NEW Lexus LBX revealed! – best hybrid SUV? | What Car?

[Music] foreign has been on a roll recently its latest new products feel like a really big step forwards for the brand unfortunately sales in Europe really haven't been going very well at all in the last few years but we're in Milan today to see a new car which could change all that this is the all-new Lexus LBX it's a hybrid SUV and in this video I'm going to tell you what this has in common with the LFA what makes it different from the Toyota Yaris cross and I'm going to tell you everything else that you need to know about this car but before we start if you want to see lots more reviews and reveals like this subscribe to our Channel and go to whatco.com for a great deal on your next car thank you right so first what is this car well it is the first Lexus that's been built specifically for Europe and it's about 4.2 meters long and the dimensions generally are fairly similar to an Audi Q2 so this is a small SUV that's going to be arrival to other premium small SUVs like the Q2 but underneath this car it's actually got a lot in common with the Toyota Yaris cross because of course Toyota is the parent company of Lexus there are though quite a lot of differences between this and the Yaris cross for a start obviously it has a very different look doesn't it and we heard from the design team here that apparently the first full-scale model they made of the LBX was a complete disaster and no one liked it so they put it all out the window and went back to the drawing board ending up with this and another difference between this and the Aris cross is actually in the dimensions so they're broadly very similar but the LBX has a slightly bigger distance between the front and rear wheels it's also got shorter overhangs and wider track another difference is you have a 15 millimeter lower hip point in the LBX which basically just means you sit slightly lower than you do in the Yaris cross and therefore it feels a little bit sportier in here but the bigger difference and the main thing to point out is that this interior is totally different from what you find in the Irish cross so that Toyota is a very good car in lots of areas but you'd have to say it is a pretty drab interior that you get with that core here it feels really plush very impressive with loads of really nice materials brilliant build quality as you'd expect from Lexus and you now get a 9.8 inch touchscreen infotainment system which we've already used on the NX and the RX this uses the same software and Lexus used to make terrible infotainment systems that were stupidly complicated but now their latest systems are so much better so this like the systems in the NX is relatively well laid out and simple you also still have some physical controls for the climate which is great you can also get a 12.3 inch fully digital driver display there's a head-up display on the options list as well and even a 13 speaker sound system there's also a fair amount of storage up front so you can slide this armrest back to show some cubby holes and a cup holder you've got this tray under the center console as well and it just feels like a very nice place to sit particularly in this small SUV class this is a very nice interior now we said the distance between the front and rear wheels is slightly longer in the LBX than it is in the Yaris cross so that does mean you have a little bit more legroom than you do in the Toyota but it still feels pretty Pokey back here to be honest you can see with the driver's seat in my driving position I don't really have much spare legroom at all although there is some space under the seat in front for my feet which is good if I sit up straight my head is touching the roof lining here so if you're six foot it's going to be a real squeeze getting in the back here which is a bit of a shame and also annoyingly like the Harris cross the rear door openings are very narrow another difference between the LBX and the Aris cross is in the boot here so in the Toyota you get 400 liters of storage capacity but in the LBX that drops to 332 liters now apparently the space at the bottom of the boot is the same between the two cars but because this has a bit more of a sloping roof line then it's at the top of the boot here where you lose some capacity compared to the Toyota so it does mean that overall this boot isn't huge and compared to an Audi Q2 there's a bit less room in the back of this but the thing to really bear in mind is that if you go for a four-wheel drive version of this car then the capacity drops again to 240 liters which is actually smaller than what you get in the back of a VW up now if you are wondering about the LBX name I can tell you that it stands for Lexus breakthrough crossover and in its press release Lexus has very proudly announced that this is the first car in its lineup to get three letters in its name since the LFA the LBX unfortunately isn't powered by a 4.8 liter V10 but instead it gets a tweaked version of the hybrid setup that you find in the Yaris cross so this is a three cylinder 1.5 liter petrol engine but in the LBX you get 134 brake horsepower whereas the Yaris cross gets 115 brake horsepower so this is a little bit quicker another difference is you can have the LBX with front-wheel drive or four-wheel drive but even if you do go for the four wheel drive version the total system power output is exactly the same as the front wheel drive version now we don't have all the performance specs available for the car just yet it hasn't been confirmed but what we do know is that it will do not to 62 miles per hour in about 9.2 seconds which isn't particularly quick now in terms of fuel economy again nothing's confirmed for this car but we already know that the Aris cross can be incredibly fuel efficient and if you want to find out more about the Yaris cross then click on the link to watch our full review of that car again this hasn't been confirmed for the LBX but when it comes to CO2 emissions Lexus has said that it's hoping all of its models will emit 120 grams per kilometer of CO2 or less refinement should also be better inside the LBX compared to the Yaris cross because apparently Better Sound insulation has been used in areas like the wheel arches the engine bay and also behind the instrument binacle to try and make it quieter more premium feeling compared to the Arris cross there are also other mechanical differences between the two cars so things like the steering the front suspension the CVT have all been tuned differently to make sure there is a difference between those two cars and even the tires are larger in the LBX and the Alloys are bigger as well Lexus has big hopes for the LBX and it really wants this to be the car that delivers a big sales impact here in Europe we're going to see this on UK roads in March 2024 and in that year Lexus expects to sell more than 25 000 units across Europe but how much is this thing going to cost well Lexus says it is far too early to have any estimates on a starting price what we do know is that the Lexus ux which sits above the LBX starts at 35 000 pounds the Toyota Yaris cross starts at around 25 000 pounds so you can imagine that this will probably fit somewhere in the middle and while the LBX will launch with just one hybrid option it is possible that a plug-in hybrid version and a fully electric model could follow in the future Lexus hasn't confirmed anything yet but with a bit of tweaking here and there it is possible that the platform the LBX is built on could take those different power options so that is everything we know so far about the Lexus LBX tell us what you think of the car in the comments below subscribe to our channel to see lots more new car reveals and reviews and go to whatco.com for a great deal on your next car foreign [Music]

Channel: What Car?

Views: 170,142

Keywords: lexus, lexus lbx, lexus nx, lexus rx, lexus rz, lexus ux, new leus, hybrid suv, new hybrid suv, toyota, toyota yaris cross, electric suv, new electric car, hybrid car, best hybrid, 2024 lbx, lexus lbx review, lbx review

Id: Q2PiZ2k0hYM

Length: 8min 19sec (499 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023