FirstDrive: Lexus 600h LLexus has been ploughing something of a lonely furrow with hybrid engine technology and with the launch of its biggest and most advanced car - the 600 h - this week, one wonders why others have been so slow to follow suit if hybrid really is the ultimate answer?
Mercedes has indicated that hybrid (the combination of fuel and electric power) will be a feature in some of its cars around 2010 but there are still remarkably few manufacturers using it now.
Perhaps it is because others have been opting for greater diesel investment or concentrating on hydrogen possibilities. Perhaps it is because some people still feel hybrid needs to be proven (though there have really been no problems with components like batteries), but we are sure Lexus would like a little more company in this area.
The Lexus effort may still suffer a little from the absolute loyalty many buyers have to the big German names, so the 600 h has to compensate in other ways to attract buyers.
And, in fairness, this car represents a mighty effort to convince. It would take a page of this supplement to list every piece of equipment on this car, so the package is a challenging one. Flaws, if there are any apart from the boot size, which suffers from restricted capacity because of the battery size and the cooling system for it, are hard to find.
It is remarkably quiet, all the more so when you consider the engine is a 5-litre unit with 389 horse power on tap. It can get you from 0 to 100 km/h in less than seven seconds, which is also remarkable for a car that weighs some 2.5 tonnes. And yet it has respectable green credentials.
Its combination of petrol and electric power means it has a relatively modest 219kg of CO2 produced per kilometre (about twice the rate of some family cars) and substantially below other engines of the same capacity.
There are some who might argue that even that figure is too high in today's world, but big cars won't go away while the car remains the status symbol that it is for many people.
Two versions of the car have gone on sale - the standard model, but there is not much that is standard about it, which sells for €139,000 (including a 50 per cent green VRT refund) and the longer wheelbase L model selling for €168,850. Without the VRT refund, the cars would have cost €161,252 and €195,881 respectively.
For this you get an awful lot of car. All kinds of vehicle control and balance systems are on board, and the list of technological advances are almost limitless. Suffice to say that it will be actually very hard to lose control of this car, and you should get maximum protection if you do.
Where you really do notice the advances of the LS 600, however, are in the levels of noise and comfort. For a start, there really is no noise and it is as refined as you could wish. Even when you push the engine there is absolutely no thrashy feedback from it.
The 19-speaker stereo system is a marvel, and could rival the finest concert hall acoustics.
The luxury model with the extended wheelbase is also a marvel. You can sit in the back, raise your lower legs on an Ottoman-style base, have a massage from a device in the seat, drink champagne or enjoy an incredibly advanced entertainment system and generally think you were in the grandest suite of the Burj al Arab hotel in Dubai, rather than a car.
There is an allocation of 50 cars for this market this year, and some 35 have already been registered. Lexus in Ireland expects to sell 100 of these cars next year, with about 70 per cent of customers opting for the shorter wheel base model and the remaining 30 per cent probably opting to be driven rather than drive.