Lexus RX (2022 - ) review

Lexus is the premium arm of Toyota. Which means you can be assured of excellent build quality and reliability, but at a significant price. It's ultimately a comfortable alternative to a similarly-sized Volvo, Audi or Jaguar, for those who prefer the road less travelled. The RX450h is everyone’s pick of the bunch because, although it’s more expensive to buy or finance than 350h, it comes with meaningful electric-only driving so makes financial sense for those who do the majority of their motoring on local roads. Lexus claims you can travel up to 40 miles on electric power alone; we doubt many owners will see this, but 30 miles will be enough for most people on short daily routes. Note that the RX350h and RX500h also carry hybrid badges, but are not plug-in types. In these the electric element helps the petrol engine out to reduce its fuel consumption, and charges via the car’s powertrain or under braking. So, you get a healthy 44mpg or so from the 350h, which is still pretty frugal for a large SUV. The RX500h, meanwhile, returns more like 30mpg, thanks to that enhanced performance.

Year after year, Lexus wins the Most Reliable Brand award in the 2022 Auto Trader New Car Awards, which are voted for by thousands of owners. Very few Lexus owners report a fault during the first year of ownership compared with owners of German luxury cars. For what it’s worth Lexus actually offers a very bog-standard warranty period of 60,000 miles or three years (whichever comes first), plus three years’ worth of roadside assistance. The key here, however, is that few owners need to take advantage of either.

You sit high in a Lexus RX with very good all-round visibility of the road. Given the high price of the RX, it’s no surprise that every version comes with a raft of the latest safety offerings under the Lexus Safety System+ branding, this including adaptive cruise control which brakes for you as well as accelerating, front and rear parking sensors, collision warning, blind-spot warning, tyre-pressure warning and rear cross-traffic alert which pings if you’re reversing out into oncoming traffic. There are four trim levels; a head-up display comes on all but the base Premium Pack trim.

Comfort is the reason people buy a Lexus. It feels like a big American barge which is rubbish if you’re a driver who likes to hustle their car through corners, but who wants to do that with a large family SUV anyway? The pay-off is that it’s brilliant if you want to sit back and chill out on a long journey. Children tend to love a Lexus - those big seats, the wide dash, the huge windows, generous legroom and the sound proofing translate into acres of time and space for relaxation. Add in an awesome sound system and the RX is a lovely way to pass the time.

Hurrah - the stupid, fiddly mouse pad and cursor have gone, replaced by a combination of touchscreen and actual dial/buttons. There’s also voice control if you’ve got the patience. You also get wireless Apple CarPlay and wired Android Auto connections, a wireless charging pad, a whopping six USB ports front and rear, a 12-speaker audio system and, on the top Takumi trim level, the awesome 21-speaker Mark Levinson surround-sound audio system, which is also an optional extra on the F-Sport trim. We just wish Lexus would get a new designer in for its digital displays. The information is still fiddle, crowded and ugly compared with the likes of Volvo, Land Rover or BMW.

Comfortable, yes. Dynamic, involving or rewarding to drive? No. The Lexus RX likes long, straight roads. It doesn’t respond with any sense of urgency to twisting country lanes. Which makes Lexus’s assertion that quite a few UK drivers will choose the more powerful RX500h surprising. But there you have it. We’d go for the plug-in hybrid, because the electric drive and lower centre of gravity enhances the inherently silent, smooth character of the car, and it’s a very gentle, satisfying way in which to float around town.