gavriil1

From autospies:

"Sent in by one of our east coast Lexus spies

I work for a Lexus dealer.

Our factory rep was here for the RX330 preview and said that the decision to not add a third row on the RX330 was: The rear area will be used for the batteries in the new Synergy highbred ths no room. The Toyota Highlander will have an available rear seat in 2004 but the 4-runner will not. This was a compromise between Lexus and Toyota as the similar to the 4-runner GX470 has a third row. Also, the ES300 will have the 3.3 liter V6 in 2004 and will be the ES330. You may already have this info but this was from the horses mouth..."

Hmmm....

CDN_Lexus

That may be part of the reason, but I think that an equally large part of the reason is rear crash safety. I was at a sales meeting a couple of weeks back and I had the chance to see a photo of a RX330 rear high speed crash test. Let me tell you, after seeing that, I would not be putting any of my children in a third row seat in this or any other like type vehicle. Currently, there is not any public accessable results for rear high impact crash tests. I have been searching the net since that meeting. The only one I could find is, on the IIHS site, for low speed rear collisions to assess bumper damage for insurance purposes. (cost to repair). The rear of the RX330 is designed to protect its passengers by absorbing the forse of a collision, therefore, the cargo area is non existent after such a crash. In my opinion, Lexus is being proactive to meet future regulations regarding rear collision safety.