Print advertisements for the car, headlined: 'High performance. Low emissions. Zero Guilt,' were deemed as 'likely to mislead' by the ASA, although it did agree with Lexus's assessment that the model was unusually clean for a car in its class.

The ASA was responding to some ten complaints that the text could give the impression that the car caused little or no harm to the environment and that overall its 192/g/km emissions were high compared to 'all cars.'

Lexus said it had sought advice before going ahead with the advertisement.

It claimed that the hybrid RX 400h's emissions were substantially better than many conventional 4x4s of the same size and that it believed this would be understood by the public.