Lexus math triumph

Dan Neil thinks Toyota must be selling hybrids at a loss, but:

What matters is that the RX 400h works beautifully, just like the regular RX 330, only quicker (a half-second sooner to 60 mph than the RX 330) and with 33% better overall fuel economy (28 miles per gallon) and a whopping 67% better mileage in the city (30 mpg, according to the EPA).

Neil also tells this about GM:

However, General Motors Vice Chairman Robert Lutz has a subtler view of things. Last month he said he thought GM had “missed the boat” on hybrids: “We should have said, ‘We’ll lose $100 million a year on hybrids, but we’ll take our advertising budget of $3 billion, make it $2.9 billion and treat it as an advertising expense,’ ” according to the trade journal Automotive News.

Once one gets past the galling revelation that GM spends $3 billion on advertising and Lutz’s cynical dismissal of hybrid technology as mere marketing, his comments seem sensible.