2023 Lexus RZ450e review: Take two

SINGAPORE - Lexus built its reputation on silence, and it notably upset the establishment when its first ever car, the LS400, emerged onto the market and shook the world with its astonishing levels of quietness.

Pretty much instantly, Lexus forced Mercedes-Benz and BMW back to the drawing board when the LS delivered a level of refinement that set the benchmark for the class.

Given that, one would imagine that an electric car would very much be in keeping with Lexus' own philosophy, of relentlessly pursuing the perfection of pure quietness.

And yet, the brand has not made much inroads into the EV world as compared to its key rivals who have embraced the electric revolution much more warmly, although there are signs that things might be changing.

Despite what the marketing collaterals would have you believe, the RZ is not actually Lexus' first EV. That honour goes to the UX300e, which unfortunately fell short in a number of key areas.

Its range was relatively poor compared to similarly-priced rivals, but most notably, the UX300e came with a CHAdeMo fast charging socket that was incompatible with most of the world's Type two CCS system, and so it felt like a rather short-sighted attempt that wasn't very well thought out for users outside of Japan.

Nevertheless, Lexus has given EVs another go with the RZ, and at first glance, it seems like they have made a better effort of it.

What the RZ is though, is the brand's first ground-up battery electric vehicle that's not built on an existing model, although it is based on its sister car's platform, the Toyota bZ4X. The RZ will also be offered exclusively as an EV, with no plans for an internal combustion engine (ICE) equivalent.

That in itself puts it at an advantage, because it means the RZ can be designed and engineered to be truly focused as an EV, without having to take into consideration the limitations of ICE cars.

That is very much unlike the UX300e, which was based off the UX small crossover, and converted into an EV subsequently, and so had to work around the regular car's design limitations.

Design and interior

That said, the RZ does feature some design hallmarks that marks it out as a Lexus. The general silhouette bears strong similarities to the recently-launched RX crossover SUV, with its slim headlights and its own interpretation of the brand's spindle 'grille' design.

In this case, the 'grille' is really just a mass of sheetmetal (mimicking that of numerous other EVs), but the pinched edges clearly makes out the spindle shape and gives the car a face that's easily recognisable as a Lexus.

The rest of the car attempts to inject a degree of sportiness with its semi-sloped roofline towards the rear, but Lexus has also been fairly smart to design it in such a way that it doesn't affect interior headroom too much.

The slope only begins beyond the rear seats and towards the boot line, and it leads down to a rear end design that can be described as rather futuristic, with its long and thin brake light segment that stretches across the entire width of the boot, and topped off by a neat little spoiler on the edge of the hatch.

The interior is slightly less dramatic though, and it broadly looks familiar to other recent members of the Lexus SUV family like the RX and NX.

The large 14-inch touchscreen dominates the dashboard, and the controls are mostly straightforward and fall to hand easily.

The steering wheel button controls can be a touch confusing though as it toggles the information on the head-up display, something that is not immediately evident on first use, and the RZ also features that odd electric door latch thing first seen on the NX that feels counter-intuitive to operate.

The rest of the interior is mostly typical Lexus, being reasonably comfortable and overall quite a nice place to sit in. The rear though excels in particular, offering an extremely generous amount of leg and head room.

A combination of the car's 2,850mm wheelbase and flat floor as a result of the EV packaging means there's room to stretch your legs, but also the aforementioned roofline design gives occupants the illusion of space, accentuated by the large double sunroof above their heads.

Driving experience

It seems however that Lexus has poured all of the RZ's excitement into the car's design, because it doesn't feel like a particularly stirring car to drive. Its noted strengths come in the areas of refinement, as is expected from Lexus, with its reasonably smooth ride quality and all-round quietness.

And yet strangely the car is not completely silent, with fairly audible wind and tyre noise while on the move, which feels a tad disappointing coming from a brand noted for its excellence in these particular qualities.

It does feel remarkably composed however, and the 309hp and 435Nm of torque coming from the dual-motor setup gives the car some pretty brisk acceleration pace. There's a great sense of stability, perhaps due to the fact that the heavy batteries sit at the bottom, like most EVs do.

But the RZ in particular feels like the kind of car that can handle long distance highway driving all day every day without fuss or complaint, and the car generally feels unruffled even at high speed.

Handling-wise, the RZ is mostly capable, going through the corners capably with decent body control. But it comes across as a bit boring, and it lacks that sort of engagement as you'll find in, say, a BMW iX3.

As a regular daily driver, there's little to complain about here, but the RZ is not really a car that would set your pulses racing or heart rate spiking.

As an EV, the RZ is pretty much average too. Range is quoted at 440km, which is just about on par for its class, although in the real world that is likely to drop to somewhere in the 300s given the average 20kWh/100km consumption figure we got, just slightly above the official figure of 18.7kWh/100km.

And yes, the RZ now has Type two CCS fast charging socket, and Lexus claims that it will take just 30 minutes to charge the car up on a 150kW DC charger.

Nevertheless, the RZ marks a far better attempt as an EV than Lexus' previous effort with the UX. But a potential stumbling block could well be the RZ's price tag of $406,800 inclusive of COE, even accounting for the $25,000 VES rebate.

That puts it well above similar-sized rivals like the BMW iX3 and Audi E-Tron, and at that price point, the RZ does seem like a bit of a hard sell. Still, at this rate of progress, Lexus is very much well on the right track towards catching up on its rivals in the EV sphere, and knowing the capabilities of the Japanese, it would be foolish to rule them out just yet.

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This article was first published in CarBuyer.