The GS450 does not claim 32 mpg.The MFG. claims 22city and 25mpg hwy.,so it looks like it got better mileage than the MFG, claims.Put that in your pipe and smoke it!!!!

mark mccoy, mandeville, usa

There is no such thing as a "green" car!

Ken Wood, Fleet, UK

45mpg isn't impressive for a Prius. I drive a BMW 535d which over the 11,000 miles of its life has averaged a healthy 38.7mpg. Now I think that really is impressive for a big slab of a car that does 0-60 in 6.4 seconds.

Martin, Manchester, United Kingdom

I drive a 1.4l Astra, it has 5 gears when it should have 6 to keep the insurance down and the engine ticks over at 800rpm keeping it's CO2 output nice and low for the tests. Drive it at 60-70mph and it drinks fuel faster than cars from the same range with larger engines...

Tony, Hull,

In march of 2007 gas was about $2.70 . My wife wanted a new car . We were standing in a Toyota lot when I look accross the lot and saw a Prius for $21990 , accross the windshield. The car had a back up camera , ipod jack , 8 airbags. In flat FL we get 49 mpg. Once 528 on 10.48 gal of gas no lie

rob, St Augustine , usa

I have an Aston DBSV8, it manages about 10mpg around town and closer to 4mpg on the track.
It is far greener than anything you drive because it uses only 200 gallons of fuel per year.
See how much fuel you use per year.
If you are concerned about emissions the bottom line is total fuel usage.

richard, Blackburn,

Ask any real meteorologist, and he will tell you that we don't even have good enough models of Earth's atmosphere to predict the weather accurately for more than 3 days. Global warming is the scam, not more fuel efficient cars.

Paul the cab driver, Phoenix AZ, USA

My 2003 Toyota Prius gets 45 miles per gallon, would do even better if that fraud ethanol weren't added and has been exempt from emissions testing in metro Denver for five years.

Brian, Littleton, USA

Notice how "green" only becomes important when there's a tax advantage to it. Like all businesses, car companies should be in the business of providing what their customers want. If green was really important, there would be no necessity for government wealth redistribution on that basis.

Bryan Morton, Stuart, FL, None

The only thing green about Hybrids is how much more of it you have to put out to buy and operate them. A recent article in a Toronto newspaper detailed that a Ford Escape SUV hybrid costs $14,145.00 more to own over 7 years than it's petrol brother. Even the Toyota Camery hybrid was $1298.00 more.

Graham, Toronto, Canada

Hybrids cost thousands more to own and operate over time than their petrol equivalents. Buy a fuel efficient petrol/diesel car and spend the money you save vs the hybrid to plant trees. You'll do the planet a bigger favour.

Graham, Toronto, Canada

Consumption tests should be in real live conditions: a 10 mile urban commute across a hilly town then a 200 mile motorway trip cruising at 70mph when possible and with full payload. Better still, create a database of fuel used by owners of the vehicles. Then useful comparisons could be made.

Derek Morton, Sheffield, UK

By the eco-mentalist logic, we should all buy new Hybrid cars. So instead of buying, say a Toyota Aygo and running it for 10 years we should all buy Priuses every three to five years because they'll be new and therefore greener. So how exactly does this benefit the environment now?

Scott Millson, Toronto, Canada

I'm getting 46.8 out of my Civic IMA at the moment after 200 miles and it's still got well over half a tank left in it.

Paul Siddall, Ashbourne, Derbyshire

If the real CO2 figures are so variable why not scrap the VED or atleast the bands and put all "green" tax on the fuel.

John Mohan, LETCHWORTH ,

Bob of Torrington, USA, I agree with you. But will any of those greenie tree hugging bludgers get stuck into those Car companies for promoting enviromentaly safe cars when the enviromently safe cars they promote are, well not enviromenlty safe?. I doubt it.

Wayne, sydney, Australia

Nobody operates their car in the laboratory , we drive them in the real world on real roads and highways.
That is where the test results should come from, with actual driving conditions.
Put 300 Lbs in them to simulate a driver and passenger and test them on a closed test track.
testing is a joke.

Keith, Vancouver, Canada

It is time to produce a standard which must be used by auto manufacturers when specifying performance and emissions output from their vehicles. It should include emissons of CO2 from the manufacturing process for its ccomponents. That is what standards are for. "To have a level playing field"

Jim Wills, Brisbane, Australia

The carbon costs of producing and decommissioning a car are account for only 10-15% of the total carbon emissions of a car. The majority 80-85% of the emissions are from the actual running of the car. That's why owning an old Landy for a thousand years just doesn't make any real sense.

Blake, London, UK

The energy alone to produce the Nickel Hydride Batteries make all of these so called "green" machines hybrids, a total joke.

These were developed purely to calm the eco moonbats into thinking they're actually helping reduce CO2... instead they are the worse offenders!

Bob, Torrington,CT, USA

I can vouch for the economy of the Lexus GS450h. I had a 24 hour test drive in which I only managed 27.7mpg compared to the official 35.8mpg quoted across a mix of driving. Not bad considering the performance but my current BMW 745i does 23.9mpg against it's official combined of 25.9mpg.

Tim, Manchester,

Life-cycle costs are important, but recent work by the New Roadmap foundation (who started the whole ecological footprint movement) shows pretty conclusively that the embedded carbon in the car is a tiny, tiny fraction of the total CO2 impact. Do manufacturers design to the test? Of course.

Richard Wilk, London, UK

If a 109g/km car actually emits 171, you can be sure that a car in the 225g/km bracket is going to be pumping out well over 350. If car manufacturers tried to seriously reduce emissions from all their cars, instead of producing one-off greenwash vehicles, we might make some headway.

Owen Powell, London,

Why shouldn't the car manufacturers cash in on concerns about global warming; the government has.

CHris , Derby,

The whole thing is a gimmick. If everybody bought a zero emmissions car the treasury would lose billions in tax, so they'd tax the cars anyway, ditto the congestion charge.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

New cars have a showroom tax and are not worth the money. Better to find a well kept classic pre-1980 that has low fuel consumption and low tax

jane, Whitlesey, UK

In an era where car manufacturers are legislated into producing vehicles with lower emissions, where is the legislation to force oil companies into producing equally 'green' versions of their fuels?

Julian, Twickenham, UK

Shows how silly it is to talk of "greenness" at all in relation to cars, or to favour some models by exempting them from the congestion charge. All cars contribute to congestion, whether parked or moving (or trying to move). Ministers should concentrate on encouraging other ways of getting about.

Barry, Wallington, UK

We shouldn't just be looking at CO2 emissions per km. We must look at the total carbon footprint, including manufacture, maintenance and disposal. Hybrids have high carbon footprints because of their batteries and double engines. Poorly thought out eco-legislation will increase emissions.

Chris H, Callander,

It seems short sighted that emissions are only taken into account when measuring "greeness".

What about the carbon cost of producing, and destroying the car? What about how long the car lasts before it becomes scrap? For example, the old "farmers" land rovers last for decades.

Dominic Pearsob, Dubai, UAE

Honda Civic Hybrid owners in California have a class action against Honda for the Civic not living up to the claims where it is not much more economic that the standard petrol Civic in on-road conditions.

B J Deller, Marbella, Spain

None of them are very 'green' when they have to be replaced every five years as they are only built to last that long and not all the main parts are biodegradeable.

Stephen Dolan, Rickmansworth,