AMIRZA786

The First Lexus BEV: Lexus RZ 450e First Impressions

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

what a weak review of a weak ev offering. i'm sure it's fine it it's used around town and not on trips.

JeffKeryk

For that kinda money? I love my Toyotas, but no thanks.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

you love your tesla, and good for you. so this isn't for you. but i can see this being bought by someone who's had an nx or rx and wants to follow the ev trend. it will be familiar, but an ev.

it's certainly no home run, but at least it's a toe in the water.

Bob04

It's like they are trying to give the impression of huge wheel gaps on purpose with those massive black trim pieces around with wheel wells. Expensive, slow for an EV, low range, and not particularly attractive. Poor offering by Lexus.

Margate330

I think Toyota will end up surprising everyone and then we eat humble pie for naysaying. Lol

I'm playing it safe and trying not to underestimate them.

I work on Japaneese electronics, they can do it, no sweat.

They already the leader in hybrids, so drop the ICE and add more battery for full EV?

Need long range, always have the hybrid option. Lol

JeffKeryk

I see it a little differently. Toyota pretty much invented the hybrid and still makes the best hybrids, hands down. I've purchased 4 RX450h; they get the same (better?) mileage than our beloved 2006 Acura TSX. The Prius changed the world; it was the #1 selling car in CA for years. The RAV4 EV was a joint effort between Toyota and Tesla. My neighbors had one and loved it.
I fully expected Toyota, with their legendary engineering resulting in long running, problem free cars and trucks, to deliver that home run. I am a little disappointed, that's all. I love my Toyotas.

xjokerz

As I've said before, Toyota isn't allocating everything they have into their first EV's. They are putting serious money aside for the next gen EV's. Those will be the home runs you expect.

AMIRZA786

I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but where is your proof in that statement? Other than press releases and half baked EV's to please their investors, where is the supposed investment? Where are the factories or even factory blueprints? Where is the SSD SSB battery effort they keep talking about? I can post financial statements, pictures of production lines, Battery packs designs, deals being made when it comes to Ford, GM, VW, Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai/Kia and of course Tesla, but from Toyota/Lexus, all I've ever seen is press releases and non working prototypes.

Personally, I don't really care if Toyota/Lexus comes out or doesn't come out with an EV. I don't ever plan to buy anything from them. After this 1000 mile plus trip I just came back from today, there is no other EV I would ever buy that is not a Tesla

spwolf

gotta start somewhere, that is for sure. But it is very weak, and has many, many issues - at least BZ4x has, things like preventing you to quick charge more than 2x per day (road trip) or poor efficiency on highway are not easy to spot for the buyer.

We had similar type of problem before with diesels in Europe, where after dpf filters were 4-5 years old and started failing catastrophically, TMME started telling dealers that customers should not drive these cars in the cities, but on highways, where they can regenerate regularly before the problem happens (when it is too late) - but nobody told this warning to the customer before the purchase.

So even right now, dealers will not tell customers hey this $70k midsized CUV is not for highways, it is just a city car, and only if you have home charging. If you do not have home charging and you want to travel more than 100 miles with it, do not buy it.

Since Toyota now started a separate BEV arm of the company, I hope they give them BEV cars to drive from different manufacturers (hopefully Tesla) so they can see what they are missing. It might be a new thing for Toyota, but BEVs are now several generations old.

JeffKeryk

So Toyota wasted their world class engineering and tons of money delivering a sub par product? What kind of business decision is that? You never get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression.
CEO Toyoda and his staff decided EV was not the future. They were wrong. CEO Sato is fixing this error.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

as spwolf pointed out, toyota made horrible car diesel engines too. no company is perfect. sometimes it's lack of budget allocated. sometimes it's lack of talent on board. sometimes it's rushed product. sometimes it's all of those things.

we have no idea really if ceo sato is any better than ceo toyoda. it's just that sato (unless completely blind or in denial, which is possible ) now sees the competitive thread much more clearly.

JeffKeryk

Except Toyota has been making the best hybrids forever. One would expect that experience would lend itself to a great EV. Just my 2 cents... I believe CEO Sato is up to the job.

Allen K

iTrader: (4)

Toyota hybrids haven't really innovated in a while. The Primes are nice, but the regular hybrid systems have been refined to perfection.

LeX2K

It doesn't appear that way or the bZ4x would be class leading.