IS the 2024 Lexus 450h+ the BEST LUXURY Plug In Hybrid?
This is the 2024 Lexus RX 450h plus and surprisingly it’s as quick as the quickest RX by a hair despite Lexus claiming that its RX 500hf sport takes that crown and it does so with less power and way better fuel economy but at what cost today I’m going to review it
And find out if it’s worth those extra [Applause] pennies so the RX has been complet completely redesigned and the most notable difference is at the front so always a statement piece Lexus has redesigned the front grill the massive front grill it’s still as in yourf face as it ever was they’ve also redesigned these front lights they’ve got an
L-shaped signature now this one has the triple beam headlights as an option you’ll also see that the windshield is more ra but it does retain this floating style roof then at the rear the continuous light bar theme continues here and then the Lexus spelt out in the
Middle and then here you get the name badge which is rx 450h plus plus means plug in hybrid and of course it’s all-wheel drive thanks to the rear electric motors so Dimensions Wise It’s a little bit larger the wheelbase has been stretched by 2.4 in and then as you
Can see at the back the rear overhang is slightly shorter now the old long wheel based version three row has been fired and has been replaced by the Lexus TX so since all RX hybrids are luxury trim you get a powered tailgate and a kick sensor
So in the back you get a pretty decent amount of cargo space and then you can use these two buttons here to fold the second row down or lift them back up you also get some power as well that gives you a pretty decent 46 cubic feet then
Under here you get a 110 Vol charger take a while little bit more storage space under here and no spare so on the plug-in hybrid model you get these specific 21in Wheels they look pretty good uh bridgeston uh not my favorite tire but they’ll do for this
Car they’re 235 50s all around they are run Flats they also are very comfortable as well which is the main purpose of this luxury SUV so Lexus gives you a lot of options when it comes to powertrains the entry level 350 is a turbocharged 4-cylinder engine it’s got 275 horsepower 3117 ftlb of
Torque driven through an 8-speed automatic transmission so next up is the hybrid version it’s got a 2.5 L naturally aspirated 4 cylinder engine driven through a CVT transmission two electric motors at the front one electric motor at the rear combined output 246 Hors power 233 ftlb of torque
And then finally this one the one with the most comp complicated name basically is the same powertrain as in the NX version of the plug-in hybrid it’s got a 2.5 L naturally aspirated 4 helped along with an electric motor at the front and then a second electric motor at the rear
Gives you a combined output of 304 horsepower Lexus don’t give us any torque figures for that one and it’s driven through a CVT transmission so that 304 horsepower gives it a 060 time of 5.8 seconds which surprisingly is exactly the same as the 500 F Sport
Version of the RX so go figure this one is more economical though because it’ll do 36 Highway whereas that 500 F Sport will do 28 Highway and of course this one has a EV only range of 37 mil so how much is it well not surprisingly the quickest and the most electrified
Version of this RX is is also the priciest it starts at in its one trim luxury at about $68,700 but this one’s got a whole bunch of other stuff it’s got a penic sunroof it’s got a mark Lon sound system which is really good also has those triple beam headlights and
That rear hatch that’s power operated and a kick sensor as well so that takes the price to over $75,000 some $6,300 more than the 500 F Sport model wow these seats are really nice I’ve sat in some really comfortable back seats before but these are really nice
And you do have electric control here so you can slowly put the seat back if you want if you’re on a longer Journey plenty of leg room decent Headroom for me got the panan sunroof that sort of gets in the way and lowers this a little bit got a
Nice quality armrest little bit of space under here to store stuff and then a really cool mechanism uh for your cup holders you also get sun shades for a hot day obviously not today and then these door openers take a little bit of getting used to everybody seems to be going
Towards these electronic ones you just basically click that to open the door there’s nothing really to pull just get this little holder here behind the seat for stuff and then backseat passengers also get two sets of power their own Vents and heated and cool seats so you
Also have the ability to move the passenger seat forward and back and also adjust the back rest from these buttons right here I’m not quite sure why you would need that but it’s a feature honestly I would be perfectly happy in these back seats for quite some
Time you certainly can’t fault a Lexus interior um these seats are a massive improvement over the old RX everything is beautifully made Alcantara you got a mar levenson speaker right here steering wheel it’s okay we’ll go into that later on it’s not my favorite feature of the car but yes these seats
Are really nice and the quality every single piece even below the knee you’ve got some really high quality Plastics right so what’s good and what’s bad about the interior what’s good first is you get a 14-in touchcreen massive Improvement stupid little controller down here is gone uh if you order one of
The 350s the lower models then it’s a 9.8 in screen it’s fast we played around with this particular infotainment screen and the software uh in various other Toyota models and it works great um I would prefer uh a manual control r or physical control for the fan you sort of
Got to slide it bit difficult as you go along but you can basically pair your phone real easily there’s some settings within the system you can see your seat controls you can fold all your seats if you want to driving assist strip information energy flow charging schedule tire
Pressures vehicle alerts Etc you can put it into sport mode I haven’t tried that we are going to drive it in a minute and uh we’ll see what it’s like so down here you’ve got some pretty cool looking air vents and uh park assist and your view 360 view surround sound camera system
Below that you’ve got a really nice rubberized mat you could store stuff in there you can put your bone in there if you want to it’s grippy and it’s caned forward so if you accelerate it doesn’t fly all over the place and you got two USBS right
There underneath here you get a couple of USBS you got a nice little rubberized little storage space right there and then a Wi-Fi charger which charges through my phone two decent cup holders and my favorite part about the cup holders is you push this button right here and the
Cup holder Rises up if you have a really small cup Lexus also uses it it’s really great system where you can open this from both sides once it’s open there is a ton of room in this center console what I don’t like is this particular design here this
Wood design I think you can change it you can choose a different one what you can’t change though are these piano black buttons I wish they were sort of more matte black so I’m not a big fan the wheel is nice it’s really nice and
Small but I don’t like this sort of fake wood it’s just hard why can’t you just have a normal steering wheel with this leather covered all the way around the other odd thing is the steering wheel buttons there’s no labels so the tool tips when you touch these
The tool tips either appear in the head-up display which I turned off because every time I accidentally Touch This the head-up display would display this weird zone right here with all these different buttons and it was it kind of got annoying so I went into settings and I turned that off so
Now when you touch that it shows you the different settings and you moving around the controls and the same on the other side of the steering wheel you can change everything and they’re sort of capacitive touch buttons it would take a little bit of a learning curve to memorize where your thumb needs
To go exactly and it’s a bit laggy but you can program a second layer of controls to kind of put your most used functions at your fingertips it’s slightly annoying at first but I think I would probably get used to it once I personalize the vehicle more to my taste
All right let’s take it for a drive I’m going to hit the auto EV button that will allow us to use the 30 Mi of e range and get maximum performance out of this car all right let’s get going here put it in sport mode weirdly there isn’t a button for
Sport mode anywhere other than digging into the dash there so right so this a pretty rough road so this thing is a lot quicker than you would expect ECT I mean I drove the Rav 4 Prime that has the same powertrain I’ve driven the NX with the same
Powertrain I mean this thing is quick and it’s odd that it’s quicker than the RX 500h FS sport because Lexus claims that that is their fastest RX wow anyway we’re in sport mode here and even though this road is more pitted than a teenager’s face it is quite comfortable but it
Feels quite planted um on this bit of Road the steering is heavier so going up here engine kicked in there it can’t always be using EV now you can do that 37 miles of EV range until that runs out and then it goes into to a normal hybrid mode so
Really I mean if you commute and your commute isn’t that far less than 40 Mi or so you’re probably not going to use gas very Often there’s that gas engine kicking in there so we’ve driven maybe 2 miles we started off with 30 Mi of EV range now we’ve got 28 all right passing cars with this amount of torque not even a problem this thing goes and then in the turns it
Feels somewhat un Lexus likee I mean in terms of for their non-sporty cars it it holds the road really well despite wearing these bridgeston and we’re going uphill right now and it’s pulling like a train so I’m quite impressed with its abilities into a sort of lower speed Bend
And it does really well no real signs of under steer either that rear electric motor keeping everything in order and the all wheel drive System I am suitably impressed with what this car can do I haven’t driven the fsport yet um most fport lexuses particularly the SUVs don’t feel particularly sporty so I’m not quite sure how much better it could be than than this one so much talk now when you when you really push
Hard on the gas and that little four cylinder has to kick in it it does get a little bit noisy I mean Lexus does a pretty good job of uh of controlling noise and vibration and any harshness but you just you do you do hear it yeah really does is siing through these
Turns so so much quicker than you would expect now one thing that is I’m not too keen on and it happens a lot with with hybrid brakes they got Regent in them regening back to the battery uh there’s no feel on these things they’re just kind of weird it’s almost like the
Sensation of like pushing your foot into like a bowl of beads or something it just doesn’t have a lot of pedal feel but they work so as long as they uh bring the car to a halt that is all I care about and that transition from going
Over a little hump bridge to a sharp rightand turn maintained its composure without a problem now I started out uh with a full tank and I’ve done probably 65 miles so far bar and a fuel gauge hasn’t [Applause] Moved [Applause] I am very impressed with with the the quality of the materials in this car it’s gosh I want to say it’s almost like better than an Audi and they’re pretty up there for the quality it’s not perfect but it’s very nice it does everything that anybody would need it to
Do so what do we think well the Lexus RX 450h plus is a very compelling luxury SUV plug-in luxury SUV it’s got great electric range it looks really cool from the outside it’s got a beautiful interior and it’s a really really comfortable and nice drive the only
Problem it has is it is a little bit expensive once again thanks for watching we appreciate it like subscribe and we’ll catch you next time with another video [Applause] out
This is the 2024 Lexus RX 450 H + and it’s the first time the RX has been available as a plug-in hybrid. Surprisingly it’s about as quick as the quickest RX the RX500h F Sport. The good news it does so with less power and way better fuel economy, the bad news is it costs more. Time to dig into the details and see if it’s worth those extra pennies.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:28 Exterior
1:42 Cargo Space
2:03 Wheels and Tires
2:21 Engine and Transmission
3:52 Pricing
4:28 Rear Accommodation
5:41 Interior and Tech
9:45 Driving
16:22 Verdict
Under The Hood
Lexus gives you a lot of choices when it comes to power trains. The entry-level RX350 switches out last year’s V-6 for a turbocharged 2.4-liter inline-four. It’s mated to an eight-speed automatic and it makes 275 horsepower and 317 pound-feet of torque.
The Hybrid version has a 2.5-liter naturally aspirated four, a continuously variable transmission with two electric motors that power the front wheels. A third electric motor drives the rear wheels giving a combined output of s 246 horses and 233 pound-feet. Step up to the RX500H F-Sport which has a bigger rear motor and you get a combined 366 horsepower and 406 pound-feet.
The one with the most complicated name is essentially the same as the NX 450+ with a 2.5-liter naturally aspirated I-4 and electric motor driving the front wheels via a CVT. Another rear motor powers the rear wheels and the total system output is rated at 304 hp. This gives it a 0-60 time of 5.8 seconds, which is almost identical to the RX500H F-Sport. Of course, it gets 36 highway mpg versus the F-Sports’ 28 mpg
Electric-Only Range
The 2024 Lexus RX 450h+ offers an estimated electric-only range of 37 miles which is similar to its in-house offerings the Toyota RAV4 Prime and the Lexus NX 450h+. This bests similar plug-in hybrid SUVs like the Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe (26 miles) but it’s bested by the BMW X5 xDrive50e (39 miles) and the Mercedes-Benz GLE450e 4Matic (48 miles).
Charging
The battery can accept Level 1 charging from a standard outlet or Level 2 charging from a 240-volt charger. A 6.6-kW on-board charger is standard, which Lexus says allows the RX 450h+ to charge to full in around two and a half hours.
2024 Lexus RX 450h+ Numbers
BASE PRICE: $68,730
PRICE AS TESTED: $75,930
VEHICLE LAYOUT: Front-engine, AWD, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback
ENGINE: DOHC 16-valve Atkinson-cycle 2.5-liter inline-4
ELECTRIC MOTOR: 2 Permanent-magnet
COMBINED POWER: 304 hp
TRANSMISSION: Electronically Controlled Continuously Variable
0-60 MPH: 5.8 sec
CURB WEIGHT: 4,750 lb
CARGO CAPACITY: 22.7 ft³, 46.9 ft³ with seat area
FUEL ECONOMY: 35 mpg hybrid combined and 83 mpge electric
EV RANGE: 37 MILES
OUR OBSERVED: 36.1 mpg
PROS: Super smooth, beautiful interior, very economical
CONS: No labels on the steering controls
