Lexus SUV Hybrid - "Green" or "Less Evil"?

I've been puzzling this week over the newspaper adverts for the new Lexus hybrid range. If you take the SUV, the hybrid does 35mpg and emits 192g/km* compared to the standard SUV performance of 25mpg and 264g/km. On carbon, that's a 27% saving - not bad, but the Toyota Prius does 104g/km...

There are two ways of looking at this:

1. there will always be a market for huge luxury vehicles, so it is better to be able to offer a substantially more efficient model to cut carbon emissions.

2. These guys are fooling themselves, if they really want to be green, they're going to have to compete with the best - luxury marque or not.

I'm tending towards 2. myself - it is very misleading to tell people that having a luxury vehicle with emissions no better than a family saloon is somehow "green". Manufacturers would probably say I'm not comparing like with like, to which I would reply "Exactly!"


* apologies for the mix of imperial and metric units -us Brits have never worked this metrification through!