2026 Lexus RX450h+ plug-in hybrid review: Worth the big price tag?
Good day. I’m Paul. Lexus has just revealed a new version of the RX for the Australian market. This is a plug-in hybrid, and the last time I drove the RX was in the topsp spec uh 500 trim, and I was actually really impressed with it. It was luxury inside, drove really nicely, and wasn’t outrageously overpriced compared to some of its peers. This, on the other hand, uh it’s sort of getting up there in terms of price when you look at what you’re getting over and above some of the other grades. So, this is sports luxury trim only for a plug-in hybrid. plugin hybrid. It’s called the RX450H+ and it’s priced at just over $123,000. Uh, and it comes with a battery in there to give you some sort of internal combustion free driving. So, today we’re going to do a detailed review of this. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes are on the screen or if you’re on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. Now, in terms of the design, uh, the plug-in hybrid looks basically the same as the rest of the RX range. The plug-in hybrid drivetrain is from the NX. And up until recently, you couldn’t actually buy a plug-in hybrid NX. They stopped all the orders because they couldn’t actually fulfill them. Uh there was just so much demand for that car. So, uh that’s now back on sale. And this is now on sale as well for Australia. RX has sort of a fairly, I guess, luxuryl looking design. And here in sports luxury, it sort of aims to blend sportiness with luxury looks. So, you’ve got this sort of half grill down the bottom here with the Lexus logo, camera down the front there as well. full LED headlights around the side here. Actually, one thing I’ll mention as well, uh, headlight washers. It’s interesting these, as part of the Australian design rules, some cars have to have these based on headlight brightness. And it’s interesting to see that some cars don’t actually have these at all. And some cars have even gone away from self-leveling as well. So, some of them have manual adjustment. So, it is more expensive to do self-leveling plus the headlight washers. So, keep that in mind when you’re looking at cars like this. If there’s no headlight washer, no self-leveling, it is all cost-saving stuff. Down the side here, in terms of the wheels, nice looking design. It’s got sort of like a reflective finish on it, which actually stands out quite nicely. 21in alloy wheel. Found with the last RX that we drove, it actually rode quite nicely, so I’ll be keen to see what this is like in comparison to that body colored wheel arches there as well. The uh 450 plus is an all-wheel drive by virtue of electric motors. So basically internal combustion plus electric motor at the front and then electric motor on the rear axle as well. Chrome highlights around the windows here. You’ve got a glass roof there. Privacy glass. Door handles are interesting as well. So electronic release, you’re just basically tapping a little button behind there to open and close the door. And that gives you the ability to have electronic release on the inside as well. So if you got like a cyclist or other cars coming and the kids try and hop out of the car, it can actually prevent the door from opening so you don’t door a cyclist or or another car. So, interesting stuff. Now, around the back here, full LED tail lights, Lexus across there. RX450 H+ all-wheel drive down the bottom as well. It’s a pretty conservative design at the rear. It doesn’t have the sort of sporty attitude that the that the top spec has, but still looks quite nice in my opinion, and I think they’ve just done a good job here giving this bit of presence out on the road without going over the top with all the hybrid stuff. It just looks like any other car. So, let me know what you reckon in the comments section below. Do you like the look of it? Do you think they’ve done a good job? But I’m keen for your feedback. Let me know down there. Okay, so we’re in the RX. This is what the key looks like. You’ve got lock, unlock, boot, panic, and then on the back, you got the Lexus logo. It’s a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in your pocket. Once you’re inside, you get a push button start just up the top here. So, uh, just like that other sort of RX that we drove, I really do feel like this feels very high-end and premium. Like, when you are paying this kind of money, you want an interior that is presented nicely. And I think that this fits that bill with a big infotainment screen. You got this nice soft touch material along the the doors there. Soft touches sort of everywhere else and this sort of faux wood grain material. So I think from that point of view, it looks really good. What are the touch points like? Well, nice and soft there and soft on the door as well. We’ve got our gurometer. We’ve tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you do want to see how this car compares to others that we’ve tested before, there is a link in the description below. Now, build quality. Look, this is all really good. Typically Lexus just build a good car I think um based on my experience. So let me know in the comments section below if you own one what’s it been like. Uh I mentioned before the door release it’s just this little button. So you just push that cracks open and then uh that’s what the door slam sounds like. And yes there is an emergency release there as well. So if you do get stuck with uh no power you can just pull on that twice and it will crack the door open for you. Now let’s talk about infotainment. Uh, I’m a fan of the Lexus infotainment system. Uh, it’s got a big sort of 14-in display here in the center, but I like the fact that they use part of that display here for your temperature control. So, you can see there as I sort of move up and down, it’s actually using the edges of the display for that, which I think is innovative and just something a little bit different, which is cool to see. So, inbuilt satellite navigation, but you also have smartphone mirroring, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto. Uh, Apple CarPlay is wireless. Uh, I’ve got it plugged in at the moment on the cable, but it operates wirelessly as well. Full screen integration. Um, Android Auto, on the other hand, is wired. I’ll show you what that looks like. Yeah. So, full screen there as well. Very nice. Um, now in terms of audio, you’ve got AM, FM, DAB, digital radio, and a 21 speaker Mark Levenson sound system. So, it’s a big old banger. Uh, good sound system as well. They typically are in Lexus products, which is nice to see. So, ahead of the driver, you’ve got another digital display there. There is also driver monitoring system. So, we’ll see how annoying annoying that is later on. Um, you’ve also got these sort of uh capacitive touch buttons, and they’re interesting because you sort of rub your finger over them, and it gives you an idea of what the button is on the display ahead of you, and then you can flick between different functions for these buttons as well. So, they have multiple purposes. Typically they work well, but we noticed when we drove the Lexus LBX recently, the Maritzo RR that you kind of keep bumping them. So curious to see when we go for a drive whether that’s the case here or not. But something worth noting. You’ve got front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera. I’ll show you what that looks like. There it is. So quality of that is pretty decent. Uh worth noting as well that the plug-in hybrid also gets this semi-autonomous parking function as well. And this is what the horn sounds like. Now, practicality. Uh, where are you going to charge your phone and stuff like that? So, you got wireless phone charger down here. You’ve got two or three USBC outlets, one USBA outlets, so all bases covered. Uh, you’ve got variety of cup holders uh to sort of get about over here, plus decent storage in the center as well. So, open sideways from both sides, but nice deep center console. And then, uh, glove box is fairly reasonable, but have a look at the size of that manual. Bloody huge. So, takes up most of your room in there. Uh, no. Oh, actually we do have a sunnies holder. Look at that. I was expecting there to be not one up there, but up there you’re going to find as well the SOS button. These cars all have connected services. So, it means that you can communicate with the car remotely. And then on the comfort front, you have dual zone automatic climate control up the front here with heated and cooled seats, heated steering wheel. Very handy today cuz it is bloody cold out there. The seats are pretty cool as well. So, you’ve got that sort of Alcantara material there with perforations in the center for the cooling. You also have electric seat adjustment for rear passengers to move it forward if required. You have electric seat adjustment for the driver. So you can go backwards, forwards. Your back rest can go forwards and backwards. Lift the front of the seat, back of the seat. You also have seat memory and lumbar adjustment. Passenger is electrically adjustable with memory as well. Steering offers both uh tilts and reach adjustment and that is fully electric. Then on our reach test, all this stuff is fairly easy to reach while you’re driving. Now, second row, what’s it like back here? Uh, knee room is great. Uh, tow room is okay, but not amazing. So, the battery pack sits beneath the floor here. Um, head room is okay, but also not amazing. There is sort of sufficient space here to operate this as a family vehicle. You’ve got sort of enough room to sort of stretch out here, especially for kids. Um, you’ve got privacy blinds there as well if you do have a baby seat on the go. And that sort of premium feel continues back here, too. You got that sort of soft touch material sort of around the place. U mat pockets just here. You’ve got heated and cooled seats for the outboard seats. Two USBC chargers and air vents. A center armrest there with pair of cup holders. Center section, too. Now, does the window go down all the way? Let’s do our window test. So, it’s auto up and down. Fantastic. And it does that Lexus thing as well. Watch it as it slows down as it tucks into the top there. Now, let’s talk cargo space. All righty. So, you’ve got over 600 L of cargo to play with here. Beneath the cargo floor, you’ve got storage for your cable. There’s a 12volt battery under here. And then storage for a couple of other sort of odds and ends there. But it’s actually fairly reasonable. You’re not getting robbed of too much space here given that you’ve got an electric motor and and a whole battery system beneath the skin there. Show you what it looks like with our bag inside. Just give you an idea. Isn’t too bad. Um, so what you can do as well if you do need to expand the space, you have electronic release here for both sides of your seats. They sort of roll down out of the way. Once they drop, it’s a very slow process. Have almost 2,000 L to work with. Okay, now before we go for a drive, let’s talk about battery and charging. So battery capacity, not enormous. So under 20 kW hours in terms of size and only AC charging. So, uh, singlephase up to 7 kW. So, you know, it’s it’s okay, but not amazing in terms of the technology there. You get under 70k’s worth of, uh, driving range on the WLTP cycle as well. Okay, so we’ve just hit the road in the RX 450 H+. Bit of a mouthful. Um, now the drivetrain in this is is pretty fascinating. So, Toyota uh for a little while has sold plug-in hybrids, just not in Australia. And it’s a great shame because we actually drove the RAV 4 plug-in hybrid in the States a little while ago. You can actually watch that review by uh scrolling down to the description below. This drivetrain is uh basically a replica of what they have in the NX uh which I mentioned earlier has only just reopened for orders. And it’s a bigger vehicle, weighs a little bit more uh surprisingly around the same weight as the topsp spec 500H that we recently drove. So, I’ll be curious to see how that affects the way that it performs given that that a lot of the added mass is the battery pack which sits underneath that floor pan. Um, that is going to lower the center of gravity. So, in in theory, it should actually be be quite pleasant to drive. So, uh it’s basically a naturally aspirated 2 1/2 L 4 cylinder petrol engine and that produces on its own 136 kW of power and uh just over 220 new m of torque. But that is made to two electric motors, one on the front axle, one on the rear axle. So 134 kW on the front, 40 kW on the rear to give you a combined output of almost 300 kW. So it’s a pretty sort of meaty amount. And that’s all mated to what Toyota calls an ECVT. It is not a CVT in the conventional sense. A CVT with pulleys and all that sort of stuff is is not what this is. Uh this is a CVT by virtue of pairing electric motors. And it’s a quite a fascinating setup the way that they run it and a little bit difficult to explain, but there are some YouTube videos uh if you want to Google that. that um you can easily waste more than an hour watching with explanations. But importantly, how does it all feel behind the wheel? So, in this mode here, which is auto, EV, HV mode, basically, it decides whether you’re running on full electric mode or whether you’re running in um the internal combustion mode. And what you can see down there is we’re currently in EV mode. I pro the throttle, still in EV mode. I go harder on the throttle. It now kicks in the internal combustion engine to help things along. But you can actually lock it into EV mode entirely. So right now it’s just in EV mode even with quite generous throttle application there all the way down to full throttle. It actually just leaves it in EV mode. Doesn’t switch the internal combustion engine on which is a very different philosophy to a lot of manufacturers. A lot of manufacturers will insist on running the internal combustion engine at full throttle. Uh whereas this is quite a strong setup that just moves it along without any dramas at all. You do also have the option to charge the battery and hold charge as well using this button just here. So both uh very handy features if you do want to retain some of the charge for a later drive where you want to be sort of emissions free in terms of your driving. Now let’s talk about fuel economy. This is very weird. It took me ages to figure this out. So you can only see the energy consumption average. You can’t actually see fuel economy until you put it into charge mode or lock it into HV mode. So you can see there that the average is 4.2. 2 L per 100 ks which pretty decent when you consider well the official I mean just ignore that it’s like 1.9 or something but uh to think that this will use about as much as a hybrid version of this car if not less when you are sort of charging and then run out of electricity I think is a pretty good indication of what it’s like. Now let’s talk about ride. So it is quite soft and that is what Lexus kind of does with its ride especially here in the RX. They’ve just designed it to really waft over things and just be very gradual in the way it does things. So, let’s see what it’s like. And I keep bumping this bloody steering wheel thing here. And it keeps popping up on my head-up display each time I sort of nudge it. Uh, so we do this at 130 ks an hour just to see what body controls like over our sine waves. So, look at that. That is remarkably good. And part of that is thanks to the fact that this has adjustable damping. So, we’re in the normal mode at the moment, but you can flip between sport, eco, and custom to adjust the way that this feels as it’s sort of driving along, which is pretty handy feature to have. Okay, bumpy road time. Let’s see what it’s like here. Do this at 90 ks an hour. So, this is an example of a dodgy stretch of road here in comfort. Oh, sorry, normal mode. It’s actually really quite comfortable. So, we’ve got a set of condensed sine waves coming up here. There they are. They’re falling into all those divots nicely. So, feels great from behind the wheel. This is um a car that you would have no issues taking out to the country. Okay. Now, just like we do with every car, we uh test them back to back on our ride and handling track. Uh pushed a little bit harder to see how they perform. So, I’m going to pop this into sport mode just there. So, instantly I can feel that becoming a little firmer. Okay. So, let’s see what it’s like. Brag pedal feel is actually surprisingly good. It’s got a fair bit of body roll there, but um punch out of the corner is pretty good. It just it uh just delivers torque nicely and quite strongly as well. Like it’s picking up speed beautifully. see what it’s like along this faster back section here. Yeah, you do feel that it has that sort of lumbering mass thanks to the to the added weight of the plug-in hybrid components, but to be honest, it it really doesn’t feel like it’s too heavy around that 2.2 ton mark. It’s not an enormous amount. Significantly less than what you’d get in a full electric vehicle of this size. Steering feel is pretty good as well. So, all right, here comes our back straight. Surprisingly engaging. Wasn’t expecting this to be interesting to drive. So, even on the back straight here, it’s piling on speed really nicely. There you go. Quite impressive. Very nice. Now, in terms of road noise, obviously being a plug-in hybrid, it is quite silent when you’re sort of wafting along. Even then, when the engine’s on, it’s not not too noisy inside the cabin. uh even on the highway, coarse chip, country roads, it’s not that bad. So, we put it up against our calibrated sound meter, and this is how it went. If you do want to compare this car to other cars that we’ve tested before, there’s a link in the description below. We’ll call out something that is a little confusing. So, this is your battery meter down the bottom. It’s showing that we have 26ks of range left. Problem is that there’s another battery then above that that shows that it’s full, even though the battery is sort of half full at the moment. So, it doesn’t really sort of make any sense to me. and I can’t make heads or tails of it cuz that that other battery there hasn’t gone down at all since we’ve been driving. So, um, yeah, bit of a weird one. Now, let’s talk visibility. So, yeah, it’s great. I can see clearly down the front there. I’ve got a head-up display, nice big wing mirrors, and the digital rear view mirror as well. So, it’s fully uh functioning there and very easy to operate and park. Now, in terms of lane support systems, we already tested this with the last RX that we drove. So, I’m just going to overlay that section here. Time to test our autonomous driving system. So, this is the latest Lexus, so I assume it’s all going to be pretty good. Okay, so we’ll get this up to 70 ks an hour. There it is, right there. And then I’ll set our lane support system on as well. And you can see once that is active, we get a little steering wheel symbol showing up there. So, we’re going to test this in the three outer lanes to see how well it holds the lane. I’m also going to only just have my hand on the steering wheel. If you were doing this on the road, you’d have to keep your hands on there. It will give you warnings if you do take your hands off, but for the purposes of this, we’ll see how it goes. Then we’ll move over to our two banked sections, and that’s going to see how much uh torque the car is willing to apply to the steering wheel to keep it within its lane. So, lane one, great pass there. We’re pretty much dead center there to the lane. Jump over to the next lane. Wait for that. There it is. That’s activated. That is awesome. that is keeping us dead center here in this lane, even with an increased amount of torque it has to put on the steering wheel to hold it there. So, that is fantastic. We’ll jump up to our last lane here. Let’s see how this goes. There it is. That’s got it. So, I’m now just going to let go of the wheel. Oh, that is unreal. That is doing a great job there. So, it’s just straddling the line, but it is gradually pushing us back in up the top there and telling us driver in attention as well cuz I was looking away there for a few moments. That is unreal. So, that is a pass in lane 1, two, and three. Not many cars can actually do that. So, the fact that Lexus has been able to nail that is pretty impressive and it shows you that the driver support systems here are topnotch. Okay, it’s time to do some performance testing. So the uh claim 0 to 100 time is 6 1/2 seconds. So let’s see what we can manage here. We’ll go all the way through to 120. So we can get our 80 to 120 time as well. Just going to turn traction control off. And I’ll also pop this into sport mode as well. Okie dokie. Here we go. Oh, it’s nice and strong off the line there. Nice. Uh, all right. 80, 90, 100, and 120. Okie dokie. Let’s see how that went. Actually felt really nice and strong. That’s the thing I liked about the RAV 4 plug-in hybrid. It absolutely moves in such a light body as well. Uh, so 0 to 100, 6.64, so pretty much bang on. Uh, 4.27 seconds for 80 to 120, which is really the important part. That is for your overtaking when you’re really up and moving already. And that is a fairly decent time for something like this. just shows you that it doesn’t run out of puff as you’re trying to sort of move while already accelerating. Okay, let’s do a stop from 100. See what the brake and tire package is like. There’s an event on here tomorrow, so there’s all these random cones out, so it’ll give us a place to start stopping. Felt a bit messy there on the initial application, but we’ll see how that went. Okay, so 100 to zero, 2.84 seconds, 38.82 m. So, good stopping distance. Just felt a bit sort of squirrely as it was coming to a stop. If you do want to see how this car compares to others that we’ve tested before, there is a link in the description below. But let’s see how fast it’ll go in reverse. Here we go. All right. Wow. All right. 57 km an hour. Okay. So, Lexus RX 450 H+. Massive mouthful, but also a massively good car. It just builds on what is a good vehicle to begin with. Adds in a plug-in hybrid drivetrain. Got enough punch. I don’t know. It is just a good allrounder. It is a little pricey because it is above the luxury car tax threshold. But if you are looking at a vehicle in this segment, in that sort of luxury larger SUV segment, it is what you’re going to be paying, but um yeah, I’m I’m a big fan of it. So, let me know what you reckon in the comments section below. Have you driven the new Lexus RX? What do you think about it? Have you bought one? What has it been like? I’m keen for your feedback. If you did enjoy the video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates. And if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the channel and press the bell icon.
Paul gets behind the wheel of the new Lexus RX450h+ plug-in hybrid to see if it’s worth spending your coin on. This debuts a new plug-in hybrid variant for the Australian market and gives buyers more choice in the larger luxury SUV segment for plug-in hybrid tech.
2024 Toyota RAV4 Prime review (inc. 0-100): We need this SUV in Australia
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:48
Interior: 03:13
Practicality: 06:21
Charging: 09:24
On the Road: 09:47
Self driving tech: 16:47
Accel. & braking: 18:26
Verdict: 20:20
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