Has Lexus finally ditched its old school image? Lexus has pulled out all the stops to bring out a tech-packed car that includes a turbocharged hybrid engine, along with all the latest technology. Is it any good? Paul Maric finds out.
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More Lexus content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/lexus
More Lexus RX content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/lexus/rx
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 01:21
Interior 04:53
Infotainment 06:29
Safety Tech 08:53
Practicality 10:19
On The Road 14:28
Driver Aids 22:53
Performance 24:35
Verdict 26:41
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 #rx #review #rx500h
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More Lexus content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/lexus
More Lexus RX content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/lexus/rx
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 01:21
Interior 04:53
Infotainment 06:29
Safety Tech 08:53
Practicality 10:19
On The Road 14:28
Driver Aids 22:53
Performance 24:35
Verdict 26:41
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.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
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#lexus #rx #review #rx500h
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. I have been so excited to drive this. I know that, I don't know,
00:04 Lexus kind of used to be the old man's car, no offence to older men, but I've been excited to
00:10 drive this because the last one was actually really nice and had a punchy V6 and it was
00:15 just really enjoyable to drive, but it was a bit dated in terms of tech and features.
00:19 This, on the other hand, they've completely transformed the offering. It has all the
00:23 latest stuff inside the cabin and a really exciting engine, I reckon, under the bonnet here. So,
00:28 this is the new Lexus RX and this is the top spec version, so it's called the RX 500h F Sport
00:36 Performance. Big old mouthful there. This is priced at $126,000, so it is expensive,
00:43 but if that's too much, the entire range kicks off at a little under $90,000. You do get a range of
00:48 different engine options, but the V6 is unfortunately dead, but this is meant to be
00:52 the sporty replacement. What does this compete with? Well, it's a bit of a weird one because
00:55 it's bigger than an X3 and smaller than an X5, so it's kind of like in between there. So, it's
01:01 technically like a kind of X5 competitor, something like that. Today, we're going to do a detailed
01:06 review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use
01:09 the time codes on the screen, or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters
01:13 below. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. That way,
01:16 you're going to find out every single time we drive a brand new Lexus.
01:21 Okay, let's kick off with the exterior. So, 11 colours to pick from. You can't get all of the
01:27 colours on all of the grades, so depending on which one you go for, you're going to have
01:30 different colour options, but that is what you have. Have a look at this design. I think it
01:35 looks really good. So, it is a bit of an odd design actually because up the sort of top here where
01:40 this grille is, it kind of just goes into this condensed section up the top, and it looks,
01:45 I don't know, like they didn't finish this part, but when you see it in person,
01:49 I thought it looks a bit strange in pictures, but in person here, it actually looks really good.
01:52 This car has a lot of presence, and I don't know, Lexus has just gone through such a resurgence
01:57 late in terms of giving their cars some really cool styling. They don't really look
02:00 dowdy and old school anymore. They actually look really cool here, and I think that
02:05 this having that F-Sport badge actually sort of is really represented here in terms of the design.
02:10 So, big grille down the front here. A lot of that is blocked off as well, so it is there for cooling,
02:15 but it is not exactly all open. You have got that top section blocked off as well.
02:19 You have a little bit of faux sort of cooling here off to the side. Piano black down the bottom
02:24 there. Big Lexus logo there as well. Camera down the bottom too. Now, over here you have full LED
02:30 matrix headlights. Now, I think Lexus calls them blade scan or something like that, but the
02:35 effect is the same. It is basically auto-dimming, auto-shadowing headlights. Really good set of
02:41 headlights as well. Now, around the side here, have a look at this. You have a big old set of
02:44 21-inch alloy wheels, and this particular spec comes with a matte black finish on the wheels,
02:49 which I reckon looks fantastic. But have a look at the stoppers under there. 400mm rotor,
02:54 six-piston caliper. It is absolutely enormous. So, this kind of gives you an idea that Lexus
03:00 is really focusing on this being the performance, the sporty model. So, we'll see what it's like
03:04 when we do go for a bit of a fang, because this engine here is actually a really interesting
03:09 combo. It's a turbocharged four-cylinder hybrid. So, all of those systems kind of team together
03:14 with the all-wheel drive system to give you a fair bit of poke. So, yeah, that goes. F-SWAP badge
03:18 over here, piano black on top of the wing mirror. You have an indicator built into there, plus a
03:23 camera and a puddle lamp as well. I like these sort of rose gold type finishes here along the
03:30 edges. No chrome or anything sort of too flashy. Roof rails here, panoramic glass roof. Love this
03:35 as well. So, you've got piano black on the top there, but this door handle, similar to, what was
03:40 it, the Lexus NX that we tested? It's just a little button. So, to open it, you just give that a light
03:45 pull and then it opens. And the cool thing is when you lock and unlock the car, there's no actual
03:49 sound of a lock mechanism working. All it does is disable that button there, so it either works
03:54 or it doesn't work. So, it's quite eerie when you get into the car, you open it, but it doesn't
03:58 sound like it's unlocked when it actually is. Privacy glass over here, and then come around to
04:03 the back. Oh, by the way, this is one piece of glass, which I reckon is pretty cool. So, what
04:09 do you reckon about the rear? I actually think this is probably the best angle of the new RX.
04:14 I love this LED light that continues all the way around the back there. You have that 3D effect,
04:19 full LED tail lights as well. Really is just a cool looking design. I'm curious to see how
04:25 practical it is though, because that swoops down a fair bit there. It's already smaller than
04:28 something like an X5, so I do wonder whether that sort of eats into the boot room. You've got,
04:33 spoiler here, Sharkfin Aerial up the top there, Lexus RX500h being the top spec model, and Direct4,
04:39 which is the all-wheel drive system. Now, I'll go into a bit more detail with when we do actually
04:43 go for a drive. No visible exhausts either. So, let me know what you reckon about the design of
04:48 the new Lexus RX in the comments section below. Do you like it? Do you think it looks not great?
04:52 Let me know what you think. Okay, so we are inside the RX. Let's start off with the key.
04:56 Here it is. You've got lock, unlock, boot, panic, little Lexus logo there, cold to the touch,
05:04 that sort of brushed aluminium, Lexus on the back there as well. So, it's a proximity sensing key,
05:09 you can leave that in your pocket. Once you're inside, you have a push button start up the top
05:13 here. Okay, so, I reckon this interior looks sensational, and if you think about the old
05:19 RX, it kind of just looked a bit dated and not very nice. This, on the other hand,
05:24 I don't know, it just looks really high-end and premium. I'm a bit disappointed by all of the
05:29 piano black around here, but if you put that to one side, all of these materials are really nice.
05:34 This is the top spec model, granted, so it should look really nice, but at $126,000,
05:39 you really aren't getting a great deal of expensive BMW or Mercedes Benz. So, this,
05:45 to me, I think feels like a really nicely presented interior, and I'll run through
05:49 that new infotainment system in just a second. What about your touch points? So,
05:54 that is soft to the touch, soft on the door as well. How soft is it? We've got our geometer,
06:00 we've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others
06:04 that we've tested before, I've got a link in the description below. Build quality, what is it like?
06:10 I'll give it a bit of a shake. Yes, that feels quite nice and solid, and our door slam test
06:17 sounds great. Also has a very clever little button here, so one push of that,
06:23 it's an electronic release, and in an emergency, you can pull it to manually release it as well.
06:28 So, let's talk infotainment. I think this is probably the biggest and most exciting change
06:34 for me because the old infotainment system was absolute garbage, and it was one of the things
06:37 that I was kind of hesitant in recommending this car to others, even if it was reasonably priced,
06:43 because it just wasn't very good. So, now they have jumped into the next generation here with
06:48 the all-new infotainment system. It is a 14-inch colour touchscreen. The thing I love about it is
06:53 the screen actually goes all the way down here, and they've integrated the climate controls within
06:58 these dials, so when you do turn that a little bit, you're basically getting your climate show
07:04 up there within that screen, which I reckon is pretty cool stuff. In addition to that,
07:08 they've gone to town with things like smartphone connectivity, so you have a wireless Apple CarPlay,
07:14 so there it is there. Really nice big display, very quick and responsive, and then you have
07:20 wired Android Auto. This is what that looks like. So, again, full-screen integration,
07:24 very responsive there, and quite an impressive setup. Then on the audio front, you have a 21-speaker
07:30 Mark Levinson sound system, and in typical Lexus fashion, the sound system is fantastic. So,
07:35 if you do like your audio, you're going to love this sound system, and that comes with AM/FM and
07:39 DAB digital radio as well. There is a really cool feature here too. If I jump into the audio,
07:44 menu, tune, you actually have the option here on digital to go back and forward by 10 seconds,
07:51 which I reckon is a great feature. It means that if you do miss something, you can go back,
07:57 or if you do want to jump ahead from going back, you can do that as well. So,
08:00 yeah, really cool setup there. Kill that audio. Ahead of the driver is another display as well.
08:07 This isn't as impressive, so it's not a full-screen LCD display, it's only LCD in the
08:11 centre section, which, I don't know, I would have thought if you go into the effort of doing this,
08:15 you should have actually just gone full-screen LCD there ahead of the driver, but you know,
08:19 it is what it is, and then you do also have a head-up display ahead of the driver there as well.
08:23 Love these steering wheel controls because they have capacitive touch, so as you roll your finger
08:28 over them, you get the context menus of what is actually happening ahead of you on that head-up
08:32 display. It is such cool technology because it means that you don't have to take your eyes off
08:37 the road, you can just roll your fingers over these and know that, okay, this is cruise control
08:40 distance, I can push that and it will do what it says on the box. So, yeah, really cool setup,
08:45 and I'm hoping more manufacturers do this type of stuff because it means simply less distractions
08:51 while you're trying to operate your car. Okay, let's talk about safety tech. So,
08:54 you have autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection.
08:59 You have this digital rearview mirror that is also auto-dimming. In addition to that,
09:04 you have lane departure warning with a lane centring assistant, and we're going to test
09:08 this out when we go for a bit of a drive. You have blind spot monitoring built into the wing
09:13 mirror over there, rear cross traffic alert. You have both front and rear parking sensors and a
09:18 360 camera plus a driver fatigue alert. That's this little system here. I'll show you what the
09:22 360 camera looks like. I'm going to switch the car on. I'll pop this into reverse. There it is
09:30 there. So, quality is actually not too bad. So, you can clearly see what's on the suitcase.
09:35 You can also see this view here that it's actually, actually, I'll show you this first. So,
09:41 that's just a supersized rear view, but have a look at this one here. So, if I put this into
09:46 drive and we creep forward, it basically makes the car see through so we can see
09:56 what we're driving over, which I reckon is pretty cool. So, that is tech we've seen on other cars
10:04 before, but I just love the way that Lexus has integrated it here. So, pretty impressive setup
10:09 there and then really good clarity on our reverse camera as well. So, yeah, not a bad setup.
10:14 Finally, this is what the horn sounds like.
10:16 Okay, let's talk practicality and we'll start off with your connectivity. So,
10:22 you've got two USB-C ports here. If you slide this little guy open, you have another USB-C port,
10:28 a USB-A port, a 12-volt outlet. There are stacks of connectivity options there. You have a wireless
10:34 phone charger there as well. In terms of storing your phone, you can leave there in the cup holder.
10:39 Alternatively, you could whack it down there or in here. Like, there are lots of really great
10:43 storage options here, which is cool to see. Coffee cups. How's that going to go? So,
10:48 you can stick your coffee cup in here and it doesn't get de-lidded, so that is good news.
10:53 Now, watch this. So, you can put a bottle in here as well. If that's too high,
10:57 it could disappear even lower. So, I really love that feature. And then,
11:02 if you want to bring it back up, you just press this button here and it elevates that again. So,
11:06 really cool setup there. So, bottle fits inside the door as well. Let's try our big bottle too.
11:11 That fits in as well. Now, dramas, so you do have a storage slot just here next to the driver's
11:17 knee for coins and other bits and pieces, and that is carpeted as well, which is really nice.
11:22 Over here, you have a double opening centre section, so it can open both ways. You have
11:28 your storage nooks down here. You also have a reasonably sized glove box for the enormous
11:34 manual in your safety kit, and then also a sunglasses holder up the top.
11:39 Okay, let's talk about comfort features. So, you have dual-zone automatic climate
11:43 control up the front here. You have heated and cooled seats, heated steering wheel.
11:47 Now, I'm going to quickly talk about the seats and just the design in here. It looks so cool. So,
11:52 F-Sport insignia here on the headrest. You have perforations there because it's a cooled seat
11:57 with Alcantara on the sides there. The seats hug you in really nicely too, so they are a super
12:03 comfy seat to be seated in. In terms of seat adjustment, you can go forwards, backwards,
12:09 backrest can go forwards, backwards, front can go up and down, back can go up and down.
12:14 You have lumbar adjustment. You also have seat memory up the top here as well.
12:19 In terms of the steering wheel, it offers both tilt and reach adjustment,
12:23 and it is electrically adjustable. On our reach test, all of this stuff is easy to reach while
12:27 you're driving, but you do have to lean in a little bit to get some of this top corner stuff
12:31 if you have CarPlay running and that kind of thing. Okay, second row of the RX. What's it
12:35 like in terms of room? So, knee room is pretty good. Toe room is okay, but not amazing. Headroom
12:40 is okay, but not amazing as well. So, the RX, I mentioned before that it's bigger than an X3,
12:47 smaller than an X5. The overall length actually hasn't changed, but they have adjusted the wheel
12:51 base. It is wider and also lower. So, it does mean that you do get more legroom here in the
12:56 second row. My seat is pretty much all the way back, so I do have a reasonable amount of legroom
13:01 here. In terms of creature comforts, you have mat pockets here in the back of the seats. You
13:05 have a third zone of climate control, USB-C ports here off to the sides with air vents there as
13:11 well. Center armrest here with two cup holders. So, I'll show you what it looks like with the
13:16 bottle in there. It's no teeth, so they kind of move around a little bit. You then have this
13:19 little slot in here, and in addition to that, you can pop that inside the door there without any
13:24 dramas at all. You have ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats with three top tether points as
13:30 well, and window shades for a bit of privacy. Now, what about our window test? So, it's auto
13:36 up and down. Look at that, goes all the way down. Very impressive, Lexus.
13:41 Now, let's check cargo space. So, I mentioned before that that swooping boot may not be great
13:47 for cargo space. It's actually not too bad. So, you've got over 600 litres of cargo space
13:53 available here. Beneath the cargo floor, you have a space saver spare, warning triangle,
13:58 plus a couple of other tools. Big old subbie off to the side there, 12-volt outlet and a hook as
14:03 well. Show you what it looks like with our bags in there. So, there's that one, and that one as
14:09 well. So, actually, it is a pretty big space, which is, yeah, I don't know, the external dimensions
14:15 don't make it look like it's going to be a big boot. So, you can expand the space a little bit
14:19 more. So, you push these two buttons off to the side here, they drop that second row out of the
14:24 way, and then you have a space that is just under 1700 litres in size. Okay, so we've just hit the
14:32 road in the RX 500h. It sounds very meaty and exciting, doesn't it? So, the reason this is
14:38 called the 500h is it's because it uses the first, and this is the first in the Toyota world,
14:45 a turbocharged four-cylinder hybrid. So, this uses a 2.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine,
14:51 and that's all mated to a hybrid system. Now, the hybrid system in this particular car has two
14:56 electric motors, one on the front axle, one on the rear axle, and it means that you are getting
15:01 the hybrid assistance from the electric motor plus the push from a turbocharged internal
15:06 combustion engine. And that basically means a combined power output of 273 kilowatts of power
15:12 and over 500 newton metres of torque, which is pretty impressive. Now, that's all mated to,
15:18 again, something different and interesting for the Toyota brand, and that is a six-speed
15:22 automatic transmission. Typically, with these, they run some kind of a CVT or an eCVT, and as a
15:29 result of that, you get driving characteristics that are very similar to a Prius or a RAV4 hybrid.
15:35 Here, on the other hand, it's a totally different driving experience because,
15:38 like most other brands that run hybrid systems, you feel the stepped gear changes, and I always
15:44 complain about that in other brands. Here, you really don't feel anything, and I just don't
15:49 understand how Toyota manages to do this. They've actually created a really impressive hybrid
15:55 drivetrain here with a conventional gearbox, so that's all pretty good stuff. It does everything
16:00 else just like any other Toyota hybrid, so you can see right now we're in EV mode, as long as I
16:04 don't sort of push the throttle too hard, it stays in EV mode, and then if you do push it too hard,
16:09 you feel the internal combustion engine kick on. Now, what does all that feel like behind the
16:14 wheel? Let's give this a little stab here unannounced. Jesus, it really does just push
16:20 you right in the back. That is impressive. Yeah, it has far more urgency than any other hybrid Toyota
16:27 and Lexus product I've driven, so yeah, really cool setup, very impressed with this, and I am
16:31 keen to go for a bit of a fang because this is their Sport model, so hopefully they have tuned
16:36 it for sportiness. Okay, let's talk fuel economy. So, typically with Toyota hybrid products, you can
16:42 bang on hit the fuel economy without even really trying that hard. Here, it's a little bit
16:47 different. So, the claim is under 7 litres per 100 k's, but we're currently sitting on a combined
16:53 average of 11 litres per 100 k's. I will caveat that by saying, with all of these cars, before we
16:59 film, I'll do three fast laps around our ride and handling track, and that typically bumps the fuel
17:04 economy up a little bit, but still, it is pretty high given that the official average is almost
17:10 half what we're seeing now. Even on some of the faster cars, if you go for a bit of a fang, it
17:14 really doesn't push it up this high. So, yeah, I think with a bit more city driving, it'll come
17:19 down, but I'm just wondering how effective that six-speed auto and the turbocharged four-cylinder
17:25 petrol engine mated with that hybrid drivetrain actually is. It's also worth calling out as well
17:29 that it's a parallel hybrid, and on the front axle, the six-speed auto is actually sandwiched
17:34 between the electric motor and the engine. So, it means that using a set of clutches, it can actually
17:40 run just on the electric motor or just on the internal combustion engine or a combination of
17:45 both. So, it is a pretty sort of complex setup under the bonnet. Now, let's talk about rides.
17:53 So, you have adaptive damping, and I've got to say, the ride is excellent. They've done such a
17:58 good job, I guess, just making it soft and Lexus-like in and around the city, and that's
18:02 exactly what you want from this. You don't want it to be bucking about, you don't want it to be too
18:06 firm, you don't want it to be too soft. So, they've really engineered it nicely to work well there
18:10 with those 21-inch alloy wheels. What does that all feel like over our sine waves, though? So,
18:15 we'll jack the speed up here to 130, which is maximum speed in Australia and also the speed
18:20 we attack our sine waves at. So, here in comfort mode, it does feel pretty floaty on the approach,
18:27 but let's see what it's like over the sine waves at 130. There it is there. That is remarkable.
18:34 Yeah, I'm just lost for words here because typically when a car is super soft, over the
18:42 sine waves, it just has so much airtime and it doesn't have a great deal of body control. This,
18:46 on the other hand, it is super soft, but it feels really just smooth and calculated over those
18:52 undulations. So, yeah, they've done a really good job here with the suspension setup.
18:57 Now, time for our insanely bad country road test. So, jump this up to 90 k's an hour. This is
19:05 representative of pretty much the worst road you've ever seen in Australia. We have a set of
19:10 condensed sine waves here. This is really going to work out the suspension and tell us whether it
19:15 is engineered for our dodgy conditions. Look at that. The suspension control is excellent. When
19:20 we are going over those condensed sine waves, if I have control over the car, it tells me that
19:25 the suspension has enough time to level out there and sort itself out. And even on this
19:29 choppier stuff at 90, it is still incredibly comfortable. So, very impressed here with the RX.
19:35 Now, let's talk drive mode. So, I'm going to press this button here,
19:41 going to Sport. We have Normal, Eco, Custom and Sport. Okay, so immediately I can hear the
19:48 fake noise. They plumb into the cabin. Roll onto the throttle around the back here.
19:53 She gets up and boogies. So, it does feel sportier, but it still has a degree of body roll.
20:05 We also have the effect of that rear wheel steering system at the back. You can turn it
20:09 up to four degrees, which helps with tight turns, but it also helps here when you are driving a
20:14 little bit quicker. I'm not loving the braking. So, the brakes feel really confident, but the
20:20 problem is you have that hybrid system interrupting to try and do region when you're hard on the
20:25 brakes, especially here over the tram tracks. And it just brings along with it this weird
20:31 braking feel through the wheel. It's actually surprising how much pace this thing has.
20:40 You're able to just lean it into a corner and it reaches a point where it just doesn't roll
20:44 anymore. So, I'll give it a punch onto the back straight here. So, it runs out of puff there a
20:49 little bit. It's still piling on speed. Yeah, okay. So, at higher speeds there, it does run
20:56 out of puff. It really does feel like it's mainly at the lower end that it's delivering all of that
21:00 torque, but actually pretty surprised by this. So, this Direct4 system, the way that it works is
21:06 there's no physical driveline connection between the front and the rear of the car. So, when we
21:10 are tucking it into a corner and getting on the throttle, it's able to then get the rear motor
21:14 to start applying torque depending on where you are through the corner. And then it works in
21:20 unison with the front motor as well to give it that sort of uniform experience. So, while it does
21:25 have that degree of body roll, it is actively doing things beneath the skin to try and tuck
21:30 it out of the corner as well as you apply throttle. So, it's not a bad setup. It's not
21:35 amazing. I think that if you compare this to something like an X3 or an X5, they are far
21:40 sportier, but when you do put it into sport mode, you're getting all of that fun stuff happening
21:44 here behind the wheel. And I think that if you are buying this car, you don't expect it to be
21:48 sporty, but it is sporty enough for what you get. The brakes, yeah, they feel strong, but just
21:52 in unison with this regen system, they just don't feel really well connected there together.
22:00 Now, what about road noise? Being a Lexus, it is pretty quiet here inside the cabin.
22:04 You do hear the engine kick on a little bit when you do go for a bit of a punt, but outside of
22:08 that, it really isn't the end of the world. It is quite a quiet place to be seated, even on
22:12 course-tripped country roads. Now, what about your visibility? Look, it's pretty decent down
22:16 the front there, really liking that big head-up display, big wing mirrors as well. I can clearly
22:21 see down the sides of the car. This is a cool function as well that I've only just noticed,
22:24 and it is a button here on the steering wheel that allows me to bring up the panoramic view
22:28 for the camera, so you give that one push and then it brings up your camera view at low speeds as
22:33 well, so you can see what you're doing. But outside of that, it's pretty straightforward to park,
22:36 there's sort of no issue there. If you're doing it at a tow, brake towing capacity of 1500 kilos
22:41 with a brake trailer, in terms of visibility out the back window, it's actually a decent-sized
22:45 envelope, so it's easy to see out of. You also have the camera in the wing mirror too that I
22:49 mentioned earlier. Okay, time to test our autonomous driving system. So, this is the
22:56 latest Lexus, so I assume it's all going to be pretty good. Okay, so we'll get this up to 70 ks
23:01 an hour. There it is right there, and then I'll set our lane support system on as well,
23:10 and you can see once that is active we get a little steering wheel symbol showing up there.
23:14 So, we're going to test this in the three outer lanes to see how well it holds the lane. I'm also
23:19 going to only just have my hand on the steering wheel. If you were doing this on the road,
23:23 you'd have to keep your hands on there, and it will give you warnings if you do take your hands
23:26 off, but for the purposes of this we'll see how it goes. Then we'll move over to our two banked
23:30 sections, and that's going to see how much torque the car is willing to apply to the steering wheel
23:35 to keep it within its lane. So, lane one, great pass there. We're pretty much dead centre there
23:40 to the lane. Jump over to the next lane. Wait for that. There it is, that's activated. That is
23:48 awesome. That is keeping us dead centre here in this lane, even with an increased amount of torque
23:53 it has to put on the steering wheel to hold it there, so that is fantastic. We'll jump up to our
23:57 last lane here. Let's see how this goes. There it is, that's got it. So, I'm now just going to let
24:04 go of the wheel. Oh, that is unreal. That is doing a great job there. So, it's just straddling the
24:11 line, but it is gradually pushing us back in up the top there, and telling us driver inattention
24:17 as well, because I was looking away there for a few moments. That is unreal. So, that is a pass
24:22 in lane one, two and three. Not many cars can actually do that, so the fact that Lexus has
24:26 been able to nail that is pretty impressive, and it shows you that the driver support systems here
24:30 are top notch. Okay, so how quick will it go from zero to 100? Now, Lexus claims a time of 6.2
24:42 seconds, so we've got our GPS measurement device on. I'm going to put it into sport mode. I'll
24:49 switch traction control off. We'll go all the way to 120 as well, just so we can see what our
24:54 overtaking speed is like. Here we go. Wheel slip off the line. Nice little punch in the back.
25:03 It's moving. All right, and there's 120. I'll bring it to a stop and have a look at our time.
25:13 Zero to 100 in 6.2 seconds dead, which is good news, and 80 to 120 in four seconds. So,
25:20 not a bad number there. So, it shows you that from 80 to 120 in terms of overtaking,
25:23 this is actually still doing a decent job there in terms of picking up speed. So,
25:27 let's do a break. We'll see how quickly this will stop from 100.
25:30 Okay, 100 to zero, so we will get it up to 100 k's an hour, and then drop the anchors,
25:39 and see how it goes in terms of stopping power. All right, we've got our braking marker coming up.
25:44 Here's 100.
25:46 Feels really nice and strong there. Okay, so 100 to zero took 2.8 seconds and 38.7 metres. Now,
26:03 if you do want to see how the new Lexus RX compares to other cars that we've tested before,
26:07 have a look at the link in the description. We're slowly building that out, but that will
26:10 have you zero to 100, 100 to zero, and all that fun stuff as well. And now our reverse speed test.
26:17 I'll put that into sport mode, turn traction control off. Here we go.
26:23 And it's moving. It just got up to just under 70 kilometres an hour there. That is impressive.
26:35 [Music]
26:42 So the Lexus RX, look, I am really, really impressed with this. I was not expecting to
26:47 like it as much as I do. It's definitely not as sporty as some of the German competitors,
26:52 so don't go into this thinking that you're going to buy some, you know, supercar SUV that'll carve
26:57 up corners. It's not quite that, but it is pretty quick in a straight line, and it is really fun to
27:02 drive with an incredible looking interior, in my opinion. It is on the more expensive side for this
27:07 particular spec, so I'd probably be aiming a little further down the range where you're going
27:11 to get the naturally aspirated hybrid. That'll deliver you the fuel economy that you want,
27:15 but still get that really nice interior too. And then if you want to flex and have something that
27:19 goes a bit quick, you can go for something like this, but that is damn good. I cannot wait to
27:23 drive the new BMW X5. It is going to be more expensive, but probably starting around the top
27:28 spec of this, and that'll really, I think, set a benchmark for dynamics and also technology in
27:33 the segment. So we'll see how that stacks up against the Lexus RX when it does launch. Now,
27:36 let me know, have you bought one of these? Let me know in the comments section down below,
27:40 how long have you had to wait for it? Because I know that there is huge issues at the moment
27:44 with waiting for cars, and I'm curious to know whether that is in the same boat. Let me know
27:48 what it's like to live with as well. Let me know down in the comments there. Now, if you did enjoy
27:51 this video, please make sure you like it and share it with your mates, and if you haven't done so
27:55 already subscribed to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.