Going green meets luxury in the Lexus RX450h

In this day and age, it’s become quite fashionable to take a greener approach in an effort to help lessen the carbon footprint mankind leaves on Planet Earth.

One way of doing this is to banish meat and all things dairy in jumping on the vegan bandwagon, while powering your household with alternative energy sources such as solar power greatly benefits the environment apart from making you oblivious to Eskom’s loadshedding schedule.

Yet another way of securing a more conscience-free shuteye at night is by reducing the harmful carbon emissions from your car’s exhaust pipe and here your options are threefold: fully electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid. We were privileged enough to save a few trees during the festive season by navigating our way around Gauteng’s wonderfully quiet roads over the festive season guilt-free in one of the latter, a Lexus RX450h SE to be exact.

RX is the lettering assigned to Lexus’ large SUV offering, which sits above the mid-size NX and below the supersized LX in Toyota’s premium brand’s food chain of sports utility vehicles. Styling-wise it’s more in line with its smaller sibling with a sleeker backside and more modern lines featuring the latest Lexus design lines, while the 20-inch wheels are standout features. At R1 342 100 the RX450h SE is the headline act of this particular model range and features the latest technology in Toyota’s ongoing hybrid development proudly pioneered by the Prius 23 years ago.

The car is powered by 3.5-litre V6 petrol engine in conjunction with electric motors that produces a combined output of 230 kW of power and 335 Nm of torque (+electric) which is sent to all four wheels via the electronically-controlled Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT).

While the very mention of a 3.5-litre V6 might be enough to make a few tree huggers choke on their tofu, the low emission output of 131g/ km is the magic number. To put this into perspective, it’s 4g less than that of a Honda Jazz 1.2! But it’s not a case of nurturing dozens of fresh saplings from the get go.

The relationship between the components that make up the hybrid system is quite an intricate one and only as you start learning the way it operates over time, the more rewarding our contribution to earth’s precious resources will become. First prize with a hybrid vehicle is for it to operate as an electric vehicle (EV) for the longest possible time during your trip.

In order to achieve this, the battery needs charging first which is achieved by the power generated by the petrol engine. Once the vehicle switches to full EV mode, the trick is to figure out what to do and what not to do to keep it there in order to save the maximum amount of fuel and trees of course. If you are not extremely gentle – almost an annoying kind of a Miss Daisy-like gentle – when pulling off, the car will switch from EV to engine informing you with a very cheeky message that you have deactivated the greenness by accelerating too hard.

To help you get this right, instead of numbers, the RX450h’s rev counter is marked with three zones: charge, eco and power. A status bar indicating your progress through these zones is also shown under the speedometer reading on the head-up display. And then when you finally do master the feathery touch required to keep it in EV amid all the swearing and hooting from the car behind you, you also can’t afford to go too fast for the sake of the saplings.

For as soon as you threaten 70 km/h, the cocky little messenger reminds you that you are travelling too fast now to make your night’s sleep completely guilt-free. But having said all that, the RX450h is still a hybrid and not a full blown EV, so expecting it to behave like one all the time is simply not realistic, especially when taking into consideration that it weighs an almighty 2.2 tonnes.

The system serves its purpose however in combining its various components to keep the emissions low and although our fuel consumption of around 9l/100km over the course of over 1 000km was some pace off the claimed 5.7l/100km, it is still decent for such a big and heavy car.

If you add all these hybrid benefits to the typical Lexus luxury, space, comfort, supreme safety systems and quietness inside the  cabin, you get a very attractive package, albeit at a price. And it’s something that will not only soothe your conscience, but also your soul when listening to the philharmonic orchestra playing Beethoven over the Mark Levinson surround sound system.

The RX450h SE boasts Lexus’ renowned seven-year/105 000 km Warranty and Full Maintenance Plan. The warranty on the hybrid battery is eight-years or 195 000 km. The vehicle service intervals are at every 15 000 km, alternatively once a year.

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