Alfa Romeo Giulia vs Lexus IS

What's the difference?

The Giulia is a love letter to the increasingly lost art of the sporty executive sedan. As refined as it is beautiful and oh-so elegant to drive, it’s a reminder of why we always love Alfa Romeo, even when the odds are against it.

Emotional cars like this are hard to come by and they will soon be gone, replaced by something new. The future is not necessarily worse, but it will be different, so if a sporty European sedan with a combustion engine is calling out to you don’t miss your opportunity to drive the Giulia while it still exists in this form.

Smooth, cosy, quiet, the IS looks and feels better than ever, but without a doubt this hybrid version is a car best suited to cruising the dense metropolis of Chiba at midnight more than it is carving up a bunch of S-bends in the Australian countryside on the weekend.

While that might still limit its appeal for fans of German sports luxury sedans and place it further from the original IS’s ambitions, it does offer an intriguing efficiency and luxury focused alternative, without the compromises brought by rivals with more sporting intent. In a way then, the IS 300h perhaps inadvertently best embodies what Lexus is as a brand.

Like any good Alfa Romeo should be, the Giulia is a work of art. It’s sleek, sharp, and immaculately proportioned.

This most recent update has artfully refined a formula too good-looking to mess with. The increasingly dorky headlamps from the previous car have been swapped out for a more contemporary all-LED set, with a three-bar DRL pattern.

The grille has also been tweaked for this update for a more modern style, and the Veloce is now graced with the iconic and more aggressive sport two-tone alloy wheels in the traditional five-hole 'tele-dial' style.

It’s effortlessly attractive, and instantly recognisable as an Alfa on the road. I can’t think of a better way to stand out in today’s executive sedan landscape.

The interior has received less of an upgrade for the 2024 model year, with the same core parts. The major change is the old-school analogue instrument cluster being swapped out for a slick 12.3-inch digital unit.

The puzzling thing about this is the 8.8-inch central multimedia screen hasn’t been upgraded in-kind, making a strange contrast between the sharp and fast digital instruments, and the laggy and dull multimedia panel.

At least it effortlessly sits behind the curvaceous design of the dash as to not interrupt a good shape.

There are of course plenty of other touches which I love. The leather seats look and feel the part, as do the real metal paddle shifters which float behind the simple yet refined and sporty steering wheel.

The push-to-start button on the wheel is reminiscent of other Italian sports machines, while the tasteful smattering of leather, gloss plastic, and textured surfaces keep the premium feel on-track.

Some areas I’m not so keen about: Some of the interior plastics, particularly for buttons and toggles, feel cheaper than they should, and the door cards are oddly basic considering how much attention has been given to every other part of this car’s look and feel.

Look closely and quite a lot has changed. This is really a story of doing a facelift right. Lexus has kept all the great-looking bits of the car that launched in 2013, like its striking side profile and angular accents, while dumping most of its least popular elements like the spidery front light-clusters and busy front splitter, in favour of something more refined and conservative.

It even adds some new flair in the rear three-quarter, with dramatic LED light-clusters working their way into a trendy highlight strip across the boot lid.

These changes all add up for a much tougher, sportier, and nuanced design compared to the outgoing car. One that manages to make an eight-year old design look as contemporary as ever.

I even liked our test car in its plain black shade, although I'm less sure about those conservative-to-a-fault, almost Camry-esque alloy wheels.

On the inside, sadly not a whole lot has changed. The busy design looked dated when this generation of IS launched in 2013, and it still looks dated now.

The visual assault of buttons, toggles, displays, textures, and trims is a lot to take in, and makes the cabin feel smaller than it is.

It probably didn’t help the sensory overload of this car’s interior as I hopped out of the stripped-back interior in the Tesla Model 3 I had the week before.

My less-than-impressed brother, a student of design, described the IS’s interior best when he told me “It’s a bit maximalist, don’t you think?”

If nothing else, at least Lexus hasn’t blatantly imitated anyone else when it comes to its interior, but the brand remains firm on dorky design items like the laptop touchpad, redundant drive-select dial, and odd vacant panels under the climate unit which do it no favours.

A welcome upgrade for the 2021 model year is the new media screen, a highlight piece perched atop the dash. It’s bright, has excellent contrast, and doesn’t seem to fall victim to glare.

The Apple CarPlay support I used was seamless and sharp and made the most of the available real-estate in its widescreen layout.

I somehow didn’t mind that the instrument cluster in this base car is analog. It almost suits the IS’s character better than a digital set-up would. Also offered is a small information display between the dials which I used for monitoring the hybrid drive.

A final note on the IS’s design. The fit and finish is quality, inside and out. It leaves you with an impression that this is an immaculately built vehicle, one that should be a must for all luxury cars, and always a strong point for Lexus.

The Giulia is an old-school low-slung sports sedan. Many will prefer the SUV sensibilities of the Stelvio, with its bigger hatch-opening boot, and its higher ride height can better accommodate less mobile passengers, and makes it easier to fit child seats and the like.

For those willing to trade those things away for a superior drive experience, the Giulia is still solid to live with every day, but has a few drawbacks.

For example, those strangely basic door cards offer only a tiny map pocket with a nook I’d hardly describe as a bottle holder.

The centre console offers two larger bottle holders with variable edges, but there’s also not much else in the way of storage in the cabin aside from a smaller-than-average glove box and armrest console box.

The big win for me is the physical dial set and shortcut buttons for all the key climate functions, making it easy to operate while you’re concentrating on driving.

At least the seats are well bolstered, and front passengers are treated to plenty of adjustability. Visibility is okay, and it was easy for me to find a comfortable driving position at 182cm tall.

The rear seat is a similar story. It’s tighter, and you have to duck down below the roofline to get into it.

Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find enough room for my knees and somewhere for my feet to slide behind my own driving position, although the centre position is all but useless thanks to an enormous raise for the driveshaft.

Headroom is passable, but you wouldn’t want to be much taller than me. 

There are, again, tiny bottle holders in the doors, and a further two in the drop-down armrest. Rear seat passengers get dual adjustable air vents on the back of the centre console, one USB 2.0 outlet, and elastic nets on the backs of the front seats.

The boot measures 480 litres which is up there with a lot of mid-size SUVs, but because it’s a sedan, access is more limited, and it won’t accommodate as many awkwardly-shaped objects.

Well, the IS is a sedan, so it doesn’t quite have that high-riding appeal of an SUV, and for this update it has even leaned further into its low-slung proportions with a roofline that descends a further 15mm and a boot lid which is 31mm lower overall.

As with the previous car, the interior is quite closed-in thanks to that busy dash design and large centre console. Rather than feeling claustrophobic though, it is best described as cosy, with lots of plush finishes throughout the doors and centre stack befitting a luxury nameplate.

Adjustability is great for the front two occupants and there are two large bottle holders between the seats, a large but shallow console box under the armrest, bottle holders with adjoining bins in the doors, and a smallish glove box.

That’s about where storage ends though, with no extra trays or bins in front of the oddly placed shifter, just an awkwardly finished plastic panel where it feels like a little tray or storage cutaway should be.

The touchpad for operating the media screen joins an unnecessary drive-select cluster in eating up centre console space where there could be more storage.

The rear seat is quite limited on space despite being lavishly trimmed. I fit behind my own (182cm/6'0") driving position with little knee or headroom to spare.

Again, it’s cosy and very comfortable, but if you're taller or wider than me you may run into issues.

The centre rear seat is all but useless for adults, with the IS’s rear-drive architecture necessitating a huge transmission tunnel that almost comes as high as the seat base itself.

Storage is limited to pockets on the back of the front seats, small bins in the doors that double as handholds, and a drop-down armrest with two bottle holders.

There are no power outlets for rear passengers, but there are dual adjustable air vents.

Boot space is 450L which is a little small for the class. It’s impressive the hybrid only managed to lose 30 litres compared to petrol-only IS variants, though, so best to count your blessings.

The largest CarsGuide travel case easily fit in the wide but short available space.

To be precise the variant we’re looking at here is the IS 300h Luxury. It’s the base IS trim with the hybrid powertrain and it wears a before on-road costs (MSRP) of $64,500.

Base car or not, the new IS is very well specified. Now standard are 18-inch alloys (up from 17s), full LED headlight clusters, eight-way power adjustable front seats, dual-zone climate control, 10-speaker audio system, and importantly a brilliant new 10.3-inch multimedia screen with widescreen Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, built-in navigation, and DAB+ digital radio support.

Keyless entry and push-start ignition also continue to be offered, as well as a leather-look interior trim which in our car was in a rather contrasting 'Ochre' colour option.

Our IS 300h was also fitted with the creatively named ‘Enhancement Pack 1’ which adds an openable moonroof for $2000. The significantly more expensive ‘Enhancement Pack 2’ ($5500) adds the moonroof alongside 19-inch alloys, upgraded LED headlights, interior ornamentation, scuff plates, a panoramic reversing camera, 17-speaker premium audio, ‘leather-accented’ interior trim, ventilated front seats, and an electric rear sunshade.

These packs are seemingly largely unnecessary but are also very cheap for a brand at the premium end of the market.

Lexus has made pretty much all of its high-end active safety equipment standard on this base ‘Luxury’ for 2021, alongside some previously unavailable tech which we’ll take a look at in the safety section of this review.

At this price the Lexus IS 300h goes into battle against the Mercedes-Benz C 200 ($66,900), BMW 320i ($70,900), Audi A4 35 TFSI ($55,900), and the ever-looming threat of Hyundai’s Genesis, which offers its similarly-sized G70 in base form at $59,300.

Some of these base-spec rivals are cheaper, some are more expensive, but did you notice none of them are hybrids?

Access to Toyota’s affordable and popular hybrid drive is a real point of difference for the Lexus brand, and we expect it’s a key drawcard for the loyal customer base. More on that later.

The Veloce might not pack a Ferrari-derived six-cylinder engine like the Quadrofoglio, but its smaller 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine hardly wants for power.

Packing 206kW/400Nm it outpunches six cylinders of old easily, and is still capable of sprinting to 100km/h in a hot-hatch baiting 5.7 seconds to a Vmax of 240km/h.

It even sounds fantastic, as it flies up the rev-range living up to every bit of the Alfa promise. Peak power arrives at 5250rpm, but peak torque hits at 2250rpm.

Smooth shifts are provided courtesy of an eight-speed traditional torque converter automatic transmission.

The IS 300h does stand out from the luxury sedan crowd by offering a hybrid drivetrain at a reasonable price. Some rivals offer plug-in options further up the price scale cementing them as a niche option, but the beauty of this Lexus is its very mild $3000 price jump over the base petrol car.

The base car’s 2.0-litre turbo is dumped in favour of a 2.5-litre non-turbo Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder hybrid set-up similar to the one proving popular in the Toyota Camry and RAV4.

The petrol engine produces 133kW/221Nm on its own, and the electric motor produces 105kW/300Nm. Toyota says the “combined system output” of this is 164kW.

Either way, that's less than the base 2.0 turbo. The 300h also swaps out an eight-speed torque converter automatic in favour of a continuously variable transmission. Rare in a rear-wheel drive car.

The 2.0L turbocharged engine has an official combined cycle fuel consumption figure of just 6.1L/100km, although I saw 9.0L/100km in my time with it.

I’ll admit it was being enthusiastically driven, and treated to lots of urban commuting.

The Giulia has a 58-litre fuel tank and requires mid-shelf 95 RON premium unleaded fuel. Its approximate range on a full tank at the official consumption is 951km.

As you might hope this hybrid IS has an astoundingly low official/combined fuel consumption rating of 5.1L/100km.

I was pleased to find that after a week of mainly urban driving conditions, our IS was returning a figure of 6.9L/100km. Not bad at all, especially for a class where fuel consumption can get a little out of hand with turbocharged engines or V6s.

Of course, using the hybrid system to your advantage over the long term will get this number much lower, as I discovered on my long-term test of the Toyota Corolla hybrid which essentially uses a smaller version of the same system.

Certainly, if fuel consumption is a high concern, you’re better off with this car than the top-spec V6 (IS 350) which will easily see consumption enter double digits.

Lexus recommends a minimum RON rating of 95 for the IS 300h, and the fuel tank is 66 litres regardless of variant, giving the hybrid an impressive theoretical range of around 1000km.

Put simply: The Giulia is a celebration of Alfa Romeo. Yes. Even with a humble 2.0-litre turbocharged engine and an automatic transmission, this is a deeply emotional car. A riveting experience from behind the wheel.

Fly round corners, your eyes wide, exclaiming ‘magnifico!’ as the Giulia gracefully leans in, the rear LSD, sporty tyres, and wonderfully tight steering working together in harmony as you eke out just a smidge of tyre roar.

Laugh out loud to yourself, as you plant the accelerator, hear the muted rumble of the surprisingly angry little engine, and feel the turbocharger kick in half a second later as you power out.

‘Eccezionale!’ You’ll think, as you feel the click of the immensely satisfying metal paddle-shifters, and the transmission responds in-kind, the engine roaring up the revolutions with enthusiasm.

Sure, the Veloce grade is not as raw, or as wild, or near as fast as the top-grade Quadrofoglio, but all of the exciting spirit of  that car is still here, and at a little over half the price, too. The Veloce is an absolute delight to drive.

It has such poise, makes such a fine sound, and does it all so gracefully. This is how you make a car feel as one with the driver.

Even the ride is deeply impressive. It’s not too harsh or noisy, while gifting the chassis just the right amount of lean in the corners and allowing enough play for it to remain controlled over bumps.

Not only does it work well when you’re driving as it's clearly intended to be driven, but around town it’s quiet and refined inside, living up to the promise of a luxury sedan.

The seats and bolstering are great, the visibility isn’t too bad, and while I’ll complain about the slightly laggy software on the multimedia screen, the digital dash is responsive and the physical climate controls are welcome.

It’s not all perfect. If it were, I think it might cease to be an Alfa Romeo and start sprouting BMW badges.

For example, our test car, with less than 2000km on the odometer, had various inconsistent rattles emanating from the plastic garnish around the digital dash, and somewhere behind the back seat.

Regardless, driving this car has made me a little sad Alfa will be putting this wonderful platform behind it in pursuit of more electrified goals.

I can only hope wherever the Giulia nameplate goes next, it retains the spirit of this version.

There is no doubt the IS 300h is capable. You can feel it through the car’s solid rear-drive underpinnings, silky smooth steering, and reactive chassis.

What this car doesn’t offer is excitement in quite the same sense as many of its rivals. That’s down to this hybrid’s drivetrain. It just doesn’t have that powerful follow-through in the same way turbocharged BMWs or Audis or Mercedes do.

If it’s that 'sports luxury' experience you’re seeking better off looking to the base 2.0-litre turbo or the V6 and their eight-speed automatics.

The 300h does offer something a bit different. The gentle refined efficiency of Toyota’s signature hybrid system in a luxury rear-drive package that’s smaller than this car’s ES bigger brother.

While it may feel capable thanks to the lighter suspension components and altered track that the brand has committed to for this update, the hybrid drive matches this car’s softer character brought about by its gentle suspension tune and light steering.

This is an easy car to drive around a city, it filters out bumps nicely, while offering near silence in the cabin and breezy steering for every day scenarios like manoeuvring in tight parking lots.

The CVT auto and instantaneous torque available from the electric motor make it best at traffic speeds, being both reactive and predictable, with silent acceleration when inching forward at the lights or cruising along at 50km/h.

As you might expect though, the wheezy Atkinson cycle engine and CVT conspire for a noisy and less than engaging experience under heavy acceleration.

It’s not as though you’re rewarded with particular vigour either, with this combination being a bit sluggish when a lot is asked of it.

It loses its reactivity and refinement at higher speeds or in the corners on country roads as the transmission elastically tries to keep up with the demands of the driver.

Still, few luxury sedans are quite as purpose-built for the toils of a city, and if you want to get drawn into this car’s hybrid drive antics, it’s easy to make a game out of saving fuel by trying to rely on its low-speed electric motor capability.

Really then, it leans into its urban luxury appeal. A luxury sedan for the streets of Tokyo. An ideal car in this class for the urban environment.

If you don’t care for the thrill of a turbocharger or frequently seek to explore the twists of your nearest B-road, you could do worse than the comfort and ambiance the 300h offers.

A full active safety suite is now standard across the IS range, including freeway-speed auto emergency braking with pedestrian detection (works during the day and at night) and cyclist detection (works during the day only), and a new intersection braking feature, lane keep assist with lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert with reverse auto braking, traffic sign recognition, adaptive cruise control, and auto high-beam assist.

There is also an auto SOS function, as recently added to the Toyota Yaris Cross, which automatically triggers if an airbag is deployed. On the topic of airbags, every IS has a thorough suite of 10 (dual front, dual side, quad head, dual front knee).

This all adds up with the standard array of stability, brake, and traction controls for a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating, although the IS was last assessed way back in 2016.

The IS is built in Japan.

Alfa finally updated its warranty to a more industry-standard five-years and unlimited kilometres in 2022.

Service intervals occur at 12 monthly or 15,000km intervals for the 2.0-litre turbocharged variants. Pricing was not available for the model year 2024 version yet in the brand’s online calculator, but to give you an idea for the pre-facelift version, pricing came in between $345 and $1065 per visit, averaging $573 per year for the first five years of ownership. Not cheap, but not as expensive to run as you might expect.

One thing you might want to keep in mind is depreciation. Boring, I know, but even late model examples of the Giulia and Stelvio have been hit particularly hard by the depreciation stick according to residual values we searched up on Autotrader.

For reference, the Genesis G70 and BMW 3 Series have both fared much better in equivalent 2.0-litre turbo forms.

Lexus gets slightly ahead of the luxury pack with an extra year of warranty. While BMW and Audi still sit on three, Lexus offers four, but it is limited to 100,000km and is still outdone by Mercedes-Benz and Korean newcomer, Genesis, offering five-year/unlimited kilometre promises.

The IS has capped price servicing fixed at $495 for the first three years of ownership with roadside assist, and the brand will even pick up and drop off your car, or offer a free loan car during every 12 month or 15,000km service.

It’s worth noting that German rivals offer pre-paid service packages out to five years, and Genesis is trying to make a splash with free servicing.

Lexus does offer a luxury ownership program dubbed ‘Encore’ which includes invites to experiences and certain partnerships with restaurants and the like to keep potential owners enticed.