Details are sparse, but there's news today regarding the upcoming Lexus hybrids. Yes, that's correct, there's two hybrids in the works!

Of course, this has been rumored for some time, but now we have something more in the way of facts:

• Fact #1: The first Lexus dedicated hybrid will be based on the new Toyota Prius, though it's expected to have slightly more CO2 emissions due to its emphasis on performance. (The new Prius will have CO2 emissions of 92g/km.)
• Fact #2: The second Lexus hybrid will be larger and entirely new, and will not be available for sale in Europe due to the C02 emssions.

The first thing that springs to mind when reading about the larger Lexus hybrid is the ES. After all, the ES isn't available in Europe with its conventional engine, and even further, you can't buy a Camry hybrid in Europe either. Pretty much spells it out for me...

[Source: Automotive News]

In a replay of last year, a Lexus RX 450h 400h advertisement has been banned by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority:

The press ad, for the Lexus RX 400h, made the claim: "perfect for today's climate. (And tomorrow's) ... Driving the world's first luxury hybrid SUV makes environmental, and economic, sense ..."

Four complaints were made to the Advertising Standards Authority that the claims were misleading because "they implied that the car caused little or no harm to the environment and gave a misleading impression of the car's CO2 emissions in comparison with other vehicles".

Lexus said that the use of the word "climate" in the ad was meant to operate at "two levels".

One was that in the current economic market the Lexus was offered with attractive financial packages, the other that hybrid cars were more environmentally friendly.

But the ASA said the ad implied that the vehicle's emission rate was low in relation to all vehicles and that readers were likely to understand that "the car caused little or no harm to the environment".

(The above advertisement is a modified version made by Lexus after the receiving complaints. The original ad didn't have the word "economic" in the headline.)

To be honest, I see anything wrong with the ad at all, and not only that, isn't it strange that Lexus isn't allowed to promote their product's strength over competitors?

[Source: The Guardian]

The Targa Newfoundland race concluded on Saturday, with Lexus GS 450h making a late push to finish 6th place. Here's the summary written by Team Lexus' driver, Mark Lachapelle:

Team Targa Lexus chose to make a very different entrance and arrival. Co-driver Alan Ockwell and I simply drove up in total silence, running on electric power only. For us, it was the best proof that you can run hard for six days (counting the three Prologue stages last Sunday), make it to the finish and still be as environmentally-friendly and quiet as possible, in a modern car. Not to mention competitively.

We finished sixth overall and became repeat winners in the Hybrid division, of course, but we also finished a virtual third in the Modern division with our two-ton-plus hybrid-powered sedan, bested only by a pair of rally-inspired, all-wheel drive compact sedans with about 350 horsepower each. Third place in Modern officially went to brothers Hugo and Maxime Vadeboncoeur in a Honda CRX, who also won the Baldhead trophy handed out to the best rookies.

(To clear up any confusion in that last paragraph, Marc refers to the fact that the GS was in the Hybrid category, and not Modern.)

Congratulations to entire Team Lexus, who significantly improved on their 2007 18th place finish. I really enjoyed following along on their progress, and I'm already looking forward to next year's event.

It's been an up and down couple days for the Targa GS 450h -- after completing Day 1 with zero errors, Team Lexus fell back to 15th place on Day 2. And now, yesterday, they surged forward and ended the stage in 8th position. This is quite a feat, though driver Marc Lachapelle stays humble in his latest blog post:

Don’t worry; we are not letting this good result get to our collective heads. There are still two full days of hard, fast and sometimes treacherous rally stages to complete before getting to the finish line in St-John’s. Our goal has not changed. We want to bring our car there in perfect shape, with a happy crew.

I'm really enjoying the race blog, and still getting a kick of these short little video clips being posted on Youtube:

(Also, be sure to check out the Facebook page.)

Having debuted last year, the announcement that the Lexus LF-Xh concept would be at the Paris Auto Show didn't really elicit a reaction from me -- that is, until I saw this stunning photo released by Lexus Europe to mark the occasion:

(Be sure to click on the image to get the full version, it's very impressive. I made sure to post it for anyone wanting to use it as a desktop wallpaper.)

Huge fan of the matte black paint, which we saw earlier this year when it was displayed at the Toyota MegaWeb in Tokyo. I'm of the opinion that Lexus should offer this as a standard color, as least on the IS-F. (The Five Axis IS-F surely proved that.)

Today, we have some seriously short video clips of the Lexus GS 450h currently racing around the Targa Newfoundland course. There's quite a few on Youtube, but these two here are the best indication of the speed and conditions:

As far as the race itself, Team Lexus had a great showing yesterday:

Results for Day One were finally posted and Team Lexus has now officially finished a day at Targa Newfoundland with a perfect score of zero penalty points, along with thirteen other teams. So we can say we led the overall standings at Targa – an honour shared with a baker’s dozen of other teams – for a day.

Realistically, this perfect score might very likely soon become a memory to cherish for some of the teams, because things will get more difficult for everyone today. They certainly will for us, as we tackle two tight stages to start the day. With the weight of our trusty Gs450h, these are typically the most difficult in conditions that reward great agility and fierce acceleration.