International Fleet World attended the fleet launch of the CT 200h in the South of France to find out more.

As the world’s first full hybrid luxury compact car, the CT 200h is absolutely central to Lexus’ product portfolio and its plans for fleets.

Powered by Lexus Hybrid Drive, the five-door model leads the way in a number of areas, including exterior finesse and interior quality, comfort and tranquillity. It’s also been developed to combine superior handling and dynamic driving that make it fun to drive.

Also key to the model’s fleet proposition are its impressive environmental credentials. 

Powered by Lexus Hybrid Drive, the CT 200h delivers leading-edge full hybrid performance, combined with exceptionally low CO2 emissions and great fuel efficiency.

To put this into perspective for fleets, the CT 200h it can travel 100km on just 3.8 litres of petrol with CO2 emissions of 87g/km. Simultaneously, it produces substantially less NOx than an equivalent diesel-engined car as well as virtually no particulates.

Lexus claims the key advantage of adding the CT 200h to a fleet is that significant financial savings in cost of ownership are achievable – whilst making a powerful environmental statement to customers. If the excellent residual value performance and taxation treatment are factored in, Lexus’ new compact hybrid certainly starts to make a lot of sense.

Producing best-in-class CO2 emissions of just 87g/km means that the CT 200h offers the highest fleet tax advantage in many European countries. In addition, Lexus Hybrid Drive enables owners to enjoy specific hybrid advantages in various markets. Overall, there are potential tax benefits for both fleet operators and company car drivers.

But the CT 200h has much more to offer fleets too. The compact hybrid has been engineered for low maintenance and long life. Servicing costs are minimised – as several powertrain components are part of the Lexus Hybrid Drive system and require no maintenance. The car also delivers particularly good component durability. For example, brake wear is low thanks to the regenerative braking system and tyre life good because of balanced weight distribution and higher tyre pressures.

Its appeal to European fleets and leasing specialists are undeniable. For example, Michel G Dashorst, Operations Director of ALD Automotive (Nederland), said to International Fleet World:  ‘CT 200h looks very good from the Nederlands company car perspective. For example, company tax benefit amounts to €6,600 – the same as for the current best competitor, BMW118i – and when it comes to personal income tax, CT 200h has a benefit of €6,300 – a €2,550 advantage over the €8,850 that must be paid for the equivalent BMW.’

The car also looks good from the residual value perspective. For example, Steffen Schick, Managing Director, EurotaxGlass’s Global Services, says: ‘The Lexus CT 200h is the first full hybrid premium car in the C-segment. This dynamic and confident-looking car combines premium quality in the interior with comprehensive safety and comfort equipment. The hybrid powertrain is very efficient in terms of fuel consumption/CO2 emissions and it will also have the lowest maintenance costs among competitor models analysed. The CT 200h enables smooth and economic driving with a low level of noise, vibrations and harshness.’

GATEWAY TO THE LEXUS BRAND

The CT 200h is the first compact five-door car from Lexus. As such, it opens the doors to a much larger customer base for the brand and has prompted Lexus to predict that, by 2012, the CT 200h will account for well over one third of its total sales. Without doubt, this is an important car for the brand. And Lexus is in no doubt that the new CT 200h will become a central model in its fleet proposition.

Pierre Antoine Cartier, General Manager, Lexus Sales Operations, says: ‘CT 200h is the new gateway to the Lexus brand as it enters the largest premium segment (approx 27%) of the market. As well as contributing to sales growth it will alter the brand’s strategic direction by accounting for over one third of total sales.’

Mr Cartier points out that by the end of October last year, there had already been approximately 60,000 customer enquiries related to the CT 200h. ‘Also, among 7,000 people surveyed, it was selected as “The Greenest Car” at last year’s Paris Motor Show.’

As he points out, while many competitors still struggle to commercialise hybrid as a production reality, Lexus’ cumulative hybrid sales worldwide now total more than 300,000 units in all.

‘Hybrid sales account for 62% of Lexus West European sales in 2010,’ he says. 

Lexus has also engineered its CT 200h to offer low costs of ownership. Service, maintenance, repair and tyre costs for the CT 200h are all much lower than for competitors in its market segment, says Mr Cartier. ‘Over 36 months/90,00km, CT 200h would cost approximately €1,700, which compares with €3,300 for the Audi A3 2.0TDI and €3,100 for the BMW 118d automatic’.

Lexus has also dedicated a lot of time to looking at the future remarketing of the model. In combination with Manheim, the car maker has established a B2B platform to optimise remarketing capabilities of the new compact hybrid alongside other Lexus models, explains Mr Cartier.

‘Key objectives are to improve defleeting possibilities for Lexus business customers, to keep Lexus used cars in the Lexus Retail Network and to maximise remarketing values of Lexus used cars. It means, for example, that if a fleet owner defleets 50 Lexus cars he has the possibility to re-market via Lexus Exchange. On day one the target will be Lexus certified retailers, on day two to all Lexus retailers in the relevant country, on days three and four to Lexus retailers across Europe and on day five to all traders across Europe.’

Of course being a Lexus, the CT 200h remains true to the Lexus principles of comfort and luxury.

‘Progressive luxury is a sense of joy, prestige and reward that values meaningful innovation, social responsibility and enriching experiences,’ says Mr Cartier.

An important element is the sense of luxury that is conveyed by a personalised customer experience.

‘Among the five major European markets – Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain – Lexus has consistently scored as number one in retailer recommendation since 2000,’ explains Mr Cartier.

To sum up, why should a fleet – or a company driver – choose the Lexus CT 200h? ‘From the company’s viewpoint, it is making an environmental statement, it is choosing a car with low running costs, product quality and reliability – and it will have satisfied employees. From the driver’s perspective, he or she too is making an environmental statement and paying lower personal tax – as well as enjoying stress-free luxury driving.

‘And a unique customer experience!’

LEXUS CT 200h ON THE ROAD

This is the first petrol-electric hybrid to be aimed squarely at the compact luxury car segment of the European fleet market and as such will compete with cars such as diesel variants of BMW 1 Series and Audi A3. Its CO2 emissions are rated at just 87g/km while fuel consumption is just 3.8 l/100km. On top of that, Lexus also claims exceptionally low operating and maintenance costs, which makes its pan-European fleet proposition looking good.

There are four selectable driving “modes”: NORMAL, EV, ECO and SPORT. With ECO, throttle response to accelerator pedal input is reduced to maximise fuel economy.

Based on an all new platform with an unique suspension design, the CT 200h feels more of a driver’s car. As with other Lexus hybrids, the transition from electric drive to petrol-power is always smooth and seamless. This is generally a quiet and refined car – although the petrol engine can sound slightly stressed if revved high in Sport mode.

The interior is very well furnished and has a quality feel to it. With all seats in use the boot delivers a usable 375-litre luggage capacity – or with the 60:40 rear seats folded flat there is an accommodating 985 litres.

The 1.8-litre VVT-i petrol engine and electric motor in combination deliver 136PS while a power split device automatically combines and re-allocates power from the engine, electric motor and generator according to driving conditions. The electric motor works in tandem with the petrol engine to boost acceleration, or drives the wheels on its own when EV mode is selected. In EV mode the CT 200h can be driven for up to 2km speeds up to 45km/h. During deceleration and braking the electric motor works as a high-output generator to effect regenerative braking. There is also an energy-saving electric power steering system, which contributes to overall fuel economy by only consuming power when there is input to the steering.

Buyers can specify Lexus’s pre-emptive Pre-Crash Safety system (PCS), with Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). PCS uses radar monitoring of the road ahead to detect potential hazards and assist the driver in reducing the risk of a collision. At speeds between 50 and 170km/h the systems maintain a pre-set distance from the vehicle in front. Once the road ahead is clear, the CT 200h returns automatically to the selected cruising speed.