Auto News 5

The RX is the best-selling Lexus, and one in five sold is the hybrid version. It's no surprise, then, that with the new third-generation RX - the second to have a hybrid powertrain - Lexus is treading very carefully.

Say what you will of the knife-edge styling that plagued Pontiacs of the late 1990s, but I really liked the styling of the first-generation Vibe - it was sharp, it was (surprisingly) clean, and the result was a five-door hatch that had some sport to it. I can't say the same for the new car. Designers seemed to keep some of the sharp lines of the original, but they inexplicably added rotund forms for no real reason. It's not the Aztek, mind you, but it's not the sharp, sporty little thing I once admired.

No shoes were flung when the 2010 Toyota Prius debuted at the recent Detroit auto show. Considering the grim mood in the Motor City - with domestic automakers on death watch and frozen credit paralyzing sales - and the fact that a gallon of gas costs little more than a can of beer, that's remarkable. Detroit was hardly the opportune place for a fuel-scrimping, technically advanced Asian import to bow. Then again, consider the Latin meaning of the word Prius: to go before. Defying skeptics is this car's cause. The Prius's mission has always been venturing ahead of the gas-saving, earth-hugging curve.