The Lexus CT200h is smooth, stylish and economical. It looks sporty but don’t expect a sports car grunt from this often-silent hybrid luxury compact.
This last week I’ve discovered that I can be smooth, very smooth, and that I can also be a bit creepy. And while the smoothness is the thing that I should probably be most pleased about it’s the creepiness that’s I’ve found particularly satisfying.
The reason for my new-found smooth creepiness is that I’ve spent a week driving the Lexus CT200h, and the CT200h is one smooth vehicle that it’s very easy to be creepy in.
I should explain: the Lexus CT200h is a compact hybrid car. It has a conventional engine that requires trips to the petrol station but it also has an electric motor. Whenever you go downhill without accelerating, whenever you apply the brakes or whenever the conventional combustion engine kicks in the electric battery gets recharged.
I know exactly when this happens because a couple of little screens in the car show it happening. For the first few days of driving the CT200h you find yourself obsessing about how efficiently you’re motoring along, you find yourself watching the graphics on the screens that show exactly where the power is coming from and going, keen not to accelerate too quickly and cause the combustion engine to kick in.
And that’s what effectively causes you to drive smoothly.
If you’re driving smoothly at night, you get the extra reward of seeing the dashboard developing a strangely pleasing cobalt-blue glow.
Silent
The creepiness is a fortunate by-product since, when you’re all electric, the car is pretty much silent, meaning that a lot of fun can be had in Dunnes car park. People know cars make a noise, and if you creep up next to them without doing so, the looks of surprise and bewilderment they’ll give you makes even a trip to pick up milk and bread enjoyable.
I suppose I should say a little more about the look, feel and performance of the car.
The CT200h is low slung and looks like a slightly elongated hot hatch. Think Lexus and you probably think of big aul’ sedans. The CT200h is not like that at all – instead it looks young, agile and definitely sporty.
More sporty than it actually is, if I’m honest. The fuel efficiency is great, the smoothness is great, the car looks great, but it does lack umpff.
You’ll get to 120km/h, but you’ll do it sedately, unless you go into sport mode (sport mode encourages you to be a little bit more aggresive with the accelerator pedal) which causes the car to make a nice grunt, reveals an otherwise-hidden rev counter and does give a bit of sense of torque. Not loads, but enough to make you want to twist the knob that puts you into sport mode every now and then.
Given this general lack of umpff, there’s a good chance that you’ll think twice about making a nifty overtaking manoeuvre on a winding national road, but given the amount of those that have gone wrong over the years that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Numbers-wise, it’ll take you 10.3 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 100km/h.
I got the car to hug the road and manoeuvre beautifully and confidently through notoriously challenging Sally Gap, but I was never able to feel that the fully automatic transmission was going down a gear if I put my foot to the floor. No matter what I did or wanted to do, the car was much more content when making its way along the road smoooooothly.
Smoothness and quietness aside this hybrid doesn’t feel any different to driving any other compact luxury car. It’s a Lexus and the leather, the touches of wood panelling and the general air of refinement in my ‘Executive’ model leave you in no doubt of that.
The multimedia SatNav thingy is very straightforward to use, no need to read and re-read the car’s handbook, and extras such as a rear camera are nice to have – when reversing passers-by may not hear you, but you’ll see them clearly enough.
It’s especially useful as the rear window is titchy, unlike the rear seats which turn out big enough for a grown-up 6’2″ Irishman to sit in comfortably and are accessed through proper grown-up rear doors. The soft-yet-firm leather seats are about as comfortable as car seats get – you’ll want to take them out and put them in your living room.
The boot isn’t much to write home about, but you can always fold the rear seats down (leaving any rear passengers on the roadside if necessary).
Under the bonnet you’ve got the same as you’d find in a tried-and-tested Toyota Prius. Basically you’ve an 82bhp electric motor under the bonnet that works with a 16 valve 1798cc conventional engine to give you a maximum output of 136bhp.
The Eco model will give you an impressive combined fuel economy of 3.8 litres per 100km (74.3mpg) and produces CO2 emissions of 87g/km. The S-design, Dynamic and Executive models (which have extra bells and whistles such as fancy alloys, roof spoilers, front fog lamps and cruise control) give you an almost as impressive fuel economy of 4.1 litres per 100km (68.9mpg) with 94g/km of CO2 emissions.
For all models, the annual road tax is €104.
When driving you can choose from sport, normal and eco modes. You can also press a switch that makes the car purely electric, although this is a bit of a gimmick as the combustion engine will simply kick in automatically if you run out of electric power or you move too quickly for the electric motor to cope with alone (anything above urban speed limits).
It’s been said that the CT200h is a more sporty looking, luxury version of the Prius, and that’s not far off the money.
Talking of money, you’ll pay a price of €28,990 excluding delivery for the entry-level CT200h Eco, rising to €32,990 for the CT200h Executive model that I’ve been driving.
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