I'm a bit on the fence about this. I didn't buy the LC for its fuel economy (I'd have kept my EV for that except I need to drive a lot for work someone keeps cutting the cables at public charging stations) so I've never felt disappointed and have been happily surprised to get to the mid and upper mid 20's on the highway in good weather (above 60 degrees, no serious headwinds). I've also had some trips, particularly recently in cold weather, where the teens are the best we can do, but again, this isn't out of line with my expectations so I'm not irritated by this.
To argue the other side a little time travel via the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) backs up that Toyota's initial promo materials (
2025 Toyota Land Cruiser | Toyota.com) did initially purport up to 27mpg combined albeit with the caveat that these were not official EPA ratings. This number was published on August 2nd 2023 on Toyota's website and pulled on August 17th with subsequent official marketing making no specific mention of fuel economy thereafter. My guess - someone in the marketing department made a mistake and pulled a number off an internal dyno report that they shouldn't have. No doubt there were other early communiques and leaks feeding the internet rumor mill as well but nothing anyone should have put their hard earned money on. Regardless, many social media reviewers and car magazines did continued to run with the 27mpg for some time even after Toyota deleted this from their own advertising until the official EPA results were published in February 2024.
So TBF there's a subset of early adopters, those who paid deposits in August 2023, who have a reasonable gripe that they feel hoodwinked by Toyota, be it intentional or negligent, into purchasing the vehicle under false pretenses (though I believe that the official EPA numbers were out by the time of the first deliveries to NA, so there's that). After that early timeframe we get deeper and deeper into caveat emptor territory and if someone was relying solely on social media reviews and/or put their money down after 2/2024 and is really bent out of shape then unfortunately this may be a lesson in why one should take responsibility to do one's own due diligence.
Now I would distinguish this from the whole "Well I'm only getting 13 mpg's" vs" Well I'm getting 30 mpg's" argument. I'm not saying it isn't a cause some consternation amongst the community but we might as well be arguing religion at this point given one person's driving like a grandma is another persons driving like Furiosa. Some owners, clearly, are getting the official fuel economy, some are not. It's been beat to death that EPA testing does not always reflect real world conditions and that most of the things people do to make their truck reflect their persona add up to decreased mpg's. No dealer is going to tell you to go ahead and throw on a 2" lift, double your tire/wheel weight, load up your roof with gear and carry 500 lbs of cargo and promise you'll increase your mileage but there also not going to tell you not to do those things when you walk in with that money spending gleam in your eye. So if your rig is outfitted for survival in the Wasteland or you can't drive 55... well, if you know you know. Yeah, a large displacement V8 would probably show less impact but you're also starting from a place of shittier mpgs. Take a breath.