Paul gets behind the wheel of the new Lexus RX450h+ plug-in hybrid to see if it’s worth spending your coin on. This debuts a new plug-in hybrid variant for the Australian market and gives buyers more choice in the larger luxury SUV segment for plug-in hybrid tech.
2024 Toyota RAV4 Prime review: We need this SUV in Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNwkHje5P8g
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:48
Interior: 03:13
Practicality: 06:21
Charging: 09:24
On the Road: 09:47
Self driving tech: 16:47
Accel. & braking: 18:26
Verdict: 20:20
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#lexus #rx450h #review
2024 Toyota RAV4 Prime review: We need this SUV in Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNwkHje5P8g
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:48
Interior: 03:13
Practicality: 06:21
Charging: 09:24
On the Road: 09:47
Self driving tech: 16:47
Accel. & braking: 18:26
Verdict: 20:20
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
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#lexus #rx450h #review
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00G'day, I'm Paul. Lexus has just revealed a new version of the RX for the Australian market.
00:04This is a plug-in hybrid and last time I drove the RX was in the top spec 500 trim and I was
00:11actually really impressed with it. It was luxury inside, drove really nicely and wasn't outrageously
00:16overpriced compared to some of its peers. This on the other hand, it's sort of getting up there
00:21in terms of price when you look at what you're getting over and above some of the other grades.
00:25So this is sports luxury trim only for a plug-in hybrid. The plug-in hybrid is called the RX 450 H+,
00:31and it's priced at just over $123,000 and it comes with a battery in there to give you some
00:37sort of internal combustion free driving. So today we're going to do a detailed review of this. If
00:41you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes that are on the
00:45screen or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. Now in terms of the
00:49design, the plug-in hybrid looks basically the same as the rest of the RX range. The plug-in hybrid
00:54drivetrain is from the NX and up until recently, you couldn't actually buy a plug-in hybrid NX.
01:00They stopped all the orders because they couldn't actually fulfill them. There was just so much
01:04demand for that car. So that's now back on sale and this is now on sale as well for Australia.
01:10RX has sort of a fairly, I guess, luxury looking design and here in sports luxury, it sort of aims
01:16to blend sportiness with luxury looks. So you've got this sort of half grill down the bottom here with
01:20the Lexus logo. Camera down the front there as well, full LED headlights around the side here.
01:26Actually, one thing I'll mention as well, headlight washers. It's interesting, these as part of the
01:30Australian design rules, some cars have to have these based on headlight brightness and it's
01:35interesting to see that some cars don't actually have these at all and some cars have even gone away
01:40from self-leveling as well. So some of them have manual adjustments. So it is more expensive to do
01:44self-leveling plus the headlight washers. So keep that in mind when you're looking at cars like this,
01:49if there's no headlight washer, no self-leveling, it is all cost-saving stuff. Down the side here in
01:53terms of the wheels, nice looking design. It's got sort of like a reflective finish on it, which
01:58actually stands out quite nicely. 21-inch alloy wheel. Found with the last RX that we drove, it
02:03actually rode quite nicely. So I'll be keen to see what this is like in comparison to that. Body
02:07coloured wheel arches there as well. The 450 plus is an all-wheel drive by virtue of electric motors.
02:13So basically internal combustion plus electric motor at the front and then electric motor on the rear
02:18axle as well. Chrome highlights around the windows here. You've got a glass roof there, privacy glass,
02:23door handles are interesting as well. So electronic release is basically tapping a little button
02:27behind there to open and close the door. And that gives you the ability to have electronic release on
02:33the inside as well. So if you've got like a cyclist or other cars coming and the kids try and hop out
02:37of the car, it can actually prevent the door from opening. So you don't door the cyclist or another
02:42car. So interesting stuff. Now around the back here, full LED taillights, Lexus across there,
02:48RX 450 H plus, all-wheel drive down the bottom as well. It's a pretty conservative design at the rear.
02:54It doesn't have the sort of sporty attitude that the top spec has, but still looks quite nice in my
02:59opinion. And I think they've just done a good job here giving this bit of presence out on the road
03:02without going over the top with all the hybrid stuff. It just looks like any other car. So let me know
03:07what you reckon in the comments section below. Do you like the look of it? Do you think they've done a good job?
03:11I'm keen for your feedback. Let me know down there. Okay. So we're in the RX. This is what the key
03:16looks like. You've got lock, unlock, boot, panic. And then on the back, you've got the Lexus logo.
03:22It's a proximity sensing key. So you can leave that in your pocket. Once you're inside, you get a push
03:26button start just up the top here. So just like that other sort of RX that we drove, I really do feel
03:31like this feels very high end and premium. Like when you are paying this kind of money, you want an
03:36interior that is presented nicely. And I think that this fits that bill with a big infotainment screen.
03:41You've got this nice soft touch material along the doors there. Soft touch is sort of everywhere
03:46else in this sort of faux wood grain material. So I think from that point of view, it looks really
03:50good. What are the touch points like? Well, nice and soft there and soft on the door as well.
03:56We've got our gerometer. We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you do want to see
04:00how this car compares to others that we've tested before, there is a link in the description below.
04:03Now, it builds quality. Look, this is all really good. Typically, Lexus just build a good car, I
04:10think, based on my experience. So let me know in the comments section below if you own one. What's
04:14it been like? I mentioned before the door release. It's just this little button. So you just push that,
04:19cracks open, and then that's what the door slam sounds like. And yes, there is an emergency release
04:26there as well. So if you do get stuck with no power, you can just pull on that twice and it will
04:31crack the door open for you. Now, let's talk about infotainment. I'm a fan of the Lexus infotainment
04:36system. It's got a big sort of 14-inch display here in the center, but I like the fact that
04:41they use part of that display here for your temperature control. So you can see there as
04:46I sort of move up and down, it's actually using the edges of the display for that, which I think is
04:49innovative and just something a little bit different, which is cool to see. So inbuilt satellite
04:54navigation, but you also have smartphone mirroring, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto. Apple CarPlay
04:59is wireless. I've got it plugged in at the moment on the cable, but it operates wirelessly
05:03as well. Full screen integration. Android Auto, on the other hand, is wired. I'll show you what
05:08that looks like. Yeah, so full screen there as well. Very nice. Now, in terms of audio, you've
05:16got AM, FM, DAB, digital radio, and a 21-speaker Mark Levinson sound system. So it's a big old
05:24banger. Good sound system as well. They typically are in Lexus products, which is nice to see.
05:29So ahead of the driver, you've got another digital display there. There is also driver monitoring
05:33system. So we'll see how annoying that is later on. You've also got these sort of capacitive touch
05:40buttons, and they're interesting because you sort of rub your finger over them, and it gives you an
05:44idea of what the button is on the display ahead of you. And then you can flick between different
05:48functions for these buttons as well. So they have multiple purposes. Typically, they work well,
05:53but we noticed when we drove the Lexus LBX recently, the Morizzo RR, that you kind of keep
05:58bumping them. So I'm curious to see when we go for a drive whether that's the case here or not, but
06:02something worth noting. You've got front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera. I'll show you
06:07what that looks like. There it is. So quality of that is pretty decent. Worth noting as well that
06:13the plug-in hybrid also gets this semi-autonomous parking function as well. And it's what the horn
06:18sounds like. Now, practicality. Where are you going to charge your phone and stuff like that? So you've
06:24got wireless phone charger down here. You've got two or three USB-C outlets, one USB-A outlet, so
06:30all bases covered. You've got a variety of cup holders to sort of get about over here, plus decent
06:36storage in the centre as well. So opens sideways from both sides, but nice deep centre console. And then
06:42glove box is fairly reasonable, but have a look at the size of that manual. Bloody huge. So it takes up
06:49most of your room in there. Oh, actually, we do have a sunnies holder. Look at that. I was expecting
06:53there to be not one up there, but up there you're going to find as well the SOS button. These cars
06:57all have connected services, so it means that you can communicate with the car remotely. And then on
07:02the comfort front, you have dual-zone automatic climate control up the front here with heated and
07:07cooled seats. Heated steering wheel. Very handy today because it is bloody cold out there. The seats
07:12are pretty cool as well. So you've got that sort of Alcantara material there with perforations in the
07:16centre for the cooling. You also have electric seat adjustment for rear passengers to move forward if
07:21required. You have electric seat adjustment for the driver, so you can go backwards, forwards. Your
07:26backrest can go forwards and backwards. Lift the front of the seat, back of the seat. You also have
07:31seat memory and lumbar adjustment. Passenger is electrically adjustable with memory as well.
07:37Steering offers both tilts and reach adjustment, and that is fully electric. Then on our reach test,
07:43all this stuff is fairly easy to reach while you're driving. Now, second row. What's it like
07:48back here? Knee room is great. Tow room is okay, but not amazing. So the battery pack sits beneath
07:53the floor here. Headroom is okay, but also not amazing. There is sort of sufficient space here
08:00to operate. This is a family vehicle. You've got sort of enough room to sort of stretch out here,
08:03especially for kids. You've got privacy blinds there as well if you do have the baby seat on the
08:07go. And that sort of premium feel continues back here too. You've got that sort of soft touch
08:11material sort of around the place. Map pockets just here. You've got heated and cooled seats for
08:17the outboard seats, two USB-C chargers and air vents. A centre armrest there with a pair of cup
08:23holders, centre section too. Now, does the window go down all the way? Let's do our window test. So
08:30it's auto up and down. Fantastic. And it does that Lexus thing as well. Watch it as it slows down
08:36that tucks into the top there. Yeah, let's talk cargo space. All righty. So you've got
08:43over 600 litres of cargo to play with here. Beneath the cargo floor, you've got storage for your cable.
08:49There's a 12 volt battery under here and then storage for a couple of other sort of odds and
08:53ends there. But it's actually fairly reasonable. You're not getting robbed of too much space here
08:58given that you've got an electric motor and a whole battery system beneath the skin there.
09:02Show you what it looks like with our bag inside. Just to give you an idea. It's not too bad. So
09:08what you can do as well, if you do need to expand the space, you have electronic release here for
09:13both sides of your seats. They sort of roll down out of the way. Once they drop, it's a very slow
09:21process. You have almost 2,000 litres to work with. Okay. Now, before we go for a drive, let's talk
09:27about battery and charging. So battery capacity, not enormous. So under 20 kilowatt hours
09:32in terms of size and only AC charging. So a single phase up to seven kilowatts. So
09:38yeah, it's, it's okay, but not amazing in terms of the technology there. You get under 70 Ks worth
09:44of driving range on the WLTP cycle as well.
09:47Okay. So we've just hit the road in the RX 450 H plus. Bit of a mouthful. Now the drivetrain in this
09:58is, is pretty fascinating. So Toyota for a little while was sold plug-in hybrid. So it's not in
10:02Australia. And it's a great shame because we actually drove the RAV4 plug-in hybrid in the
10:07States a little while ago. You can actually watch that review by scrolling down to the description
10:12below. This drivetrain is basically a replica of what they have in the NX, which I mentioned
10:18earlier has only just reopened for orders. And it's a bigger vehicle, weighs a little bit more,
10:23surprisingly around the same weight as the top spec 500 H that we recently drove. So I'll be
10:28curious to see how that affects the way that it performs. Given that a lot of the added mass
10:32is the battery pack, which sits underneath that floor pan, that is going to lower the center of
10:37gravity. So in theory, it should actually be quite pleasant to drive. So it's basically a naturally
10:42aspirated two and a half litre, four cylinder petrol engine. And that produces on its own 136
10:48kilowatts of power and just over 220 newton meters of torque. But that is made it to two electric
10:54motors, one on the front axle, one on the rear axle. So 134 kilowatts on the front, 40 kilowatts on the
10:59rear to give you a combined output of almost 300 kilowatts. So it's a pretty sort of meaty amount.
11:04And that's all mated to what Toyota calls an e-CVT. It is not a CVT in the conventional sense. A CVT
11:11with pulleys and all that sort of stuff is not what this is. This is a CVT by virtue of pairing
11:17electric motors. And it's quite a fascinating setup, the way that they run it, and a little bit
11:22difficult to explain. But there are some YouTube videos, if you want to Google that, that you can
11:27easily waste more than an hour watching with explanations. But importantly, how does it all feel
11:31behind the wheel? So in this mode here, which is auto, EV, HV mode, basically it decides whether
11:38you're running on full electric mode or whether you're running in the internal combustion mode.
11:44And what you can see down there is we're currently in EV mode. I prod the throttle, still in EV mode,
11:49I go harder on the throttle. It now kicks in the internal combustion engine to help things along.
11:54But you can actually lock it into EV mode entirely. So right now it's just in EV mode. Even with quite
12:01generous throttle application there, all the way down to full throttle, it actually just leaves it in
12:07EV mode. It doesn't switch the internal combustion engine on, which is a very different philosophy to a
12:11lot of manufacturers. A lot of manufacturers will insist on running the internal combustion engine at
12:15full throttle, whereas this is quite a strong setup that just moves it along without any dramas at all.
12:20You do also have the option to charge the battery and hold charge as well using this button just
12:26here. So both very handy features if you do want to retain some of the charge for a later drive where
12:32you want to be sort of emissions free in terms of your driving. Now let's talk about fuel economy.
12:37This is very weird. It took me ages to figure this out. So you can only see the energy consumption
12:41average. You can't actually see fuel economy until you put it into charge mode or lock it into HV mode.
12:48So you can see there that the average is 4.2 litres per 100 Ks, which is pretty decent when you consider,
12:54well, the official, I mean, just ignore that. It's like 1.9 or something. But to think that this
12:59will use about as much as a hybrid version of this car, if not less, when you are sort of charging and
13:03then run out of electricity, I think is a pretty good indication of what it's like. Now let's talk
13:08about rides. So it is quite soft and that is what Lexus kind of does with its ride, especially here in
13:13the RX. They've just designed it to really waft over things and just be very gradual in the way
13:19it does things. So let's see what it's like. And I keep bumping this pretty steering wheel thing here
13:24and it keeps popping up on my head up display each time I sort of nudge it. So we do this at 130 Ks
13:29an hour just to see what body control is like over our sine waves. So look at that. That is remarkably
13:36good. And part of that is thanks to the fact that this has adjustable damping. So we're in the normal
13:41mode at the moment, but you can flip between sport, eco and custom to adjust the way that this feels
13:45as it's sort of driving along, which is a pretty handy feature to have. Okay, bumpy road time.
13:52Let's see what it's like here. Do this at 90 Ks an hour. So this is an example of a dodgy stretch
13:58of road here in comfort. No, sorry, normal mode. It's actually really quite comfortable. So we've got
14:04a set of condensed sine waves coming up here. And they're falling into all those divots.
14:10So it feels great from behind the wheel. This is a car that you would have no issues taking out to
14:15the country. Okay. Now, just like we do with every car, we test them back to back on our ride and
14:21handling track, pushed a little bit harder to see how they perform. So I'm going to pop this into
14:27sport mode just there. So instantly I can feel that becoming a little firmer. Okay. So let's see what
14:33it's like. See, brake pedal feel is actually surprisingly good.
14:45It's got a fair bit of body roll there, but punch out of the corner is pretty good. It just,
14:51it just delivers torque nicely and quite strongly as well. Like it's picking up speed beautifully.
14:58See what it's like along this faster back section here.
15:03You do feel that it has that sort of lumbering mass thanks to the, to the added weight of the
15:09plug-in hybrid components. But to be honest, it, it really doesn't feel like it's too heavy around
15:15that 2.2 ton mark. It's not an enormous amount, significantly less than what you'd get in a full
15:21electric vehicle of this size. Steering feel is pretty good as well. So here comes our back
15:30straight. Surprisingly engaging. I wasn't expecting this to be interesting to drive.
15:36So even on the back straight here, it's piling on speed really nicely. There you go. Quite impressive.
15:43Very nice. Now in terms of road noise, obviously being a plug-in hybrid, it is quite silent when you're
15:49sort of wafting along. Even then when the engine's on, it's not too noisy inside the cabin. Even on
15:54the highway, course chip country roads, it's not that bad. So we put it up against our calibrated
15:59sound meter and this is how it went. If you do want to compare this car to other cars that we've
16:02tested before, there's a link in the description below. We'll call out something that is a little
16:07confusing. So this is your battery meter down the bottom. It's showing that we have 26 k's of range
16:11left. Problem is that there's another battery then above that that shows that it's full, even though the
16:17battery is sort of half full at the moment. So it doesn't really sort of make any sense to me. I can't
16:22make heads or tails of it because that other battery there hasn't gone down at all since we've been
16:26driving. So yeah, a bit of a weird one. Now let's talk visibility. So yeah, it's great. I can see clearly
16:32down the front there. I've got a head-up display, nice big wing mirrors and the digital rear view mirror
16:38as well. So it's fully functioning there and very easy to operate and park. Now in terms of lane support
16:43systems, we already tested this with the last RX that we drive. So I'm just going to overlay that
16:47section here. Time to test our autonomous driving system. So this is the latest Lexus. I assume it's
16:53all going to be pretty good. Okay. So we'll get this up to 70 k's an hour. There it is right there.
17:02And then I'll set our lane support system on as well. And you can see once that is active, we get a
17:07little steering wheel symbol showing up there. So we're going to test this in the three outer lanes to see
17:12how well it holds the lane. I'm also going to only just have my hand on the steering wheel. If you
17:18were doing this on the road, you'd have to keep your hands on there. It will give you warnings if
17:21you do take your hands off. But for the purposes of this, we'll see how it goes. Then we'll move
17:25over to our two banked sections. And that's going to see how much torque the car is willing to apply
17:30to the steering wheel to keep it within its lane. So lane one, great pass there. We're pretty much
17:34dead center there to the lane. Jump over to the next lane. Wait for that. There it is. That's
17:42activated. That is awesome. That is keeping us dead center here in this lane, even with
17:47an increased amount of torque it has to put on the steering wheel to hold it there. So that is
17:51fantastic. We'll jump up to our last lane here. Let's see how this goes. There it is. That's got it.
17:58So I'm now just going to let go of the wheel. That is unreal. That is doing a great job there. So
18:04it's just straddling the line, but it is gradually pushing us back in up the top there and telling
18:12us driver in attention as well, because I was looking away there for a few moments. That is
18:16unreal. So that is a pass in lane one, two, and three. Not many cars can actually do that. So
18:20the fact that Lexus has been able to nail that is pretty impressive. And it shows you that the
18:25driver support systems here are top notch. Okay. It's time to do some performance testing.
18:30So the claim zero to 100 time is six and a half seconds. So let's see what we can manage here.
18:37We'll go all the way through to 120 so we can get our 80 to 120 time as well. I'm going to turn
18:42traction control off and I'll also pop this into sport mode as well. Okey dokey. Here we go.
18:55Oh, it's nice and strong off the line there. Nice. All right. 80, 90, 100. And 120. Okey dokey.
19:07Let's see how that went. Actually felt really nice and strong. That's the thing I liked about the
19:11RAV4 plug-in hybrid. It absolutely moves in such a light body as well. So zero to 100, 6.64. So
19:18pretty much bang on. 4.27 seconds for 80 to 120, which is really the important part. That is for
19:24the overtaking when you're really up and moving already. And that is a fairly decent time for
19:28something like this. Just shows you that it doesn't run out of puff as you're trying to sort
19:32of move while already accelerating. Okay. Let's do a stop from 100. See what the brake and tyre
19:38package is like. There's an event on here tomorrow. So there's all these random cones out. So it'll give
19:43us a place to start stopping. Felt a bit messy there on the initial application, but we'll see
19:52how that went. Okay. So 100 to zero, 2.84 seconds, 38.82 metres. So good stopping distance. Just felt a
20:00bit sort of squirrelly as it was coming to a stop. If you do want to see how this car compares to others
20:05that we've tested before, there is a link in the description below. But let's see how fast it'll go
20:11in reverse. Here we go. All right. Wow. All right. 57 kilometres an hour. Okay. So Lexus RX 450 H+,
20:24massive mouthful, but also a massively good car. It just builds on what is a good vehicle to begin
20:30with. Adds in a plug-in hybrid drivetrain, got enough punch. I don't know. It is just a good
20:35all-rounder. It is a little pricey because it is above the luxury car tax threshold. But if you are
20:40looking at a vehicle in this segment, in that sort of luxury, larger SUV segment, it is what
20:44you're going to be paying. But yeah, I'm a big fan of it. So let me know what you reckon in the
20:48comments section below. Have you driven the new Lexus RX? What do you think about it? Have you bought
20:53one? What has it been like? I'm keen for your feedback. If you did enjoy the video, please make
20:57sure you like it and you share it with your mates. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the
21:00channel and press the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.
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