New Lexus RZ review: It's finally here!

this is a Lexus RZ and it's a little bit like YouTube short much in the same way that YouTube was a leader with a video but was late to the party with vertical short form content Lexus was an early adopter of electrification with its hybrids but this is actually its first ever built from the ground up electric car now in this video I'm going to tell you whether it's better than its competitors from Mercedes Audi and BMW I'm also going to tell you what's good about it what's not so good about it and of course I'm going to launch it to see how quick it is from naught to 60 miles an hour because I'm Matt Watson and you're watching Buy sell car wow let's start this video by talking about the design of the Lexus RZ and I'm going to be a bit negative to begin with I'm going to use a sticker truth to show you that got some fake vents there there's some more on the front it's not good but everything else is I love the design of the rear it just looks right with the Lexus badge the full length light bar and these cute little spoilers down the side once again I really do like the shape looks good in profile with all these creases they're creases that work and look good and like the creases on the BMW IX which sort of crease Me Up Aloe wheel sizes start at 18 inches which I think visually a bit too small these are the 20s they look really nice if you want you can get this car in two-tone paint this is what it looks like and as we move to the front being an electric vehicle there is no need for a huge Grill like you have on other lexuses but they still got that spindly shape like on their other vehicles but it works for me integrates nicely with the lights and there is a little gorillage down below which gives you enough cooling for the motors and the batteries I think this car looks better than a Tesla Model y a Mercedes eqe and it's pretty much as good looking as an Audi Q8 each Rod but what do you think can let me know in the comments anyway the starting price of this is just under 65 000 pounds you can compare the prices here on car wow they actually go up to 75 000 pounds which is what this car is because it's the range topping takumi model now if you're thinking about changing your car you can do it all through car wire you can sell your current car through Caro and have dealers all across the country bid on it to make sure you get a great price for it and compare prices and offers on the car you plan to buy next if you want to do that now just click on the pop-out banner up there that should be appearing in the top right hand corner of the screen or follow the link in the description if you want to do that at a later date or tell your friends and family about it just simply Google help me car wow and we will help you change your car but while this car looks great on the outside is it as cool on the inside do you know what I think I like the interior of this Lexus even more than the exterior you have this like drivers pod here which feels very few touristic and it Blends nicely with the rest of the dash which actually feels very high quality in fact all the materials are lovely I like the damping on all the buttons dials and switches oh that is actually quite satisfying so too is the texture of the material used on the steering wheel it's not leather it's a bake leather but it has a slight velvety feel to it makes you want to caress it which is weird as for the seats on this takuma you get a fake suede but all of the models have fake leather and it feels quite nice so you're on the center console speaking of which I like the drive select mode here very easy to use and all the buttons in this car are well laid out I particularly like the fact that even though you've got this big infotainment screen Lexus hasn't decided to put the controls for the climate buried within it key controls such as fan temperature setting and controls for the heated seats steering wheel and cooling of the seats is all just done directly with visible buttons that is good so two is the infotainment system itself it's pretty responsive nice crisp graphics and you can quite quickly just whip through the different menus like that what's not so good about it is the fact that while you get Wireless Apple carplay Android auto has to be wired that brings me on to the main digital drivers display which is actually a little bit on the small side for instance the actual digital driver's display itself takes up about half the area of the instrument bit it calls the other area is just for warning lights which will probably never ever come on because it's a Lexus another thing is that the graphics are a little bit dull though you can get quite a decent bit of information through that screen however overall I think that the digital drivers display you get in the Mercedes eqe SUV is superior and to see my video on that car click on the pop-out banner up there for the link in the description below one other thing I'm not quite so keen on is the fact that there isn't much of a footwell as a result the seats are quite close to the floor so you don't have that much under thigh support here in the front you can increase that under thigh support by jacking the chair up but then you're going to start running into Headroom issues it's a little bit weird really and I can show you exactly what I mean because here's a cut away of me sat in the front of a skoda Kodiak which is another SUV but not electric with batteries under the floor and as you can see there's better under thigh support just seems a bit more like an SUV to sit in than this I can't fault the fact that you've got lots of adjustment in the steering wheel though and overall the driving position in this Lexus is pretty good so too is connectivity so here we have three usbcs so you can charge plenty of mobile devices plus you have a charging pad down here as well in terms of storage you have a cubby under here which can be accessed both ways there's cup holders here and they'll easily accommodate bottles bigger than that there's large door bins and if I open this flap some more storage under there as well up here you have a place for your sunglasses which is lined with felt so you don't scratch the lenses I like the interior of this however what's it like in the back well there's good and there's bad knee room that's good Headroom is all right but you can make it better by reclining the seat backs also there's plenty of foot space because you've got a completely flat floor but that brings you on to the bat you see with the batteries underneath like in the front you haven't really got a foot well so the base of the seat is quite close to the floor as a result there's not much under thigh support for instance compare that to how I sit in the back of a skoda Kodiak you'll see there's much more under thigh support with that what you need to do is get the person in front of you to lift up their seat a bit so you can stretch out underneath the front seats and then it's pretty good and it does feel roomy unless you're trying to carry three in the back at once it's okay but shoulder room is a little bit tight it's a bit better when it comes to fit in a child seat while the rear doors don't open that wide they're still big enough to get in a big bulky seat and while the icefix anchor points don't have little flaps to cover them the actual bars themselves which you attach the seat to for true quite a way so it's easy to locate them and get the child seeds into place and there's just enough room here in the back that you don't have to move the front passenger chair forward to accommodate a big rear-facing seat other things that I like to usbc's there a 220 volt three pin charging socket there which will actually charge a laptop some decent pockets on the seat backs some moderate door bins there windows that go all the way down and cool door handles look at this you just press the button and it opens and the thing I like about that is that they've integrated the safety release say if you run out of battery into that button so you pull it instead like that to open it normally out if there's no battery power one last thing to show you is this you have an armrest it's just a shame that the cup holders are exposed so you always end up putting all wrist in it and that brings onto the boot is it any good so the luggage capacity is 522 liters by comparison that's two liters more than an eqe SUV and 22 liters more than a BMW IX though it's about 50 liters less than an Audi Q8 e-tron nice square shape no load lip to lift stuff over like that some of that luggage capacity is this underfloor storage with loads of room for your cables and the like and I do like this feature the Low cover is just this flimsy little foldable device does the job and it's easy to store underneath the fourth floor look brilliant you've also got some tie down points here and here and fold down the rear seats you're just leaning in to do that ah there we go and you get a continuous flat floor which makes it easy to slide items straight to the front when you're loading it what's not so good is this though when you fold down the rear seats the seat belts flop down like this which means when you put the seat back they snag not only that you don't have a front boot like you do on a Tesla Model why speaking of which the total load capacity on a Tesla Model Y is over 800 liters and that brings up to five or nine things about the Lexus RZ in its wisdom Lexus has decided not to fit a through loading hatch to give you access to the boot it means that unlike in many of its competitors where you can carry two people in the back and longer items so if you've been shopping for DIY and planks of wood you can't do that in this car the rz's towing capacity of 750 kilograms is pretty rubbish but common for these kind of electric SUVs however if you go for the takumi model which is the range topper you can't tell anything now I'm not sure whether that's to do with the fact it has a special extra damper fitted to the front and rear axles across the way like that to give it a slightly better ride quality and that gets in the way of the tow bar system could be that we asked Lexus they didn't respond either way you can't sew with a tsukumi even though this range topping model has electric seats for the two outer rear seats there is no separate controls for the climate it all has to be done through the front screen bizarrely this card doesn't have a glove box a supposedly family-friendly SUV without a glove box nuts now can you name another car that doesn't have a glove box I've put a pin comment below and you can't have this car's sister car the Toyota bz4x because they're the same thing pretty much got another car but name another one right good luck this car emits so many warning beeps and bongs you'll be driving along minding your own business and beep here bong there beep there beep bong bing bong it's just crazy now you can turn off the systems but it can be quite frustrating there's even one that'll actually warn you if you take your eyes off the road which is sort of a good thing but sometimes you have to take your eyes off the road to operate things through this slightly confusing touch screen however that does bring me on to five cool things about this car because it is loaded with the safety kit there's just so many Safety Systems which help prevent you having an accident and one of the coolest is something called safe exit assist so imagine you've been driving you've parked up you go to get out and you want to open your door but something like a bicycle or a jogger runs past you like that gives you a warning and it prevents you from opening the door and won't let you open it until that person or bicycle or whatever has gone past or but the entry level model get a head up display and it's really detailed as well as you use your speed it'll have your driving assist information on there as well plus it'll highlight which buttons you're pressing on the steering wheel so you never have to look down you can just feel your way and actually see which ones are Illuminating in the heads-up display so you hit the right one the RZ stereo system uses special noise canceling technology to counteract any unwanted sound and to make sure the cabin feels as peaceful and quiet as possible also Lexus has gone the extra mile to make sure quite a lot of the cars functions are as quiet as possible for instance check out the windscreen wipers with the wash function foreign quiet isn't it and then there's the motors for the electric windows I hardly heard a thing brilliant you see this mesh pad here underneath the steering column that's actually a little radiator which will warm your knees while you're driving on cold days it's a little bit like the old-fashioned way of driving along with a little blanket over your lap All Eyes ads get this glass roof as standard however the range topping takumis has a special feature if it's a little bit too bright or you have some ugly bugger looking in at you you can press a button to make them go away let's have a look under the Bonnet of this Lexus RZ so yes there's no room for any storage there bit of a shame and it's a bit of a shame you don't get gas struts on a car at this price what you do get is two electric motors one on the front axle one on the rear axle so you have four wheel drive and the combined power output is 313 horsepower the car comes with a 71 kilowatt hour battery pack which gives a claimed range of 272 miles but we'll find out how far it really goes on the full charge a bit later on in this video we'll also see how quick it is from north 60 miles an hour because I'm going to launch it obviously now this thing can charge at 150 kilowatts at a DC rapid charger and up to 11 kilowatts on an AC charger but at home when you only have seven kilowatts it's going to take you about 10 hours to charge now which version of the Lexus RZ should you buy bearing in mind there's just one motor battery combination however there are three different trim levels and what I'm going to do now is configure my ideal Lexus RZ and if you want to see you what that car is and the saving available through car wow click on the pop-out banner up there or follow the link in the description below now let's get driving it starting off with in town what I'm going to do is pull four times on this what would be in paddle shift in a normal car to put me into max regen mode so when I lift off the accelerator it does slow a bit more aggressively than when you have it in the other modes though to be fair it only feels aggressive if you're going quick at the moment I've lifted off the accelerator completely and I'm still rolling forwards because this thing doesn't have one pedal driving if you want to slow it completely you do need to transition to the brake speaking of the brakes they are smooth and Progressive sometimes in electric cars they can be grabby and feel a bit odd as you transition from regen braking to normal braking but because Lexus has been doing hybrids for ages they've sort of got that down pretty well now we're going to try the maneuverability and this is going to be awkward because look we've got some cars here that I want to let past including some really old car I'm going to do a UE here I'm going to pop on my camera system so I can see all around me the Turning circle is 11.2 meters average for this kind of car will I make it round here without having to back up and we're going to get all the alarms but this is really helping me out I know I've got just enough room have I yeah speaking of which the steering is nice and light for doing those kind of Maneuvers and I had decent visibility forwards and at the door mirrors what's not good though is the VR at the back it is awful very small little rear window and huge rear pillars the suspension on this car is pretty good in town it deals with bumps nicely when you're going slower however sometimes if you're on really uneven surfaces it can fidget a little bit and another thing I noticed just then when you go through a pothole while it does smooth off the edge of the pole you do get the car rocking from side to side a little bit such as your on a ship on a slightly rough sea that swaying motion is really the only issue that I have with how this car goes down a road in terms of comfort levels it is generally overall a comfy car to travel in but what about when you're going faster here's a bit of dual Carriage Way 70 mile an hour limit on cruising at 40 and I am going to overtake look yeah instant I just expect from an electric car and it's good the performance it's not like Stella stack your head back like in a Tesla Model y it's quick enough for most people and when you're going quickly my God this is a quiet car little bit of road noise but only because this service is pretty rough hardly any wind noise at all this thing is so well insulated really really relaxing what is less relaxing though is the efficiency so it's averaging 2.5 miles per kilowatt hour and when I multiply the app by the capacity of the battery it means that the real world range is just over 170 miles supposed to do over 270. that's pretty rubbish yeah if you want an electric SUV with a better range click on the pop-out banner up there I'll follow the link in the description below to check out my review of the Tesla Model y thing is though canis Lexus drive down a twisted Road better than a Tesla Model y well let's find out I'm going to put it into sports mode which is awkward you have to do it pressing yeah done all that does is just make the throttle a bit more responsive and add weight to the steering no adaptive dampers here but here we go I'll tell you what it goes over bumps better than a Tesla Model y so the batteries are all mounted nice and low in the floor that helps keep the center of gravity down so that should Aid the handling let's find out actually that's pretty good you know I'm going to change the regen to the mid setting though because when you lift off there's a little bit too much braking whereas you want it to be a bit more stable in the mid setting it's just like a normal internal combustion engine car with an automatic gearbox rolls a bit more through the corners but yeah I pulled on a paddle there thinking it was a gear shifter no put the regen back to mid setting Matthew goes down the road really well I mean I'm not going to say it's fun it's not like a laughter drive it's not sporty but it's more than capable doesn't lean that much in the bends at all and the steering seems pretty accurate and it's so smooth obviously we've got four wheel drive traction the car's figuring out exactly how to put its power down in terms of the balance of performance from the rear to the front it's really quite good I am surprised very very pleasantly surprised now this is the tester no problem at all really sure-footed yep this car handles better than he needed to final thing to do is to launch it Lexus says this car will do 0 to 60 in 5.3 seconds but the specialist timing gear here is going to reveal the truth in sports mode I'm just going to floor the accelerator three two one go 5.4 seconds I'm going to give it another go second time lucky Maybe there's obviously no launch control 5.6 one more go see if it can redeem itself okay Lexus this is your last go come on come on you can do it 5.3 seconds definitely worth doing again and then again anyway decent acceleration does what Lexus says and it actually handles better than I've imagined so then what's my final verdict on the Lexus RZ should you avoid it should you consider it should you shortlist it or should he just go right ahead and buy it well I reckon you should shortlist the RZ yes its range might not be that great but it's still a really nice electric SUV I hope you all enjoyed the video if you did give it a like let me know what you think of my verdict in the comments below if you click on those windows there you can watch some more videos and if you click on that box there you can get a car wow to sell your car the easy way just upload some photos give a brief description then dealers all across the country will bid on your car thanks for watching

Channel: carwow

Views: 558,105

Keywords: carwow, mat watson, car review, new car review, car review 2023, new car 2023, lexus, lexus rz, lexus rz review, new lexus, new lexus rz, lexus rz review 2023, rz review, rz review 2023, electric lexus review, ev lexus review, ev lexus review 2023, lexus electric car 2023, electric lexus, best electric suv, best electric suv 2023, best electric family car, toyota bz4x, lexus rz toyota bz4x, lexus and toyota suv

Id: 8OV_XXt75aI

Length: 20min 51sec (1251 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/yhsong1116]

is it improved in any way vs busyforks?

or just re-skinned? busyforks is a pretty bad EV so I am not particularly excited one more EV offering is on the market..

[u/pithy_pun]

Interesting which cars he hates on because of poor range/charging/etc and which he kind of gives a pass on those factors like he does here. This is 64k GBP and he barely mentions those issues or when he does he brushes them off.