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The double knee airbags on the £56,850 on-the-road 4.3 litre V8 deploy from the underside of the instrument panel at the same time as the front airbags to reduce injuries from contact with the steering column and lower dashboard. It has also been found to help reduce head and chest injuries by limiting movement of the pelvis and rotation of the torso in a major impact. Curtain shield side airbags are also fitted as standard. Housed in the door and roof side sections, they inflate at the same time as side airbags mounted in the front seats to cover the front and rear side window areas. Both front and outer rear seats are fitted with seatbelts with pretensioners and force limiters. In a collision, the pretensioners automatically take up any slack in the seatbelt, while the force limiters help prevent the occupant suffering excessive force from the belt’s restraining action. Whiplash Injury Lessening (WIL) seats feature head restraints specially designed to help maintain body posture in an impact. The front seats are designed to provide additional protection with thick seatback pads and an inner framework that work to support the occupants’ heads and backs in a secure position. Further assistance is given by the high and forward position of the head restraints. By reducing the motion between the head and torso, the WIL seats have been shown to reduce significantly the incidence of whiplash injury. Concern has been expressed by the organisers of the Euro NCAP crash test programme that many vehicle manufacturers are not making enough progress to protect pedestrians from injury in the event of collision with a car. However, Lexus argues that in designing and engineering the new LS430, concern went beyond occupant protection to also address the injury risks to pedestrians. A redesigned bonnet structure helps to reduce potential head injuries and all other areas of the car’s body have been designed to help lessen the damage to other vehicles and to pedestrians in the event of a collision. The rigid passenger cell is protected by front and rear crumple zones and the array of passive and active safety features means, says Lexus, that the car has been designed to exceed the Euro NCAP top five-star standard for crash safety. Reinforcements in the front pillars and roof rails help prevent the cabin from deforming, and reinforcements in the footwell, dashboards and cowl work to stop the cabin from breaking away from the dash in a major frontal impact. Reinforcements in the roof, plus laser welding and special attention to the cross section of the side roof rails also work to prevent deformation of the cabin. To improve side impact protection, the centre “B” pillars have been strengthened using high-tensile steel, which bears up to 100kg of tension. The rocker panels have been positioned higher and made into a crumple zone, improving their impact-absorbing qualities. Gussets on the impact bars in the rear doors help prevent intrusions into the cabin, and the bars themselves in all doors have been positioned lower for better alignment with the path of potential side collisions. Passengers are offered further protection inside the car from impact absorbing pads on the doors and door trims. Extensive use of high tensile steel in the body structure reduces the overall weight and aids efficiency. The body was carefully designed to maximise the size of the front and rear crumple zones and to take the risks of side impacts with sport utility vehicles into account. Larger reinforcing elements have been incorporated in the bumpers to aid the absorption of impact forces in a collision and help reduce the potential damage risk to other vehicles involved. Both bumpers and mouldings are made of SOP (Super Olefin Polymer), a plastic that is said to have excellent impact absorbing qualities and is easy to recycle. The optimal shape of the bumpers and the use of the new impact-absorbing materials have enabled Lexus to reduce the front bumper protrusion without compromising impact performance. Where the rear bumper is concerned, reinforcement and a redesigned and enlarged plastic honeycomb structure help reduce potential damage to luggage in a rear collision. Crash tests have shown that the LS430’s strengthened rear body structure reduces impact damage, especially to large and more expensive components. The integration of advanced technology features is witnessed by the utilisation of adaptive front-lighting headlights, first seen on the Lexus RX300, and designed to improve night-time visibility by controlling the lighting direction of each headlamp in line with steering input and the speed of the vehicle. When cornering, the dipped headlight beam is turned towards the inside of the curve. This is achieved using an electronic controller that monitors vehicle speed and steering angle to calculate the optimum swivel of the lighting area. Night-time vision is further enhanced by the use of high intensity discharge headlights with automatic levelling and cleaning systems.
“The big improvement in safety would come from enhancing hazard recognition. With AFS we made brighter headlamps and ensured that they pointed in the direction of travel. Through this device we can achieve higher hazard recognition and greater safety.” As a further boost to safety, the new LS430 uses light emitting diodes (LED) for the rear combination lamp units rather than traditional filament bulbs. In the case of the brake lights, their rapid response time is a significant safety feature. The LED elements illuminate up to ten times faster than a conventional lamp, between two and 15 milliseconds as opposed to between 150 and 200. This equates to an extra six metres of reaction time for the driver following, when travelling at 60mph. Many changes to the car are difficult to detect visually but they have resulted in a drag co-efficient of 0.25 – among the lowest of any luxury car – which, for the motorist, means the almost complete elimination of wind noise and greater stability in high speed driving as the driver has more feel for what the car is doing. Parking manoeuvres are rendered simpler and safer with the introduction of the Lexus rear-view camera – a first in the market sector. This projects an image from a video camera mounted in the rear number plate surround on to the LS430’s dashboard display screen when reverse gear is selected and provides visible guidelines for accurate steering into parking spaces, thus minimising the risk of collision with low level objects, such as bollards and high kerbs. The same seven-inch screen displays information from the satellite navigation system. However, there is less need for the driver to divert their attention from the road ahead, as the LS430 uses voice recognition technology that responds to around 300 different commands for the navigation, audio and air conditioning systems. The installation of Bluetooth® technology allows the cable-free use of mobile phones and personal data equipment, thus enabling the driver to comply with the introduction on 1 December of new legislation banning the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving. The steering wheel is fitted with controls for the radio, cassette and CD autochanger. Electronic Traction Control optimises safe and efficient braking in an emergency, with electronically controlled Brake Assist, plus Electronic Brakeforce Distribution, four-channel ABS and Vehicle Stability Control. The TRC and ABS help maintain vehicle stability under acceleration or braking and the VSC works to ensure control during cornering. The VSC system monitors the vehicle’s behaviour under cornering and, if required, uses the ABS and TRC sensors to apply small amounts of asymmetric braking to correct oversteer or understeer before they occur. EBD uses the ABS sensors to equalise the distribution of front and rear brakeforce. BA interprets a quick push on the brake pedal as emergency braking and supplements the power applied to maximise braking, in conjunction with the ABS. This helps overcome some of the problems commonly witnessed in emergency situations, particularly with inexperienced drivers, where pressure on the brake pedal is not great enough or not sustained. BA is designed so that the driver doesn’t discern anything unusual about the braking operation. When the driver eases up on the brake pedal, the system automatically reduces the amount of assistance it applies. For convenience and safety, the new LS430 is equipped with a tyre pressure monitor system. This continuously checks all the tyres and sends a signal if there is a loss of pressure or if the tyre is defective. This minimises the risk of a high-speed blowout. It can be programmed for two different sets of tyres, if required.
Visibility is further improved by the used of water repellent glass in the side windows. The door mirrors also have a special coating to reduce the accumulation of water droplets and are fitted with a new high performance heater to remove frost or misting quickly. Lexus claims that when its standard specification is compared with rivals such as the Jaguar XJ 4.2, Mercedes-Benz S430, Audi A8 4.2 Quattro and BMW 7- Series, the LS430 is up to £11,300 better value. The cost-of-ownership benefits are also reflected in front and rear crash replacement parts for the new car, with Lexus claiming that parts required for a Jaguar XJ after a similar rear end collision would cost 42% more than the Lexus. This has helped the LS430 to achieve its 17E insurance grouping. Not only is the Lexus technologically advanced on the safety front, but in terms of quality and customer satisfaction indexes run by J D Power in the US and the UK, the luxury marque has won more than 30 awards since the first vehicle was launched 14 years ago. |
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