Sure, its awkward shape has become a rather iconic symbol for low-emissions and fuel-efficient driving so that all your friends, neighbors and business associates know that you’re a good person for driving it. The highly recognizable Prius profile is one of the major reasons people are attracted to them.
But for those of us who dig cool cars, that’s a problem. For 2011, Lexus came to the rescue with a cleanly styled and highly drivable compact hybrid that removes the dork onus, although it is saddled with a clumsy name: CT 200h. That just doesn’t have the same ring as “Prius.”
CT, as I'll call it, is a good-looking four-door hatchback that is a dedicated hybrid, i.e. there is no regular gas-powered version to cause confusion. The look may not be as unique as Prius’ but at least those who recognize it will know it is a hybrid and nothing else. Which, I suppose, is an important thing for those who want to be perceived as good people.
With fuel prices hovering around $4 per gallon on average, a cool-looking Lexus hybrid might just fill the bill. Lexus notes that CT is the only luxury-compact hybrid on the market, thus far.
CT does perform with all the tidy excellence of Prius, with a seamless interchange of gasoline and electric power and various modes of operation for either more-efficient or better-performance driving. Like the Prius, its greatest efficiency comes in urban driving where the electric motor has a greater role rather than in highway driving, when the small gas engine does most of the heavy lifting.
My only issue with CT’s drivability is the rubbery continuously variable transmission, which either has the gas engine groaning like a wounded water buffalo or, when under hard acceleration or hill climbing, wailing loudly and continuously in high rpm. Really.
I know, I know, these CVT transmissions offer the most-efficient fuel-saving technology, compared with a regular multi-gear automatic or manual, but I just get sick of driving around with all that groaning and wailing. I would think that for car geeks such as myself, Lexus would provide the option of stickshift, especially for a car with sporty pretensions.
I had the opportunity to drive CT on a long road trip into the central Arizona high country, where scrubby desert turns to tall pines, and while the Lexus performed admirably with good handling and decent power, the droning high-rpm engine noise on the many steep grades during the way up started getting to me. On the mostly downhill way back, not so bad.
Stickshift would have been so much better all the way around. CT does have a driver-adjustable setting that provides engine braking rather than its normal free-wheeling, and the Sport setting gives greater throttle response and more-aggressive transmission mapping. But a trip like this really pointed out the warts in the CVT system.
Fuel mileage was pretty great, however, even though I was pushing the car hard most of the way. I averaged in the mid 30 mpgs on the ascent into the hills and in the low 40s on the way back. For a hybrid, that’s kind of what it’s all about.
In local driving, CT got mileage in the low 40s, and here the CVT wasn’t nearly as annoying. In the most-efficient EV mode, the car felt kind of sluggish but not too bad, and I learned how to manipulate the adjustments between Sport for acceleration and EV for cruising or driving in traffic to get the most mileage with the best performance.
In EV (which stands for electric vehicle), CT will run on electric power only up to 28 mph with light throttle pressure. The other modes – Eco, Normal and Sport – provide increasing performance but correspondingly lower efficiency.
A cool feature: when you switch to Sport mode, the electronic instrument cluster replaces the hybrid-system monitor with a tachometer.
CT gets its power from a 1.8-liter four-cylinder with “intelligent” variable valve control accompanied by a pair of electric motors that also serve as generators to return power to the nickel-metal-hydride battery pack when the engine is doing the work or while decelerating. One motor is up front while the other powers the rear wheels as needed.
Together they provide 134 horsepower with loads of torque from low rpm so that in the Normal or Sport modes, off-the-line acceleration can be pretty strong. Lexus says it will accelerate from zero to 60 in 9.8 seconds.
Drivability is uncompromised by the hybrid system, with the system switching back and forth quietly and unnoticeably. Although it starts off quickly, the Lexus runs out of breath as speed climbs. CT cruises comfortably at freeway speeds.
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