Lexus RX (03-) 400h SE-L 5dr 4x4 review

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Lexus RX 400h SE-L Road Test

Test date 12 July 2005 Price as tested £45,950

For Performance, economy, emissions, ride quality, kit, refinement

Against Some torquesteer, body roll, petrol engine not the best, pedal feel

Unlike most new off-roaders that first feel an American climate on their paintwork, the Lexus RX400h hasn’t started life on the back foot. Superficially, it looks like a suitably soft target for the charmless hectoring of the anti-4x4 lobby. Although not the biggest vehicle of its type, it’s big enough to slot comfortably into the ‘premium performance’ sector where size clearly matters. At 1.7m tall and weighing over two tonnes, the RX400h casts the kind of shadow over smaller cars that has critics of such large 4x4s chanting incantations of the gravest sort.

One might even be accused of pouring petrol on the fire by informing the already outraged collective that as well as being big and heavy, the RX400h has no fewer than three engines (four if you include its generator). And that, away from the lights, it could out-accelerate your average hot hatch.

We can’t believe that serious 4x4 sceptics won’t have heard of the RX400h, though. On the contrary, we’d expect them to welcome it with open arms. For those who are none the wiser, let’s begin with a brief case study. Deputy editor Chas Hallett lives about five miles from Autocar’s offices in Teddington. His commute is habitually undertaken at a crawl in the close company of countless other carbon dioxide-belching commutermobiles. Fuel consumption for this modest trip in a powerful 4x4 would normally be plain embarrassing.

When Hallett took the RX400h home for the evening he didn’t get there any sooner; the tedious commuter slog was remarkable for another reason. Apart from natural evaporation, the Lexus didn’t use a single molecule of petrol. That being the case, there were no exhaust emissions of carbon dioxide or any other kind. None. What the RX400h left in its wake was the same as it found in its path. Not fresh air, but that polluted by smaller, lighter, ostensibly more planet-friendly petrol or diesel vehicles. And if that isn’t seizing the moral high ground, it’s hard to know what is.