LEXUS ES 300H EX
Lexus made subtle updates to their 7th generation ES model range for 2020 – the self-charging hybrid 300h EX.
FROM CULINARY PLEASURES TO CARS, the Japanese tend to re ne everything down to the smallest detail. Take Wagyu, for instance. “Wa” means Japanese and “gyu” means beef. And the caviar of meats is, without a doubt, the Wagyu beef from the Japanese city of Kobe. It’s world-famous for its avour, tenderness, and intramuscular fat, which gives it its unique, beautifully marbled texture. Over the years, Kobe beef has become synonymous with excellence.
Japanese whiskies are also popular. ey’re produced in the Scotch tradition, doubledistilled with malted barley and aged in wooden barrels. While most of the ingredients, such as barley, are imported from Scotland, its unique taste comes from the minute details of the Japanese distilling process, the water source, the shape of the stills and the type of wood the ageing barrels are made of.
Mizunara is a tree that’s only found in
Japan, adding a very distinct avour to the distilled spirit, which shows a lot of restraint, elegance and technical attention to detail.
at’s also the rst thing that comes to mind when you look at or drive a Lexus – any Lexus.
In 2019, Lexus had a 39% market share of all hybrid and electric car sales in the premium sector. And while the ES model range, based on the Toyota Camry, is in its seventh generation since 1989, the selfcharging hybrid ES versions are in their fourth. I took a spin in the ES 300h EX, which slots in between the entrylevel ES 250 EX and the top-specced ES 300h SE. And the car does what it’s supposed to do, cocooning the driver and passengers in luxury. is is, once again, a comfortable and – thanks to double-glazing – quiet cruiser, without being on the so side. ere’s lots of space in the car, especially in the comfy, rear leather seats, where passengers feel like they’re being chau eured in a limousine.
Its four-cylinder engine needs no turbo, and the ES isn’t a plug-in hybrid, but a selfcharging one, which mainly happens due to braking energy. One can easily coast this almost-5m-long, 1.2-ton, luxury sedan under 5-L/100km.
With a fully charged battery, you can even go one or two fully electric kilometres, in parking garages (to scare pedestrians) or city tra c. Whenever you release the accelerator, the luxury hybrid shi s into EV mode.
And just like Japanese whisky successfully took on Scottish single malts and Kobe beef became the best meat in the world, Lexus makes a stand in the luxury sedan market, dominated by the Germans.