ganzoom

The chassis is really good, which makes the throttle lag even more irratating. Real shame we don't get the IS350 here.

I've done 10k in ours now, throttle lag is the only thing I hate about the car. Not a deal breaker since it's a family car so a bit of throttle lag is fine, still it's there.

Fuel economy improved by a few mpg. The throttle lag is there forever sadly :(.

Recently our IS300H swallowed up all the luggage for a family trip with a 4 month old baby with no issues, and thanks to a road closure ended up having to do a 40 mile detour, arrived at midnight instead of 1030pm, but because the IS is so easy to drive didn't feel that tired at all!! Also don't forget one of the biggest selling points of Lexus compared to all the other brands, reliability. Our IS300H feels like it'll go on forever and am sure it will. Where as when I owned a BMW every drive turned into listening out for strange noises or other signs of another imment brake down.

Currently sitting in our ML equipped IS300H waiting for my wife to finish shopping. I have to say am more than happy with the acoustic performance. The fact the combustion engine doesn't have to run to keep the ICE powered up for long periods is a real advantage over other combustion cars. With a 4 month old baby in the house the car is about the only place I can just chill and enjoy some tunes at the moment. The base performance could be better but that I think is more due to limit cabin space. Not sure how it compares to the standard audio, but its far better than the speakers in my Leaf :).

The 330e is looking like a great hybrid. Real world EV range is 14 miles or so, much more than the IS which is less than a couple of miles. Given the choice today between a IS300h and 330e we would havd gone for the BMW. Although the lack of range in the 330e shows up the fundamental flaws of a hybrid compared to a full battery only EV. The 330e can only manage roughly 2 miles per kWh, where as my Leaf can achieve 4.5 miles per kWh in real world use.

No issues like that on ours. Car is left not driven for weeks at a time these days, never had any issues with steering wheel 'creeping'. Go and get your dealer look at it.

The US modding market is huge, but I doubt your see much aftermarket stuff appearing on the IS300h for the reason you mentioned. Becarful of using suspension parts designed for the non-hybrid ISs on a 300h, I would expect the hybrid kit to have different weight distribution etc.

The water temp meter tells you nothing about how 'warmed up' the engine is. The engine performance is carefully monitored by the ECU, ours will go into EV mode after about 1 mile of driving. At this point the engine is already 'warmed up'. What you want to see is the oil temp, water temp is only evidence of how much cooling the combustion engine is needing, not how efficient its running.

You can pay professionals to apply various coatings but I'm far too cheap for that!! The bottle cost about £10ish, applied it pretty much straight away after getting the car home. Washed, washed it again, and than followed the instruction on the back of the bottle. Am sure car cleaning fans wouldn't approve, but I don't really want to waste hours of my life on car cleaning. The coating is still present 18 months on (beads water), I'll probably try to re-apply it in another 6 months or so.

^The paint isn't that bad. I put a layer of ceramic nano coating (wolfs) and 18 months on cannot see any stone chips. But I don't do big M-way miles.

For the OEM Lexus system - I highly doubt it, the cruise control is integrated with the lane departure warning etc, even if you could fit the hardware getting the software to work would be a major headache.

Are you going to wait for the facelift model? Its due next year, your get more stuff as standard am sure, but weak £ and strong Yen might send prices up a touch.

Just make sure you test drive the various driving modes. 1: EV mode with general acceleration for relaxed pottering around town 2: For more spirited driving put the transmission into 'Sport' mode and than 'manual' gears (move gear stick to the right). Also ask the sale team to show you how to turn off the fake engine noise generator, in my view it adds nothing to the driving experience. Hope you enjoy the test drive.

I'm sure you wouldn't find the 'in-gear' acceleration of the IS300H lacking, however regardless of which mode you put the transmission in there is always some throttle lag, this is due to the amount of time needed to rev the combustion engine up to speed to deliver the power. It's not that noticeable in day to day driving, but it's there.

^^The IS300H is by far the most relaxing car I've driven over long distances. My old car was a BMW 335i remapped to nearly 400bhp, looking back it was such a crude machine compared to the cars we have now. Once you have never experienced the silence of EVs your get it.

^ Our local dealer (Leicester) offered a 24hr test drive no questions asked.

If your doing a lot of long distance driving the adaptive cruise control is amazingly useful. But sadky Lexus only did as a very expensive option on the top spec cars. Not sure if Lexus is going to change that when the MY17 models arrive.

Surely the words 'spirited driving' and 'London's stop-start traffic' don't go in the same sentence ;) I did some very rough performance runs on our IS300H when we first got it. It's not a slow car, 0-30 is pretty decent mainly because of the electric motor. If you want to drive like a nutter with the foot to the floor your see bad mpg from any car, the IS no worse than any 'normal' car. For London start-stop traffic I cannot think of anything more suitable than a hybrid/EV, especially compared to a diesel. There are now more advanced hybrids around now, the BMW 330e is suppose to be very good whilst delivering decent mpg if you plug it in overnight. Of course if your after the holy grill of amazing mpg and 0-60 times to rival proper sports cars there is one car that will deliver both, I've just confirmed my order :)

Looks good!!!

If you really want fancy 'adaptive' damping try the bilstein B16 kit. You should be able to source the kit for under £2k add about £500 to install, your have to tell your insurance company but I've heard nothing but praise for this kit. http://www.bilstein.de/en-uk/products/sport-and-threaded-ride-high-adjustable-kits/bilstein-b16-damptronicreg/ But if you want the best suspension kit I don't think you can beat Ohlins road and track. Ive not seen a single bad review about it, but its nof cheap, about £3k before fitting, still if your after the very best in road going suspension it'll be in a different league from anything Lexus supplies stock. http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=788638 http://www.roadandtrackbyohlins.com/#26

Which is why the e-Golf has sold in tiny numbers compared to the Leaf/Zoe and even i3, all have the same range as the eGolf, but I'm paying £200/month on a PCP deal with £0 deposit for my Leaf and I simply give back to Nissan in early 2017 no strings attached. VW have said they will make a 'Tesla killer' for release in 2018/19, so we will see. Nissan have actually shown off a 60kWh battery pack that is barely any bigger than the current 24kWh pack in the current Leaf. The reason Nissan aren't selling a 60kWh Leaf is simply because no one will pay £40-50K for a Nissan (GTR aside). But the Nissan factory in Sunderland have already been given the contract to produce this pack for the next gen Leaf. We are now simply waiting for Nissan to show its hand. http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1100775_nissans-60-kwh-200-mile-battery-pack-what-we-know-so-far Hopefully it'll look like the IDS concept. So 200 miles+ real life range, pro-pilot automated driving software, and a price tag of less than £30K.

Germany and Holland are both considering banning combustion car sales within the next decade. The reason petrol cars need big fuel tanks is because you have to go to special places to fuel them. Electricty is virtually everywhere in our society. I've charged up my Leaf from a 3 pin plug in a disused barn with no issues. Current battery tech is already at 300 miles of real life range, when was the last time you needed to drive 300 miles in one go?? The limit currently is cost, and that's falling. Both the eGolf and i3 are not going up in cost despite 50% increase in capacity. Change is coming, and unlike the wild goose chase that is hydrogen, battery EVs is now delivering the goods.

^ The E-Golf is one of the best selling EVs in Norway. Both the i3 and E-Golf have recently had a 50% upgrade to their battery. Mercedes B class EV uses the same tech as Tesla. GM are about to start production on the Bolt, the worlds first 'affordable' 200 mile range EV. VAG group is now fully committed to EVs, Porsche will have a full battery EV out in 2020 which they are touting as the next 911. Lithium ion battery tech will continue to improve. Tesla arent far off 120kWh battery packs, which at an efficieny of 3.5 miles per kWh is not far off 400 miles of range. The killer is the price, but like all things tech the price will come down. As for recharging guess what I can refuel my car at home. No need to waste time finding a petrol station, queue up, stand around in the cold. Yes it takes longer but when the car is charging whilst I'm asleep at night it doesn't bother me. I wake up every morning to a fully fueled car. The next line of battery tech is probably carbon nanotube lithium sulphur/silicon batteries. But given the fact Sony released the worlds first commercial lithium ion battery back in the 1990s and its taken to now for the tech to mature anyone waiting for the next jump in battery tech before switching to EVs will be waiting for a while... And as for hydrogen, ill leave this here. Essentially surprise surprise using a volatile gas compressed to 700bar (10,000 PSI) as fuel is turning out to be rather more difficult to manage in real life. I repeat compressed to 10,000 PSI, not 100, or even 1,000 but 10,000 PSI. Honestly do you want to handle something compressed to such high pressure as a fuel?? Spill a bit of petrol not much happens, my Leaf charges using the same power as an electric hob, but am not so sure the effects of manhandling a gas compressed to the equivalent of been at the bottom of the deepest ocean. In addition each $1 million dollar fuel can only deliver one to two refuels before needing a hour long gap to recompress the hydrogen. Hydrogen tech is already dead, the sooner Toyota faces up to that fact the sooner they will move forwards. http://gas2.org/2016/01/15/toyota-tells-dealers-stop-mirai-deliveries/

Nissan, VAG, BMW, Merc, Tesla, GM, Ford all now offer perfectly usable EVs already. Ive had my Leaf for 14 months, done 8000 miles with no issues. If Toyota / Lexus refuse to embrace the future than they will have to brace for the consequent loss of sales.