At Lexus Santa Monica, Luke MacFarlane, one of the stars of FX Networks' "Over There," is searching for his dream wheels--something stylish in a funky, offbeat way, powerful enough to haul his bike to the mountains, efficient enough that it won't burn a hole through his gasoline credit card or the ozone layer.
The slim, sandy-haired actor--upwardly mobile, outdoorsy, adventurous--looks as if some Madison Avenue image-maker had conjured him up for a sport utility vehicle commercial. And the Lexus RX 400h, plugged by the company as "the world's first luxury gas-electric hybrid SUV," would seem to be the model to bait the 25-year-old. Its estimated city/highway fuel efficiency is 29 miles per gallon, nearly twice what many conventional four-wheel-drives manage. Green-dreaming drivers are biting. As conventional gasoline-powered SUVs collect dust on Southern California car lots, the RX 400h is a comparatively brisk seller at $49,000, brisk enough that there isn't one for MacFarlane to see. He must make do with a glossy brochure and a sales pitch.
Neither does the trick. "I thought the mileage would be a lot better," MacFarlane says. A recent arrival from New York, he hitched a ride to the showroom from a friend because he doesn't own a car. "The ruggedness appeals to me, but it still seems so irresponsible to own one. When it comes down to it, it's still just an SUV."
After a half-century or so on the road, the sport utility vehicle is at a crucial evolutionary moment, and Californians will decide where it ends up. There are 2.8 million of the behemoths ripping up asphalt and gulping down petroleum here, more than twice the number in any other state, but these days a dealer can have trouble moving even an environmentally friendly--or at least friendlier--version of the beast with eight throbbing cylinders under the hood.
Signs of the shift are everywhere. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in his previous life helped design and promote the faux-military Hummer H2 SUV for General Motors, has reduced his fleet of the macho roadsters from seven to three and reportedly seldom drives them. Steve Reisman of Canoga Park, founder of the Southern California Hummer Owners Group, is infrequently behind the wheel of his red 2003 H2, which has a 32-gallon tank that costs as much to fill as dinner for two, including a fairly pleasant wine.
