LEXUS IS 300H ECONOMY AND EMISSIONS
The Lexus IS 300h has an official urban fuel economy figure of 64.2mpg, and also an extra-urban fuel economy figure of 64.2mpg. You would therefore imagine that the combined fuel economy would be a combination of 64.2mpg and 64.2mpg, in other words…64.2mpg. But no, the official combined fuel economy figure is… 65.7mpg. No we can’t work that out either. However the key thing is that the official emissions are just 99g/km CO2, which translates to a company car Benefit in Kind tax rate of just 11 per cent – which is amazing for a car that drives as well as the IS 300h.
Of course we know that virtually all cars have much worse economy in real-life driving, and hybrids are particularly difficult to achieve their official economy figures in real-life, unless you have a very light right foot. Our average real-life economy over a week with the IS 300h was 45.2mpg. With very careful driving we managed 60.5mpg, so it shows that it can be done, but it’s just extremely difficult to constantly drive so slowly on today’s roads without summoning the wrath of other motorists who aren’t likely to have the luxury of spare time on their side.
Note that in order to achieve 99g/km CO2 – and 65.7mpg – you have to go for SE-spec with 16-inch wheels (as on our test car).
SE is the entry-level spec – which comes with the smaller 16-inch alloy wheels. There’s also Luxury, F Sport and Premier spec. Luxury trim has emissions of 103g/km CO2, and 64.2mpg; Premier and F Sport have emissions of 109g/km CO2, and 60.1mpg.