I do not wish Toyota well in this endeavor. Yeh, yeh. Bla bla bla. You get V8 performance with V6 economy. So what. It still sucks and is of marginal benefit, especially at thsoe prices.

The question is: what is the mpg of most cars in this class? Is it higher or lower than 26? By how much?

If the average is 23 and this gets 26, that means that you're getting a 13% improvement -- nontrivial. Going from 23 to 26 is far more important than going from 43 to 46. It's the percent improvement that's key.

Most Americans choose a class of vehicles, then choose a vehicle within the class. If Toyota is generating the most fuel efficient vehicle in the class, then they're creating opportunities for the market to naturally trend more fuel efficient.

Stormy is right - like it or not, there is a market for SUVs and Toyota cannot afford not to compete in it. Kudos to them for doing it with a 4WD hybrid, a key differentiation against Detroit's guzzlers. I wonder if a hybrid minivan or premium pick-up truck will be far behind (those vehicle categories serve specific useful functions).

Sure, it would be better for the environment if the SUV market were marginalized by shifting the burden of taxation away from income and towards fuel in a socially responsible manner. However, that is not going to happen as long as the US electorate prefers military (mis)adventures in oil-related countries to changing its transportation lifestyle and urban architecture.

For now, the more hybrids are on the road, the greater the chances that the technology - adapted to specific niches - will make a dent in the total hydrocarbon consumption of the transportation sector. If modern turbodiesels finally clear the emissions hurdles in the next few years, they too ought to be welcomed for much the same reason.

There is of course the Mercedes Benz E320 CDI, rated at 27/37 (EPA is usually conservative with diesels) -- and you can use renewable fuel with it.

This is a rear wheel drive sedan, so comments regarding SUV market do not seem germane.

I guess my opinion is that high end SUVs aren't sold for four wheel drive. People buy them for room, power, luxury and status symbol. To me, the person who buys a Lincoln Navigator and the person that buys a Lexus GS fit the same or similar profile.

Would you say the opposite - that a car buyer would never buy an SUV?

T - You're quoting cars with 215-255hp, this new Lexus has 339hp. It's like Toyota says, power of a V8 with the fuel economy of a four cylinder. No, not a small honda civic four cylinder but a large four cylinder in a sporty midsize sedan (think Nissan Altima).

Like TT said, 25mpg in the city with 339 horsepower.

Lance, most passanger cars delivery 24-25mpg? Maybe in EPA tests, but I think that number is going to be lower for the average driver in the real world.

For an SUV, 26mpg is pretty good. I had a 1997 Toyota RAV4 for two years and I typically got 24, if I kept to the speed limit. Last June I traded it for a brand new Corolla. And with that, I typically get 33-35mpg (I actaully get annoyed if I get less than 33!) I think my cost of ownership, considering hybrids needs battery packs, will be much less even if gas jumps to $5 a gallon.

As previously pointed out, that was a totally inappropriate comparison above. Not one of those cars mentioned about would break 7 seconds 0-60, whereas the Lexus Hybrid is a touch over 5. In fact, that makes it faster than nearly every car I've listed below (it would be in a dead heat with the E500).

Here is a MUCH better comparison...

Lexus GS430 - 18/25
Audi A6 4.2 - 17/23
BMW 545i - 17/25
Cadillac STS 4.6 - 16/23
Infiniti M45 - 17/23
Mercedes E500 - 17/25

Since the averages above range from 19.5 - 21.5, you are talking about a MPG increase of 20%-30%.

And for everyone discussing MPG comparisons, the only valid comparison is how much fuel does it save compared to its non-hybrid version. Percentages and number of MPGs is deceiving. It's also important to compare emissions.

The baseline for this vehicle is the GS430, which averages 21 mpg (EPA) and has an EPA air pollution score of either 2 (Bin 9) or 3 (ULEV), depending on the market.

According to this article, the GS450h will get 26 mpg and hit Bin 3 (SULEV), which is an EPA pollution score of 8.

So, the vehicle will save 137 gallons of gas in a given year (15,000 miles), reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20%, and reduce NOx emissions by 85%.

To compare just the fuel savings, using a 2006 Civic as a baseline (34 MPG), a car would need to get 50 MPG to save 137 gallons of fuel (which is what the Civic Hybrid gets). The GS450h also has better relative emissions reductions than the Civic does when hybridized.

People are going to keep buying big, fast, expensive cars. They might as well be as benign as possible.

Oh, and for people talking about how much money is saved in gas costs? Gas costs are inconsequential for a $60K vehicle - compared to other vehicle costs.

If gas costs are inconsequential for this type of vehicle, then why bother paying up to get the hybrid Lexus? If a person's priority is a big, expensive, fast vehicle (not that the other cars in the luxury class are really slow), then why would they pay significantly extra to have a marginal impact on the environment and gas costs. Unless, of course, they were trying to "appear" to be concerned about the environment.

As I've indicated, going from the GS430 to the GS450h saves as much fuel as going from a standard Civic to a hybrid Civic, and reduces emissions more, so the marginal environmental benefit is greater for the Lexus hybrid than the Civic hyrbid.

I really don't understand your critique unless you have this as a general critique against all hybrids.

"I read somewhere that a lot of big SUV owners are trading down to smaller SUVs and cars. They are not doing this because of the expense or the environment; they are doing this because they are embarrassed."

I think that's hooey. Drop gas back to 89 cents and see how "embarrassed" people are. Large SUV sales will skyrocket.

You're assuming you really know what the market is for this vehicle. You're assuming that most people are trading up from a Lexus GS 430 or something comparable.

I'm not really concerned with what the market is. It's a $60,000 vehicle, and last I checked, there's not much fuel efficiency in that price category.

I should also point out that Honda used a similar, albeit downscaled, strategy with the Honda Accord. The Accord Hybrid has been a dismal failure. It offered increased performance with very little increase in gas mileage.

I'm not sure how you're reaching that conclusion. Do you have Honda's estimates for the number of them they thought they'd sell? I certainly don't see any languishing on the local Honda lots, unlike the Element and the Ridgeline. As for there being "very little increase in gas mileage", that's totally false. The 2005 Accord Hybrid saves 156 gallons per year compared to its non-hybrid counterpart (which is better than the Civic Hybrid does compared to the normal Civic), and the 2006 Accord Hybrid saves 116 gallons per year compared to the non-hybrid.

Regardless of your comments, I still don't see the motivation here, given the priorities of those in this market. Gas savings are irrelevant in this market. The only thing left would be environmental consciousness, which would be a low priority for this group.

Environmental consciousness is a "low priority" for people who can afford $60K cars? Huh? If anything, people with more money have more luxury to care about such things. When you're poor, you don't have much in the way of ability to pay premiums for green products, or concern yourself with much more than your own survival.

Joseph. Assuming 12,000 miles per year, the Accord hybrid saves 72 gallons. The hybrid has a combined 28 mpg, while the nonhybrid has a combined 24 mpg. This doesn't even consider the 4 cyliner where the savings are slightly less than zero to slightly more than zero depending upon whether the comparison is manual or automatic.

The Accord Hybrid is not off to a good start this year. It sold 351 in January and 783 in February. This is after the new tax credit kicked in. You really don't think Honda would agree with me that the sales are dismal? Do you really believe these numbers are in line with estimates?

A better strategy would have been to offer this in a 4 cyliner or to at least offered in both 4 and 6 cylinder. The industry needs to move to more choices in engine sizes when it comes to hybrids. The market needs to be more thinly sliced to maximize the number of buyers.

As for the Lexus, sorry I wasted so much time discussing this. It's really going to be a relatively meaningless portion of the market. The focus needs to be on the lower to the mid part of the price market. This is where the volume is.

The cars in the high end of the market speak for themselves. If the people in the market had the environment as a high or top priority, they wouldn't be in this market in the first place. Of course, we always have a few pretenders. I will grant, however, that there is often a disconnect between what people say they believe or think they believe and their lifestyle. For some reason, a lot of people have trouble seeing the inconsistency between their consumption habits and their expressed or believed ideals.