I don't think that the placement of the battery under the rear seats will affect comfort. I haven't seen the setup in real life, but I'd bet the rear seat cushions will be the same and just sit on top of the batteries. Room for the batteries would come from making the gas tank smaller. It think currently the rear seats are on top of part of the gas tank. A smaller gas tank would be OK for range since mileage will be higher.

There's an actual "shelf" that the seat cushions sit on. The batteries would be underneath that "shelf". Check out this photo of an SC with the rear seat cushions removed and imagine the batteries underneath the red metal. Yeah I know it ain't a RX but you can see how the rear seats are constructed.

 

Hopefully Lexus will take the electromagnetic fields the driver and passenger are exposed to into consideration if they are placing the battery and more electronic paraphernalia under the front seat as you showed.

I have checked the field under my RX seats with the seat heaters turned on and find that Lexus is pretty good at designing the fields out of the heater systems like the newer electric blankets for beds.

Has anyone else investigated EM fields in the front seat with heaters and what could be expected with all this electronic gear under the seat?

 

EM fields under your seat !!

I'm having trouble with that. You do realize your vehicle operates it's systems on DC current and all the fields are static (i.e. DC) and not nearly anything to worry about compared to your cell phone!

Yes, your electric blanket operates from 60 cycle AC and that is of concern. But DC current? I-M-H-O, I don't think we need to be concerned about a seat heater. If you have some other studies or analysis of potential unwanted effects from DC fields, I would be very interested in reading up on the subject.

...using my seat heater in the great white north...

 

ederny, I realize that but my front seat heater lights up my meter within about an inch of the seat in some places. Other areas are green. I use it too up here in the north!

I have checked out other vehicles (vans) with it and find substantial areas of fields similar in range to microwave ovens, etc. even given the DC platform. I'll have to check out the rest of the car too as you have piqued my curiousity more.

Any luck getting the rattles out of the GBox? It's fixed in the'03 apparently, at least so far!

 

WIll work the Gbox rattles this weekend along with other maintenance items for the 6/99.

I'm interested in your meter used to measure the fields around the seat. Can you let us what it is and/or exactly what it is measuring?

 

There was a short article in the West County times paper on thurs. Jan 11 regarding Toyota making a
Lexus 330 hybrid. didn''t say when, but hada little picture of it. I want one.

 

People are complaining about the high cost of the hybrid engine and that it isn't worth the gas savings. Well, what about the performance increase? The hybrid engine will turn the RX into a rocket. Hell, people spend $4-$5k on a supercharger without the increase in fuel efficiency. Hell, 30MPG and 6 second 0-60 mph times? Where do I sign up?

 

.......with what you have to say. However, I just thought of one other thing. RESALE VALUE is gonna STINK, because of the frequent battery replacements, which I assume are EXPENSIVE!!

Unless Toyota comes up with a way of offering something like at least 10 years/150,000 mile warranty coverage for the batteries and hybrid system, I wouldn't consider one!! .......unless of course they come of with a way to make the batteries REALLY INEXPENSIVE to replace!!

 

CoachMan:
I hope the hybrid RX will have improved 0 to 60 and torque figures. But unfortunately it's all speculation right now. I mean it makes for good marketing spin right now, but they might change the specs later.

vicpai:
About the battery replacement, I'm hoping Toyota will offer a nominal warranty on the hybrid system and batteries. Toyota does this now for the "lowly" Prius: 8 year/100,000 mile for the hybrid related system. So we can expect Toyota to offer this for their premium brand RX330.

The resale value point about battery replacement is pretty interesting though. I hadn't thought of that. Again a good reason not to be an early adopter (unfortunately). Hopefully a warranty will mitigate some of that.

 

I think that if you can afford to spend nearly 50K on the hybrid you would not really worry about spending 5K(just guessing) on some batteries 10 years later....

 

doh!! , jk hehe but now I want one!!

 

With all the media and environmental groups focusing on SUVs, I wonder if I should go now and put a deposit down on a hybrid 330??