Lexus GS 450h a muscle hybrid? Yup.

Toyota finally unveiled the detailed specs of their Lexus GS 450h sedan at the New York Auto Show.  I've estimated that the tax credit is $1,550.

At a combined 26 mpg, there's no doubt that this limited production sedan is a muscle hybrid.  In 2004, the 3-liter GS 300 represented 84% of GS sales, with only 16% going to the 4.3-liter GS 430. So the GS 300 is the more reasonable basis of comparison.

The GS 450h cuts 1.6 seconds off the GS 300's 0-60 time (and half a second off the GS 430's 0-60 time).  Combined fuel economy will be just 1 mpg (4%) greater than the GS 300 (5 mpg - 24% - greater than the GS 430).

Since they've used the hybrid technology to increase power by 94 hp and reduce 0-60 time by 1.6 sec, compared to the by-far most popular conventional engine, it is fair to call this a muscle hybrid.  Given the sales success of the GS 300, it's a shame they didn't use the GS hybrid as an opportunity to see if combining high luxury with genuinely high gas mileage might lead to a high-end market success.  Their recent introduction of a 2WD version of the RX 400h seemed to indicate a slight move in that direction, but this seems a large lurch away from responsible hybrid technology use.

Posted by: Don

Comments

[Michael Karesh]

I operate a unique vehicle price comparison site (http://www.truedelta.com) that adjusts for features. This makes it especially good for comparing hybrid to non-hybrid models.

I did not initially include credits because all numbers were estimates, and often differed by estimator. But a number of people asked me to include them, so about a month ago I did.

Now I'm seeing numbers for the Highlander and RX 400h that just don't make sense. Some numbers I see have the FWD getting a higher credit than the AWD, some the opposite, and some show them the same. Sometimes the numbers are the same for the Toyota and the Lexus, sometimes they're different.

The whole idea of a tax credit is to influence behavior, so having the credit without firm numbers makes little sense. Why is it so hard for the IRS to simply issue some numbers? It seems that if they simply pulled the relevant numbers from the EPA it would be fairly simple.