R-E-S-P-E-C-T: The 2018 Lexus ES 300h

The 2018 Lexus ES 300h.

One of the hardest things to do is a smaller, reasonably-priced luxury car.  Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar...they've all had swings and misses on that score.  Arguably, the Lexus ES 300 originally fell into that category.  It was, largely, a Toyota Camry with richer-looking paint colors,  a leather interior and copious amounts of sound deadening insulation.

That changed five years ago, when the ES was moved to the Avalon platform and took advantage of the greater interior room to create a true luxury car.  We've been a fan ever since.  And of the available trims of the ES, our favorite is the ES 300h hybrid.

2018 Lexus ES 300h.

The price gap between a gasoline-powered ES 350 and the hybrid 300h is so small that the gas savings (40 city/39 highway for the hybrid compared to 21 city/31 highway for the gasoline version) will pay for the car in about two years. 

Beyond that, there's the excellence, comfort, quiet and luxury of the ES itself.  I really could picture owning one and making it the car I would drive for the rest of my life.

$41,820 is the base price for the ES 300h.  That includes a list of standard equipment so long that I'm just going to let Lexus tell you about it.

2018 Lexus ES 300h interior.

The interior ambiance is a bit more sporting than previous models, but there's nothing frantic about it. If you'd asked me in the glory days of Jaguar what their interiors would look like today, I'd have described something very similar to the ES 300h cockpit.

Our tester had about $8,000 worth of extra-cost options:

• Blind spot monitor with rear cross-traffic alert ($500)
• Twin projector Bi-LED headlamps ($515)
• Navigation with Mark Levinson 15-speaker premium 835-watt surround sound audio system including the Lexus Enform app suite ($2,615)
• One-touch power trunk ($400)
• Intuitive parking assist ($500)
• Ultra Luxury package...Semi-aniline leather seats, heated and ventilated in the front,  wood trim, power tilt and telescoping steering wheel, memory front seats, outside mirrors and steering wheel, remote keyless entry, power rear sunshade and manual rear door sunshades, power driver's seat cushion extender, ambient lighting, panoramic glass roof and power moonroof...($3,000)
• Heated wood and leather-trimmed steering wheel ($450).

And frankly, apart from maybe the power trunk lid (I appreciate it on an SUV tailgate, but do I really need to spend $400 to have my trunk closed for me?), I'd check all those boxes.  So, with delivery, processing and handling fee of $995, the bottom line came to $50,795.  

That's not only a reasonable price for this level of luxury and refinement, it's also only about $3,000 more than the ES 300h we tested five years ago.   It's possible to pay a lot more and get quite a bit less.  The ES 300h is a winner and earns its somewhat-overdue place on the list of TireKicker's Best Cars on the right side of this page.