2010 Lexus RX450h Review

2010 Lexus RX450h the original luxury crossover, with batteries.

2010 Lexus RX450h Review Brian Cooley: The RX, it accounts for over 40% of Lexus sales. Yeah, you bet they don’t want to screw it up. This one’s the RX 450h the Hybrid. Let’s see if they make it more than just a green statement and check the tech. The RX has been its third generation but they haven’t strayed far from the original look and proportion. And between the 350h and the 450h, you’ll have to squint a bit, they look very similar. Now, RX 450h is like an RX 350h, same basic cabin tech at least down the center. We’ve seen and loved this interface before. The controllers, this guy right here which is kind of like a flat top joystick of sorts and you’ve got haptic feedback. There’s a little bump, a detent if you will, on each one of those buttons. They simplified the main menu interestingly. Right up on the far left there, Destination is the first thing that you’ll go to very often. You’ve also got your information and your phone technology right here. Calendar, I could live without that, thank you. XM NavWeather if you live in a place with serious weather, that’s handy. If you live here, we never use it. Your climate controls are over here. This can be a little frustrating because you’ve got those and then right down below that, you’ve got this. So, it’s a little redundant I think. Our sources are AM, FM, no HD radio on this guy, satellite radio is XM. CD and DVD in this particular car because of the way it’s optioned. You’ve got a multi-disc changer up here. The Navigation system is hard drive based but we don’t get any of that hard drive space to play with, so you can’t rip. BT is Bluetooth streaming audio separate from the Bluetooth hands free which of course we have in this car but Bluetooth streaming audio means I can play right off of my smartphone. In my case, it’s a BlackBerry. This is the A2DP technology. If your phone has it, you should be good to go. And we’ve got a USB thumb drive down there in the nether regions where the aux and the USB live and you can see how that comes up pretty cleanly. We’ve got the Mark Levinson audio upgrade which is an a la carte audio upgrade package. That will give us more speakers, a 15 total around the cabin, more than 12, more than nine which are the two lower to your audio systems; 330 watts of sound and DSP technology here to do all kinds of fussing around with the surround. It’s a 7.1 CoreAudio system if you put the right digital sources in to it. Navigation on this thing is pretty standard, Lexus fair and that’s a good thing. You do have live traffic on here, XM Nav, weather as well; icons on the screen that show a traffic situation are clickable. So, there’s a warning. I can click on that and see what it says. Female: I-280 at Fifth Street, slow traffic. Brian Cooley: By the way, when you option up the navigation package, you’ll also get the backup camera which is pretty basic. We don’t even have trajectory or distance lines, just a view at the back. One other note with the Bluetooth hands free, there are two levels in this car. If you get the nav package, it bumps you up to enhance Bluetooth which has phonebook transfer kit building. Now, our RX has a dual rear seat entertainment system optioned did. It’s mounted on this little wing that flies up on the back seat. Really nicely executed I think, you’re really going to be using this wireless remote which has dual sets of controls for left and right. Front screen and this two can have the same source or can split up to different sources including the auxiliary input jacks down here for stereo, audio and of course, video by the usual RCA inputs. Next to that, you got 120 volt outlet which lets you plug in whatever portable you’re plugging in to the auxiliary jacks and keep it running. Headphones are interesting. You’ve got two sets of wireless one which you can also plug in wired down here on these analog jacks and they’ve got their own volume controls right by them, so a nicely done system overall. Now, the engine room is a big part of the story on an RX 450h because there’s an H. It’s a V6 295 horsepower but of course the torque is augmented dramatically by the electric motor. This vehicle is also available all wheel drive in which case they park another electric motor back at the rear wheels and that handles all wheel drive. By the way, it’s not fulltime all wheel drive as you might imagine. The standard 350 gives you 18/25 MPG. This car gives you 32/28, so a little better on the highway, dramatically better around town. Okay, let’s price our 450h, about 43 based, add a mere 1,600 for all wheel drive because all they’re doing is slapping on the electric motor on the back end. Now to do it of CNET style, it’s about 2,400 for the Nav package with backup camera and better audio, 5,600 for Nav with rear seat entertainment, that’s kind of a sweet package. Levinson audio is a la carte at about 1,600 and some other a la carte stuff. Adaptive cruise control with pre-collision breaking is about 1,600, head-up display is 1,200 and to get the USB jack, you got to buy $2,400.00 or $4,800.00 luxury package. I don’t like that one but that’s the way you got to do it.