Yahoo Autos The 2023 Lexus RZ450e: The EV You’d Expect From Lexus
Under Akio Toyoda's leadership, Toyota waded cautiously into the world of EVs. Now that Toyoda has stepped down from the day-to-day running of the company founded by his grandfather, there's a sense this may change. But that change will take time.
The Lexus RZ450E is not the brand's first EV, as it sells an electric version of the small UX crossover outside North America. But the RZ is the first Lexus to ride on a dedicated EV platform. It's also the first we're able to buy in America and an important part of Lexus's path to go fully electric by 2035. The RZ shares underpinnings with the Toyota BZ4X and Subaru Solterra. Within the Lexus hierarchy, the RZ slots between the NX and RX in terms of size. Not price, however. The RZ450E starts at $59,650, with the Luxury trim carrying a $65,150 MSRP.
With the RZ, Lexus takes aim at a very specific customer—existing Lexus owners. And so, the RZ450e feels like what you'd expect from Lexus. It’s comfortable, quiet, easy to drive, and well-made. Other than an optional steer-by-wire system controlled by a sort of airplane-esque yoke, which won't be available in the U.S. for a few years, the RZ feels totally conventional. If you're coming out of an NX or an RX, there will be little to no learning curve here. In other words, if a Tesla Model Y is too weird for you, the Lexus RZ might be perfect.
Compared to most EVs in this segment, the RZ450e uses a small 71.4-kWh battery, with 65.6 kWh of usable capacity. This means range isn't great. Equipped with 18-inch wheels you get an EPA-estimated 220 miles per charge, and on 20s, that range dips to 196 miles. That's quite a bit less than the Model Y and other luxury EV crossovers, though ratings of 107 MPGe and 95 MPGe combined for 18- and 20-inch wheels respectively, mean the RZ is getting a lot out of its battery pack. Charging speeds, however, aren't class leading. A 6.6-kW onboard charger means that it'll take 9.5 hours to get a full charge on a 240-volt plug, while maximum DC charging is 150kW, meaning it'll take around a half-hour to get from 0 to 80 percent. The Genesis GV60 has an 11-kW onboard AC charger, and can accept up to 350 kW of fast charging.
Lexus says its customers weren't asking for more range, and the company is quick to point out that the use of a smaller battery leads to a lighter, more efficient car overall. The brand says it prioritizes battery longevity, which is all well and good, but only the years and decades ahead will prove that assertion. It's just hard to imagine American customers looking at the RZ's range without disappointment, considering range seems to be the main concern of prospective American EV buyers.
Fortunately, that's the sole major drawback of the RZ450e. All RZs come standard with a twin-motor all-wheel drive system, with a combined 308 horsepower. The front motor is the larger of the two, producing 201 hp and 194 lb-ft, while the rear provides 107 hp and 124 lb-ft. The motors whoosh the RZ forth, smooth as you'd expect, with accelerator-pedal mapping that never gives the sudden wallop of torque that other EVs have made a calling card. Instead, the RZ’s powertrain prioritizes smoothness. This is a Lexus, after all, albeit one with more than ample passing power. Very useful for the roads in the South of France where we sampled a European-spec RZ450e. These roads are often packed with traffic which demands a quick snap of passing power.
Paddle shifters on the wheel allow the driver to select the appropriate level of regenerative braking when lifting off the accelerator. There's no one-pedal driving mode, however, and the brake pedal blends regenerative and friction braking, so you're not missing out on peak efficiency if you use a low pedal-regen setting.
While many companies that have traditionally built front-wheel drive cars have taken EVs as an opportunity to switch to rear-drive vehicles, Lexus stays the course, with that larger front motor providing most of the RZ's drive. Assistant chief engineer Yushi Higashiyama says this is to maintain familiar driving dynamics with previous Lexus models and to provide predictable handling. Job done on that front. The RZ won’t come alive on a twisty road, but one imagines it's a lot more keen than gas-powered Lexus crossovers. Depending on its spec, the RZ450e weighs between 4564 and 4619 pounds, which is relatively light for an EV crossover of this size.
Most of the roads we drove on were very smooth, as is typical of France, but on the few bad surfaces we could find, the RZ rode very well. There's a lot of suspension travel and nice, soft damping, so it should be good on the worst roads the U.S. can throw at it. All in all, it's a very chilled out car, the sort that lowers your heartbeat after just a couple of miles. Especially so on the highway, where the driver-assist systems remove that last bit of stress.
We had the opportunity to test cars with Lexus' new prototype steer-by-wire system, which ditches the traditional steering shaft for a fully electronic connection between the wheel and the rack and pinion. This allows for a constantly and infinitely variable steering ratio, and Lexus fit the RZ with a yoke-like wheel with a steering ratio less than one turn from lock to lock. It's a little strange at first, with the ratio determined primarily by vehicle speed. In practice, this means you need very little steering angle to maneuver at parking-lot speeds, but once you've merged onto the highway, the steering ratio tightens, but still doesn’t feel darty. Inevitably, you will put too much input in while parking and for turns that come after a stop, at least while you're still getting used to the system. The ratio stays fixed mid-corner, though, so even if you increase speed in a bend, the RZ stays predictably on course.
Enthusiasts too often say conventional electric power-assist systems sap the driver of all feel, but there is still at least a mechanical connection between your hands and the wheels. The electric motor on the column works as a damper for some of the vibrations coming up from the tires, and road imperfections can be further filtered out by the system. But the connection is still mechanical. Here, there's no physical connection between the steering wheel and the road, so a motor attached to the wheel provides the driver with feedback. It's not quite right. Mid-corner, you get the sense of a motor torquing back at you, with weight building in an unnatural way. It's worth repeating that this is a prototype system, and steer-by-wire allows engineers the opportunity to make the steering feel basically whatever they want. But for now, it feels artificial, because it is fundamentally artificial.
Not that the standard conventional steering—which has a traditional shaft connected to a rack and pinion—is the last word in feel either. Weighting across the wheel’s travel feels a bit more natural, but this is very heavily assisted steering, the sort you'd expect from a Lexus. I will say that the steering ratio did feel very slow after driving the steer-by-wire car. Lexus hasn't put a date on when steer-by-wire will reach the U.S., with Europe expected to get the system in 2025. The idea with steer-by-wire is to lower the effort for the driver, as they never have to go hand over hand to operate the wheel, even when parking. It's an interesting concept, though I wonder if the sort of customers this car is aimed at will like it. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.
Inside, to no one's surprise, the RZ feels very Lexus-y. The interior looks a little bland, unless you opt for the Luxury model. That trim replaces the imitation leather with UltraSuede, which feels fantastic. A great interior detail is the ambient lighting, with LED lights projecting a neat pattern on the door cards at night. It's far more classy than the neon-hued ambient lighting everyone else is doing these days, and it feels quintessentially Japanese.
The RZ sports Lexus’s new infotainment system, which thankfully ditches the weird touchpad/mouse nightmare the brand used for so long. The new system is easy enough to use, if not class leading, yet a few too many functions are buried in menus. Most annoying is a chime that sounds when you exceed the speed limit, which has to be disabled every time you start the car. The Luxury-package cars also came with a head-up display, controlled by directional pads placed on either side of the steering wheel. The left pad controls both audio and phone settings, while the right pad controls driver assist and head-up display position. But to switch between the settings, you have to hit a button underneath each pad. It's hard to get used to at first, and a little weird to look at the head's up display for what would normally be on the gauge cluster. If you turn off the head-up display, the functions are instead displayed on a screen. I much prefer dedicated buttons. This feels like complexity for its own sake. For that reason, I would be tempted to get the base RZ over the Luxury trim. Plus the fact that you can only have the range-sapping 20-inch wheels on the Luxury model.
If you like the Lexus way of doing things, the RZ holds strong appeal, but only if you're willing to sacrifice on range. The Genesis GV60 offers better value, though it's quite a bit smaller; the upcoming Cadillac Lyriq AWD should offer more size, range, and charging speed for only a couple thousand more; hell, the Kia EV6 GT isn't as luxurious, but it costs just a little more than a base RZ, has similar range, much faster charging speed, oh, and 576 hp.
Things may be changing at Toyota, but ultimately, the RZ still reflects the cautious approach of Akio Toyoda. Whether or not you think Toyoda had the right idea, it means that this Lexus isn't as bold in stepping forward as other luxury EV crossovers on the market. That doesn't make it bad, just a little unspectacular in the face of its rivals.
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