• Range and efficiency much improved
• Anything other than the 350e feels unnecessary
• Not much difference between 500e and 550e

Electric motors and batteries

Every Lexuz RZ model features a 77kWh battery regardless of specification with three power outputs available: 350e, 500e and 550e.

The entry-level front-wheel drive 350e is likely to be the best-seller, generating 224hp from a single electric motor and sprinting to 62mph in 7.5sec. The all-wheel drive 500e comes with two e-motors with all-wheel drive, with performance jumping to 381hp, the 0-62mph sprint dropping to 4.6 seconds.  

Topping the powertrain options is the all-wheel drive 550e model, only available in F Sport trim. It’s all-wheel drive, too, developing 402hp and hitting 62mph in 4.4 seconds.

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What’s it like to drive?

• Well balanced ride, even on large wheels
• Neutral and well behaved, not exciting
• Steer-by-wire system is fluid; IMD less so

Regular RZ models ride rather well, treading the balance between floaty softness and over-sharp harshness over rough tarmac rather well. F Sport ones do naturally ride harder, but there’s a welcome lack of brittleness to the ride setup. If anything, the tyres are noisier than we’d like, introducing some roar at motorway speeds that spoils the ambience a bit.

Standard steering versions are fine handling things, though not exactly exciting. There isn’t a great deal of weight to the steering setup, and it’s a bit numb to chuck into a corner. In fact, the regular RZ is all a bit anodyne to drive – perfectly fine but not really that distinctive.

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That is, of course, if you’re not driving the F Sport model with its interesting technological additions. What we will say about the steer-by-wire system is that it’s a little disconcerting at first, but you quickly get used to it – and it becomes remarkably fluid. In short, it’s impressive; very little effort is required to park or turn around sharp urban streets, but it really relaxes at higher pace.

The IMD system itself is also a bit odd, and doesn’t feel as encouraging to use as something like the Ioniq 5 N’s tech. There’s a wispy, high-pitched and not-all-that-combustion-like ‘rev’ sound that accompanies eight ‘gears’ that feel far too closely spaced together to encourage natural shifting. You do also get the sensation of a gearchange each time you shift up, and power will be limited at the ‘redline,’  but it feels like something you might use once or twice then never use again, disappointingly.