Since my partner is a huge Lexus fangirl, I decided to surprise her on her birthday by taking her wine tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley north of Los Angeles using a Lexus RZ as our chariot. What I learned about the RZ — a vehicle that has been torn to shreds by so many journalists due to its limited EV range — is that it’s actually quite good. Well, as long as you’re a Lexus fan and you don’t buy it new. Here, allow me to explain.
The Lexus RZ recently demolished by YouTube sensation Marques Brownlee. His title, “The Electric Lexus: Please Try Again” is similar to his “This is the Worst Car I’ve Ever Reviewed” Fisker Ocean title in that they both sort of make you think he hates the car when he actually doesn’t. I myself really liked the Ocean, and you know what? I quite like the Lexus RZ, too. But not for its asking price.
Our trip in the RZ began in LA, and took us along the Pacific Coast highway, right along the shore.
Our destination was the setting of the cult-classic film Sideways:
The RZ showed up at our LA residence in “Copper Crest and Black Onyx,” and drew compliments from multiple folks who loved how the pink-ish color paired with the black.
Other than the color, what’s most surprising about the RZ is that it does the opposite of so many EVs — instead of looking small but actually being big (like the Hyundai Ioniq 5), it looks big, but is actually quite small. The photo below shows the RZ next to a Ford Bronco Sport. Yes, the RZ is farther away, so it’s going to look smaller, but it might surprise you to know just how much smaller the RZ is than the Bronco Sport small-SUV.
The Lexus RZ is 64.4 inches tall. The Ford Bronco Sport? 70.2. Yes, the RZ is half a foot shorter! And it’s about the same width, too.
As you can see, the RZ doesn’t look much taller than a Mazda CX-5 compact SUV:
Every time I parked the RZ next to any other crossover, I couldn’t help but marvel at how small it looks. In my head, the RZ is meant to be the electric Lexus RX, and if you look at only overall length, you might buy that. But width and height are what you notice most when looking at cars in parking spots, and in those areas the RZ is really more like an electric Lexus NX.
Luckily, on the inside, the car doesn’t feel any less spacious than an RX. In fact, it feels roomy thanks to an EV platform that isn’t saddled with a transmission/exhaust tunnel, and that only has to package small motors and power electronics instead of a big gasoline engine, transmission, power transfer unit, driveshafts, and on and on.
The Lexus RZ is about as long and wide as an RX, but it’s lower; the advantage is aerodynamics, which is important when trying to be competitive in the area of range (the RZ fails in this area; more on that soon). Luckily, this lower overall roof-height doesn’t make the car feel much smaller, and the ride height still feels reasonably elevated for those who like a more commanding view of the road.
The car’s interior is gorgeous. The vanilla leather blends beautifully with the car’s blue, almost suede-like leather. The steering wheel, dashboard, center console, and screens all just feel like high quality equipment. The RZ’s cabin is a humongous selling-point, to the point where I may end up buying one of these (more on that later).
But it’s not perfect. The car’s shifter is a rotary dial on the center tunnel and to the left of the small-ish cupholders. To use the dial, you push the outer ring down and crank it clockwise to go into drive or counterclockwise to go into reverse. Park is a separate button a few inches in front of the dial.
Here’s a video Lexus put out to teach you how to use the shifter:
I don’t like it. First, the value of a rotary dial should be to save space, but the dial and the park button take up plenty of valuable real estate on that center tunnel (which, it’s worth noting, has a nice storage area underneath, as shown in the image below). Why not put that dial somewhere up on the dashboard? Or, better yet, why not use a column shifter? Then you could have another cubby or larger cupholders in that critical location instead of a shifter that you rarely use while driving.
If you’re going to waste that space on a shifter, just throw in a standard PRNDL lever-style shifter like the one all the Lexus owners who want to buy this car are used to.
Speaking of what Lexus owners are used to, let’s talk about the infotainment system.
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While driving north up the Pacific Coast Highway, with the beautiful ocean to my left and bluffs to my right, I smiled and thought to myself: This car is ideal for people like my partner, Elise (not her real name). You see, she’s been driving Lexus cars her whole life, and has completely bought into the brand. She loves her 2017 RX-350, but she wants to go electric, not just for environmental reasons, but because she likes how they drive, and she enjoys not having to get oil changes or having fill up at a gas station. For Lexus fans like Elise, an electric RX would be perfect.
And in many ways, the RZ feels just like an electric version of her RX. The ride quality is exceptional, the cabin is quiet as a confessional, the seats are cushy, every surface feels high-quality, front visibility is great, the seating position is high enough, acceleration is decent — it hits all the high spots a traditional Lexus driver would want. But sadly, I think the infotainment system falls short.
Notice how there are only a few physical buttons — two climate control temperature dials, a volume dial, a couple of defrost buttons, a park assist button, and a camera button. For conservative, well-heeled (and usually older) Lexus buyers, this just seems like a misstep. Which 30 year old is buying this Lexus RZ whose technology is years behind the likes of Lucid, Tesla, Hyundai, and others? Nobody. This car is being purchased by people who drive Toyotas and other Lexuses; they want the vehicle to be luxurious, reliable, and simple to use. Maybe I’m wrong and Lexus has customer clinic data that disagrees with me, but it seems to me that the last thing a Lexus owner want is to have to deal with all the controls being on a touchscreen, a shifter that require a how-to video, and a bunch of beeping and booping electronic nannies.
And my god were are plenty of nannies in the RZ.
In the voice notes that I took while driving the car, I say the following:
“Air conditioning is middling. Android Auto/maps/navigation had at least one bug; it would not show my directions. Other issues include cruise control refused to go above 60 mph until I shut the car off. Very frequent notifications if I’m not lookin gat the road. Too many beeps, sounds, all sorts of annoying buzzing if there are people around or if I’m not doing what it wants me to, much of which can probably be turned off.”
That’s right; I couldn’t get the map to show directions, but what was worse than that was that I could not increase the cruise control speed beyond 60 MPH. No matter what I tried, it wouldn’t go above 60. I had to actually shut the car off before I could crank up my speed.
Otherwise, I was just annoyed by all the beeping and bopping; every notification about pedestrians and nearby objects and my state of attentiveness — it was all just too much. I’m sure I can shut some of it off, but out of the box, the RZ drove me mad. And if you’re a typical Lexus owner who doesn’t want to deal with BS and just wants a reliable, decent, easy-to-use car, these might tempt you to turn away.
And that’s a bit ridiculous. Because that’s the only customer who will take the RZ seriously.
I say this because the RZ isn’t really competitive technology-wise, as Marques Brownlee notes in his “Please Try Again” video. It doesn’t charge fast enough at 150 kilowatts, it doesn’t offer enough range at between 196 and 266 miles of range (my RZ300e had an EPA range of 224 miles), it doesn’t have a frunk, and honestly, it’s a bit slow. The RZ300e I drove will do zero to 60 mph in about seven or so seconds, which for a gas car is quick enough, but in an EV, there’s just something about feeling the torque instantly and then waiting a full 7 seconds to reach highway speeds that made the car feel a bit lethargic. The 5ish-second 0-60 time of the higher-trim RX450e is definitely quick, but it isn’t going to impress anyone with plenty of EV driving experience.
The RZ is, technologically, not particularly advanced for an EV. It’s just fine.
Add a starting price of $55,175 and you’ve got a ridiculously tough sell on your hands. Except maybe to Lexus owners, who are flush with cash, loving your brand thanks to a history of reliable vehicles with great service, and just want an electric version of their trusty steed. The RZ should have been built for the traditional Lexus owner, but with the infotainment/software issues I noticed, it seems like it was built for a customer who doesn’t exist.
It’s trying to be too cool and tech-forward, when it should really just follow the old K.I.S.S. rule that has made Lexus such a strong brand to begin with.
With that said, I still liked the quiet and comfortable SUV during our 125 mile trip to Solvang, and I’m sure if I turned off all the nannies most of my complaints would disappear (even if the air conditioning felt pretty weak, even at max).
We filled up the car overnight outside our hotel using a Level 2 charger, then we left the car parked for a few days while we joined a group of random folks on an amazing wine tasting experience across multiple vineyards.
I’m not much of an alcohol-drinker, but there’s just something fun about traveling around from vineyard to vineyard with random folks, all while a bit buzzed, and on a gorgeous sunny day.
Solvang, by the way, is a fascinating place; the land was purchased by a bunch of Danish Americans, who, around World War II, started erecting Danish architecture. Now it’s a tourist town for wine-lovers, and a great destination for folks who want a relaxing weekend outside of the hustle and bustle of LA.
On the Sunday after our drunken Saturday, we headed for the hills and went on a nice hike:
When we arrived home, I topped the RZ off at a local fast-charging station, and handed the keys back, knowing for sure that it wasn’t going to be the last time I’d drive an RZ. You see, Elise is probably going to buy one, and I think it’s a good call.
Obviously, spending $60,000 on a car that can’t even do 250 miles of range (she’d want the all-wheel drive RZ450e) is absurd, but have you seen the prices on used RZs?
These RZs, almost all with under 5,000 miles on the clock, cost between $35,000 and $40,000. Imagine if they had a few miles on them! In a year or two, I bet these will dip into the $20,000 range. And Elise’s 2017 RX only has 42,000 miles on it; she should be able to trade that thing in for $20 grand at least:
All in, she’d pay probably less than $10,000 to upgrade from a 2017 to a 2023, she’d save money on running costs, and she’d finally have Apple Carplay and other modern tech. As someone who has a place to plug in at home, and who regularly commutes only a few miles a day, she just doesn’t need a gas car. The Lexus will be perfect for her; she became a fan after our Solvang trip (she didn’t find the bings and boops and nannies too bad), and assuming she enjoys driving it (I drove the whole trip) and the car keeps depreciating, why the heck not?
The RZ is an annoying and expensive new car, but a great used car for Lexus people like Elise. I think she should wait a year or so, then pull the trigger and enjoy that quiet, cheap-to-operate, modern electric goodness.
Whatever happened with the living in an Aztek for a week and driving it for month thing? Did I somehow miss the article about that?
Happy wife, etc. 😉
Seems like it would complement a 3-door XJ nicely.
This is exactly what automakers need to do with EVs, make the car feel like one of their cars. Performance and NACS adapters and the like should take a back seat to how the car feels to the user.
An RZ should feel similar to an RX, so the Lexus fans can get a Lexus that feels like a Lexus and away they go.
Once EVs are normalized, then they can go crazy with a giant 10,000lb convertible 4×4 that has crab walk and has enough battery to power more than 3 Chevy Bolts with only a 20% increase in range comparably….just saying.
The only thing worse than the bucktooth-faced BMWs of late is the angry-cylon faces on all of the late model Lexus models. And it’s spilling over into the Toyota sedans.
Maybe one of the Autopian designers can tell me why this type of styling is “good”. To my eye, all it does is disfigure the front end of a car. I have a feeling it’s not going to age well, and some otherwise great cars will be be regarded as “meh” by collectors, just because of the way they look.
They are pug fugly
Interesting color!
Sounds like David and Elise/Dottie have a good use case for this exact vehicle. LA traffic means a nice interior is a must. Range doesn’t matter a lot when it’s a city car. It won’t use a ton of energy running the aircon and radio in traffic. The acceleration being “present” is fine for the 0-30 sprint. It also seems like the range is fine for the occasional weekend getaway. This is California, chargers are most places people want to be.
Life is short, drive something that makes the driver happy. Even if it loses the stats race to a lot of other EV’s.
So…is Solvang the Danish CA imitation of Frankenmuth? If so, between the weather and the wine, I’m a bit jealous. Just don’t tell my SO, she loves Prost.
Frankenmuth was the first thing I thought when I saw that pic.
One big fail of the RZ and the other 2 of its platform partners is the lack of one pedal driving. It seriously prevents current EV owners or prospective buyers from wanting it. Similar complaints from Nissan Ariya owners/buyers have come up regarding one pedal driving.
What? No 1 pedal driving? Really? I love 1 pedal driving my Tesla. That was a big selling point of the brand.
I have a 2024 Solterra and it has a one pedal driving mode. The 2023 model has it, too. The thing is, the one pedal driving mode isn’t as good as the one pedal in the Chevy Bolt that I used to have.
Don’t you need to turn it on everytime you get in and the OPD doesnt fully stop you? It still coasts at 5mph. That’s my experience from driving one
Yes. That’s why I say that it’s not as good as the one pedal (Low mode) in the 2017 and 2020 Bolts that I previously had. On the Bolt, you needed to select Low on the shifter for each drive, but it worked well. I once drove the Bolt on Angeles Crest Highway (LA area) from 6,000 feet elevation down to maybe 1,000 feet without touching the brake pedal at all. It was a pretty aggressive pace, too. Got tire squeal under cornering. By contrast, I don’t use the one pedal mode in the Solterra because of the behaviors that you mentioned. It’s a pretty decent car otherwise, though, and the lease rate was CHEAP.
Having spent some time in Teslas my worry about one pedal driving is that you lose the muscle memory to hit the brakes in an emergency.
I liked one pedal driving but having two ways of slowing down, one of which you use all the time but can’t emergency brake, seems like a bad idea.
If your girlfriend is such a huge Lexus fan do not let her drive a Bentley Bentayaga. They are very Lexus like but turned up to eleventy zillion. Which is, co-incidentally roughly what they cost.
Since this is a variant of the BusyForks and Solterra, here’s an observation I have after test driving a Solterra: it’s weirdly half-assed. Every detail has a strong feeling of “this would have been a lot better if they put 30% more effort into it.” Nothing is necessarily BAD, but you keep noticing parts that could easily be better.
Toyota’s focus seems to be on hybrids (even with NiMH batteries).. EV seems to be an after thought (or investor pleasers) and it shows.
Not to mention software.. the dash and screen look pretty sad.
These will be worth like $25,000 a year from now, if not less. They also have dirt cheap leases on them. Leasing one or letting some bozo take the depreciation to the face first is the move. And I get why so many commenters are like “WTF this thing sucks” but also….
…it’s a Lexus. They have an incredible dealership experience. They’re comfortable. This looks great both inside and out. There are plenty of brands and brand loyalties that I don’t really get…but Lexus isn’t one of them. There are myriad reasons why people love them.
Other than badge snobbery, I can’t find one reason to buy this.
“Why My Girlfriend Should Eventually Buy The Overpriced And Slightly Annoying Lexus RZ”
But why when she can get a SCREAMING deal on a gently used 2014 BMW i3 with a nearly brand new battery and an A/C system that hasn’t *yet* bricked the car?
I offered her my 2021 Gold one! But she likes her Lexus, and I respect that.
Eh, swap the propeller badge for a Lexus one. Good enough for Supra owners.
When I hear the model designator “RZ” I mentally follow it with “350”.
The Yamaha RZ350 was basically the last street-legal two-stroke race replica motorcycle in the US. They were sold in ’84 and ’85 and had a parallel-twin 350cc engine that would zip you down the road in a cloud of exhaust smoke. IIRC they were rated around 55 or 60hp and weighed next to nothing. The black and yellow livery was the better option: https://hagerty-vid-images.imgix.net/vehicles/WorldofSpeed2017_%20_Yamaha_1985_RZ350_Motorcycle_%20_Overall.jpeg
Oh, right – something on topic… I like the color of the Lexus; that copper is excellent.
They made the RZ500 as well! Wanted one back then, but was way out of my reach. Fast forward 40 years, still out of (reasonable) reach, but I’m only a Lotto win away!
Not for the US market, they didn’t. (Thus, A. Barth’s note about the RZ350 being the last available street-legal ring-a-ding-dinger.)
And they only made 6,632 for the rest of the world: https://i.imgur.com/sUbJZhx.jpeg
I know, that whole out of reach thing (in more ways than one) 🙁
The black & yellow Yamaha speedblock may be my very favorite race livery ever.
Hard pass on the Lexus copper (paired with the black isn’t doing it any favors, at least not on that particular vehicle).
and copper isn’t close to pink
OK, good, so I’m not suffering colorblindness! (or you share mine)
And now I’ve got a craving for Copper River king salmon.
Me too! King Kenny Roberts, Bob Hurricane Hannah, man those were some times!
RD 400 wasn’t a race replica, but was/could be made to be faster.
Weren’t they known as the Kenny Roberts model and weren’t they a Euro model? I remember seeing them in Britain, when we lived there in high school, but not stateside. Ironically, I saw a minty one outside the gym here in Music City a few years ago! I felt like the teenaged boy of old in awe of his dream bike. My lady and kids had no idea what I was on about or who the hell Kenny Roberts was, and I couldn’t have cared less! If I recall correctly, there was a bigger white and red Kenny model as well- perhaps the FJ1200(?). Oh, how I loved the bikes as a lad in Britain, and Paris with the yellow headlights- driven in full leathers and in the rain regardless! Thank you Britain for those memories and finding a white whale(Lagonda) parked on a London street, shortly after we arrived.
One of my favourite bikes! So much fun, really light, crazy fast, and surprisingly could even be driven smoothly and quietly if you wanted.
Enough with “Elise” . It’s either Dot or Dottie, we’ve seen the pictures.
the TGR hat is interesting. either a gift or she is a fairly hard core skier.
Dottielise
Then he’ll have to say:
Dot or Dottie (formerly known as Elise [not her real name])
Sort of like: X (formerly known as Twitter)
A lot of the 1-2 yr old $60k EVs are now $30-35k and prices keep falling. Used EV is the way to go (if you want an EV).
Here’s something to consider before getting too excited about a used RZ: the BZ4X and RZ are hard-coded to limit fast charging to 3 sessions per day. If you get an older one that hasn’t been updated, it’ll be limited to 2.
If you’re not planning on road tripping, then the charge limit might not be a problem. But if fast charging isn’t a priority, I’d argue that there are a ton of last-gen EVs for under $35k and many of them are far more interesting or compelling than the RZ.
For sure, but in a year or two, if these suckers are $25 large and she can straight-swap her RX over… I say go for it.
The fact that the RX takes a decade to reach 50% of its MSRP and this takes 2-3 years wouldn’t give her pause going forward?
It’s not as if the depreciation cliff stops once you buy it.
We’ll pick it up when it’s nice and cheap.
Just saying, I don’t think $25K is anywhere close to the bottom for an afterthought of an EV.
Giving up oil changes and such is nice I’m sure (although why does that bother her when you can do them? lol) but the RX is almost sure to have a lower cost of ownership over the next decade when factoring depreciation.
It’s all about the slope of that curve. We’ll try to buy it when that dC/dt (where C is cost and t is time) is low.
That might be the most stereotypical engineer’s answer I’ve ever heard.
The subsidies on leasing these are probably a major driver of the severe depreciation. I just looked at the Lexus website and found that they advertise an RZ300e Premium FWD at $399/month on a 27 month term, 7500 miles/year and $1999 due at signing. The MSRP is $51,450 and there is a whopping $16,500 in lease cash in the deal. I suspect that the “lease cash” includes the Federal $7500 tax credit but it’s not listed so I can’t be sure. The Lexus website doesn’t list the capitalized cost or the residual value. My point being: if there is $16,500 in lease cash then that has reduced the net cost to $34,950 before the dealer has (maybe) sacrificed a bit of gross on the deal. If a new one is therefore worth $35K then could a used one with miles be worth $25K? The incentives drive down the value of the car a LOT but it won’t necessarily continue depreciating at an absurdly fast rate. That’s been the case with the Chevy Bolt, for example.
Thanks to the amazing idea Rollin Hand offered in yesterday’s flaming Mustang piece, I can’t see the white privacy dots in the pics without thinking that I’d enjoy it even more if they were heads of various autopian writers not otherwise in the shot.
Come on, Adrian in a summer hat on a bicycle? Pure gold.
Thanks for the kind words.
I respect Elise wanting to keep her privacy. However, the white out is annoying. How about googly eyes or something to make it fun?
Or not post pictures of her (especially solo pictures)? Seems a little sus (to steal a term from the kids) of David trying to tell us he has a girlfriend.
yeah, the single shots are strange… take my pic, don’t show me?
I’ve been writing the same way for the past decade. I tell a story of what I did, and I include photos to describe the entire experience. If the white dots make you uncomfortable, I get that; a human with a white featureless head is objectively… uh, odd. I’ll use a happy face or something from here on. That said, there’s nothing “sus” about including photos that describe my weekend.
Anything but a cat
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lGOofzZOyl8
Maybe Elise is just all of the Jeep kittens (all growed up now) in a human suit.
We need thought bubbles to go along with the privacy dots.
Needing a video to explain how to use [basic operating function] should automatically trigger a return to the drawing board.
At least the P button is visible from the driver’s perspective; in our Mitsubishi Outlanders, it’s invisible behind the shifter. Part-time drivers call me about that all the time.
It’s an inexplicably irritating design. It is both fairly straightforward – I don’t think the video is necessary really – while also not working how you assume it would.
This was the whole reason they mandated the PRNDL shifter pattern. I don’t see how some of these new shifter mechanisms don’t fall afoul of that regulation.
When everyone who drives your car for the first time has to ask “How do you put it in Park?” something is wrong.
“ In my head, the RZ is meant to be the electric Lexus RX…”
Except it’s not
Its clearly a Lexus Busy Forks
Barely-sufficient range, challenging styling and all.
Truly is the Bizforx.
Not bad if it’s cheap enough, though.
Seems to me that an Audi Q4 ETron or a MB EQB might be better choices for the money – at least visually.
She’s a Lexus gurl 4 lyfe
Life’s too short to compromise in the name of cheapness.
It’s all about maximizing value.
What’s your time worth esp. if you could be more comfortable for about the same or slightly more? Quality time has value too.
It’s also about who owner number one and two are going to be. Not that this needs the same level of care as an ICE vehicle but you can nearly guarantee it will live a chill and pampered life. That’s worth quite a bit years down the road.
I am my father’s son, so I battle with “cheap vs. quality” all the time. The trick is to find the balance, and sort out needs vs. wants.
For example, I could buy Milwaukee tools, but buy Ryobi. They probably aren’t as good, but for my needs, they are enough.
But, for things like tires, I buy better quality stuff because it works out as a wash or better in the long run.
Cheaping out on tires is like playing Russian Roulette just with better odds. Plus the better tires tend to last longer so they generally are a better deal anyway.
I saw a demo RZ at the Lexus dealer right before they were released for sale and was confused trying to make sense of the size – it was right in between the RX and NX, but instead of being the best of both, it seemed like the worst of both (except rear seat leg room). It then dawned on me that it was the Lexus version of the BZ4x, which explained why it seemed so compromised in nearly every way. I love my Lexus, and am a big Lexus fan in general, but the RZ feels like a miss.
In SoCal terms, a dude going to Solvang means you’re a few months away from getting engaged
Yeah, next thing you know, they’ll be headed for the Madonna Inn.
or married already
that dash display is shockingly terrible.
“Teton Gravity Research”
For a while I thought “Elise” was a physicist, working on gravitational waves and mingling with Kip Thorne, et al.
I was thinking maybe it was a mildly euphemistic marketing slogan for a sports-bra company catering to a certain clientele.
nope. a website/extreme skiing film producing firm. they’ve made some good ones.
/eye-roll.gif
If nothing else, it’s a fantastic color. Used EV’s are really the only EVs that make sense for the vast majority of people (who want an EV in the first place).
Or a lease so you are assured of unloading it in a few years rather than getting stuck with it.
Good point.