensive, more high-tech sibling maintain the family honor? In many ways it did, and even more so, but the LS 600h also stumbles inadvertently, as we've changed our rating criteria.
This year we traded in our safety sub-rating, which wasn't something we could honestly test, for a design sub-rating, our one chance to inject some aesthetic opinions into our overall rating. And while the LS 600h is a very handsome, refined-looking car, has easy-to-use cabin electronics, and wonderful interior space, our consensus opinion was that it just doesn't have the beauty to push it over the top. To get a top score in our design sub-rating, a car has to be a real head-turner.
In all other respects, the LS 600h blows away our rating system. Although much more expensive than the LS 460 L, it justifies its price with more power, superior handling, and lower tailpipe emissions. Instead of making the LS 600h merely a hybrid version of the LS 460 L, Lexus added rather than subtracted, increasing the size of the gas engine from 4.6-liters to 5-liters, and coupling that to a 165-kilowatt motor. And all that power gets to the road through an all-wheel-drive system.
Similarly, the LS 600h gets all the cabin gadgets from the LS 460 L then adds a couple more. On the LS 460 L, we were stunned by the audio quality and loved the in-dash hard drive for storing music. The live traffic alerts feature the best integration with a navigation system we've seen on a factory-install. Then there are the cutting-edge features, such as automatic parallel parking and adaptive cruise control.
This year we traded in our safety sub-rating, which wasn't something we could honestly test, for a design sub-rating, our one chance to inject some aesthetic opinions into our overall rating. And while the LS 600h is a very handsome, refined-looking car, has easy-to-use cabin electronics, and wonderful interior space, our consensus opinion was that it just doesn't have the beauty to push it over the top. To get a top score in our design sub-rating, a car has to be a real head-turner.
In all other respects, the LS 600h blows away our rating system. Although much more expensive than the LS 460 L, it justifies its price with more power, superior handling, and lower tailpipe emissions. Instead of making the LS 600h merely a hybrid version of the LS 460 L, Lexus added rather than subtracted, increasing the size of the gas engine from 4.6-liters to 5-liters, and coupling that to a 165-kilowatt motor. And all that power gets to the road through an all-wheel-drive system.
Similarly, the LS 600h gets all the cabin gadgets from the LS 460 L then adds a couple more. On the LS 460 L, we were stunned by the audio quality and loved the in-dash hard drive for storing music. The live traffic alerts feature the best integration with a navigation system we've seen on a factory-install. Then there are the cutting-edge features, such as automatic parallel parking and adaptive cruise control.
