jchauvin

Lexus officially announced the 2005 Lexus RX330 pricing on Sept 3: "The RX 330 luxury utility vehicle has been enhanced for 2005 by adding the power rear liftgate, 8-way power passenger seat, and a wood steering wheel and shift knob to the list of standard features. The available Lexus Navigation System gets upgraded software, and adds voice activation and Bluetooth® capability. Both RX models get a price increase of $500 with the MSRP for the RX 330 FWD model at $35,775 and the RX 330 AWD model at $37,175." Some dealerships here in Southern California already have some 2005 models in stock with additional vehicles arriving in the next few weeks. According to my local dealer, the EPA mileage for the 2005 Lexus RX330 has been reduced by 1 mpg compared to the 2004 models. Although the dealer did not have an explanation, I wonder if this reduction is a result of changes made to the computer-controlled transmission to improve acceleration and remove the transmission lag some people have complained about.

Just to clarify a point. As of January 29, 2004, California does not allow hybrid vehicles (such as the Toyota Prius or Honda Insight) to use the state's High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes with a single occupant. While the hybrid vehicles currently offered in California are very clean vehicles, they do fall short of the EVs and alternative fuel vehicles in several key areas and are not eligible for single occupant HOV lane use. Even when counting power plant emissions, Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) offer significant reductions over hybrids and these emission rates improve over time due to the fact that hybrids produce more emissions as they age. In addition, gasoline powered vehicles have large emissions contributions due to the "upstream" pollution of refineries and fuel distribution. Be sure to check your state's current policy before assuming that you can drive your new Lexus RX400h solo in the carpool lane. For more information on California rules, check out the following link: http://arbis.arb.ca.gov/msprog/carpool/carpool.htm