What Are They Thinking?

[hmp10]

A friend called me yesterday on the way home from a Lexus dealership where he had gone to get his Lexus washed. In the showroom he saw a used Lexus RZ450e with 891 miles on it. The MSRP was around $64,000, but the dealer was asking $46,000 for it "as is". He wanted to know what I thought of it as a possible purchase. (He's a subject of amusement among all our friends for the intensity of his attraction to a good deal.)

I didn't even know that Lexus made a BEV, but before I went to my computer to check it out, I told him to stay away from any almost-new Lexus that a Lexus dealer was selling with no warranty. Not only is that fishy, it is also particular folly to buy any EV without a battery pack and drive unit warranty during the period in which the factory warranty should be in effect (usually eight years).

Then I got to my computer where I was soon wondering why Lexus even bothered -- or dared -- to put this car on the market. With the larger wheels, it has an EPA-rated range of 196 miles. A "Car & Driver" review that put it through their standard real-world range test found it actually delivered 120 miles of range in real-world driving. I literally stared at the passage in the review trying to figure out what I was misunderstanding. Could Lexus have actually put a car on the market in 2023-24 that was a throwback to the early days of some Nissan Leafs?

Then I moved on to the photo section of the review and saw this photo of the front end compartment:

You might as well have an internal combustion engine in there. Not only is this poor packaging reducing cargo space in the car (which "Car & Driver" dinged for having poor rear storage due to a sharply sloping roof), you've got a lot of weight bringing the center of gravity higher than it should be in an EV, thus diminishing one of an EV's potential handling advantages.

When I look at what Lucid managed to do with range efficiency and space packing on their first effort and what Lexus had done with its first BEV effort, I am even more impressed with Lucid. It almost seems as if Lexus, with this car, is trying to help Toyota drive home the point that EV's deserve to be a technology dead end.

 

[xponents]

A friend called me yesterday on the way home from a Lexus dealership where he had gone to get his Lexus washed. In the showroom he saw a used Lexus RZ450e with 891 miles on it. The MSRP was around $64,000, but the dealer was asking $46,000 for it "as is". He wanted to know what I thought of it as a possible purchase. (He's a subject of amusement among all our friends for the intensity of his attraction to a good deal.)

I didn't even know that Lexus made a BEV, but before I went to my computer to check it out, I told him to stay away from any almost-new Lexus that a Lexus dealer was selling with no warranty. Not only is that fishy, it is also particular folly to buy any EV without a battery pack and drive unit warranty during the period in which the factory warranty should be in effect (usually eight years).

Then I got to my computer where I was soon wondering why Lexus even bothered -- or dared -- to put this car on the market. With the larger wheels, it has an EPA-rated range of 196 miles. A "Car & Driver" review that put it through their standard real-world range test found it actually delivered 120 miles of range in real-world driving. I literally stared at the passage in the review trying to figure out what I was misunderstanding. Could Lexus have actually put a car on the market in 2023-24 that was a throwback to the early days of some Nissan Leafs?

Then I moved on to the photo section of the review and saw this photo of the front end compartment:



View attachment 19391

You might as well have an internal combustion engine in there. Not only is this poor packaging reducing cargo space in the car (which "Car & Driver" dinged for having poor rear storage due to a sharply sloping roof), you've got a lot of weight bringing the center up gravity higher than it should be in an EV, thus diminishing one of an EV's potential handling advantages.

When I look at what Lucid managed to do with range efficiency and space packing on their first effort and what Lexus had done with its first BEV effort, I am even more impressed with Lucid. It almost seems as if Lexus, with this car, is trying to help Toyota drive home the point that EV's deserve to be a technology dead end.

I first saw this piece of crap when we were looking at some RX's. The interior is lackluster, the range is so bad the dealer TOLD US NOT TO GET IT (huge wtf there for me...), there is no power, the rear toeroom is terrible, it has a fwd option instead of rwd (for some reason), and it looks horrible WHILE compromising practicality with its looks. If we did get it, they said we would get a 35k discount with an additional 10k off if we got a fully loaded one (that means OTD 30-35k...), but even at that price, it wasn't selling, which is one of the most depressing dealer statistics i have ever heard. Its a compliance car... nothing else.

 

[Steveinarizona]

A friend called me yesterday on the way home from a Lexus dealership where he had gone to get his Lexus washed. In the showroom he saw a used Lexus RZ450e with 891 miles on it. The MSRP was around $64,000, but the dealer was asking $46,000 for it "as is". He wanted to know what I thought of it as a possible purchase. (He's a subject of amusement among all our friends for the intensity of his attraction to a good deal.)

I didn't think they could sell it sans warranty without a salvage title. Could it have had a salvage title? Certainly something the dealership should have told you.

 

[hmp10]

I didn't think they could sell it sans warranty without a salvage title. Could it have had a salvage title? Certainly something the dealership should have told you.

I don't know about a salvage title. He's not going to consider it in any case after finding out about the range.

I've owned two Lexus' (RX300 and RX330) and have liked the brand and the dealerships. But this situation makes me wonder whether something has changed both with the manufacturer and its dealers.

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

Lexus lost my business when they did this to the grill.

I see that even in their EV, which needs no grill, they kept the idiotic styling.

 

[no gas]

A friend called me yesterday on the way home from a Lexus dealership where he had gone to get his Lexus washed. In the showroom he saw a used Lexus RZ450e with 891 miles on it. The MSRP was around $64,000, but the dealer was asking $46,000 for it "as is". He wanted to know what I thought of it as a possible purchase. (He's a subject of amusement among all our friends for the intensity of his attraction to a good deal.)

I didn't even know that Lexus made a BEV, but before I went to my computer to check it out, I told him to stay away from any almost-new Lexus that a Lexus dealer was selling with no warranty. Not only is that fishy, it is also particular folly to buy any EV without a battery pack and drive unit warranty during the period in which the factory warranty should be in effect (usually eight years).

Then I got to my computer where I was soon wondering why Lexus even bothered -- or dared -- to put this car on the market. With the larger wheels, it has an EPA-rated range of 196 miles. A "Car & Driver" review that put it through their standard real-world range test found it actually delivered 120 miles of range in real-world driving. I literally stared at the passage in the review trying to figure out what I was misunderstanding. Could Lexus have actually put a car on the market in 2023-24 that was a throwback to the early days of some Nissan Leafs?

Then I moved on to the photo section of the review and saw this photo of the front end compartment:



View attachment 19391

You might as well have an internal combustion engine in there. Not only is this poor packaging reducing cargo space in the car (which "Car & Driver" dinged for having poor rear storage due to a sharply sloping roof), you've got a lot of weight bringing the center of gravity higher than it should be in an EV, thus diminishing one of an EV's potential handling advantages.

When I look at what Lucid managed to do with range efficiency and space packing on their first effort and what Lexus had done with its first BEV effort, I am even more impressed with Lucid. It almost seems as if Lexus, with this car, is trying to help Toyota drive home the point that EV's deserve to be a technology dead end.

Toyota is clueless about EVs, hence their rhetoric about hybrids. But their day of reckoning coming. They even boasted out SSD batteries coming soon for the last 5 years….take that with a pinch of salt

 

[hmp10]

Still with the "what are they thinking" theme . . .

This $340K Cadillac Celestiq reviewed by "Top Gear" has no partition between the trunk and the rear seats:

 

[Amster]

Still with the "what are they thinking" theme . . .

This $340K Cadillac Celestiq reviewed by "Top Gear" has no partition between the trunk and the rear seats:

View attachment 19441

I haven't read the review, but that makes no sense. No one would design a car that way. Maybe the rear seats are just folded down for the picture .

 

[xponents]

I haven't read the review, but that makes no sense. No one would design a car that way. Maybe the rear seats are just folded down for the picture .

I mean, a lot of SUVs with captains chairs have this same flaw... but I find it hilariously stupid that a "competitor to rolls-royces" has something like this. The people buying these cars don't want their bags flying into their laptops and champagne flutes..

 

[hmp10]

I haven't read the review, but that makes no sense. No one would design a car that way. Maybe the rear seats are just folded down for the picture .

It was a video:

The rear seats do not fold down. It's a two-row car, basically a limousine layout.

 

[Sandvinsd]

Then I got to my computer where I was soon wondering why Lexus even bothered -- or dared -- to put this car on the market. With the larger wheels, it has an EPA-rated range of 196 miles. A "Car & Driver" review that put it through their standard real-world range test found it actually delivered 120 miles of range in real-world driving. I literally stared at the passage in the review trying to figure out what I was misunderstanding. Could Lexus have actually put a car on the market in 2023-24 that was a throwback to the early days of some Nissan Leafs?

Then I moved on to the photo section of the review and saw this photo of the front end compartment:

View attachment 19391

You might as well have an internal combustion engine in there. Not only is this poor packaging reducing cargo space in the car (which "Car & Driver" dinged for having poor rear storage due to a sharply sloping roof), you've got a lot of weight bringing the center of gravity higher than it should be in an EV, thus diminishing one of an EV's potential handling advantages.

When I look at what Lucid managed to do with range efficiency and space packing on their first effort and what Lexus had done with its first BEV effort, I am even more impressed with Lucid. It almost seems as if Lexus, with this car, is trying to help Toyota drive home the point that EV's deserve to be a technology dead end.

That “frunk” looks like the inside of my Leaf!

 

[Halodde]

Lexus lost my business when they did this to the grill
View attachment 19394

Does it have a Cloaking feature so you don't have to look at it???

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Lexus lost my business when they did this to the grill.
View attachment 19396 I see that even in their EV, which needs no grill, they kept the idiotic styling.
View attachment 19395
View attachment 19394

I went to early focus groups for Lexus when they changed to the Predator Grill. No one liked it (including myself). They kept it anyone and continued growing it to absurd proportions. At least I got $600 for my opinion!! LOL

 

[kpbhat]

I first saw this piece of crap when we were looking at some RX's. The interior is lackluster, the range is so bad the dealer TOLD US NOT TO GET IT (huge wtf there for me...), there is no power, the rear toeroom is terrible, it has a fwd option instead of rwd (for some reason), and it looks horrible WHILE compromising practicality with its looks. If we did get it, they said we would get a 35k discount with an additional 10k off if we got a fully loaded one (that means OTD 30-35k...), but even at that price, it wasn't selling, which is one of the most depressing dealer statistics i have ever heard. Its a compliance car... nothing else.

i stopped considering lexus 10 years ago. Its just Toyota with little more insulation. Same engines and same efficiency. They dont believe in EV (and Honda too) and they have probably done this to say "been there, done that"..

 

[kpbhat]

It was a video:

The rear seats do not fold down. It's a two-row car, basically a limousine layout.

$340k+, 111KW pack with 300 mile range = 2.7m/kw efficiency.... this is like 00's ICE car which used to give around 18-20miles per gallon but rolled out now. i personally didnt like the rear design of this car.. i think lucid is class apart from everything that they have done.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Their sole customer base for this type of car all ended up in jail for RICO offenses some time ago. I guess they made this car because they could.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

This thing is the 6000 SUX from RoboCop brought to life!

 

[Steveinarizona]

I went to early focus groups for Lexus when they changed to the Predator Grill. No one liked it (including myself). They kept it anyone and continued growing it to absurd proportions. At least I got $600 for my opinion!! LOL

Very interesting. Unless your focus group was somehow an outlier, they just ignored the focus group results. Of course, they probably slice and dice the results by age, nationality, race (illegal but they probably still do it). locality, etc. so maybe your focus group was composed of a cohort they decided to writeoff.

 

[Reddy kW]

A friend called me yesterday on the way home from a Lexus dealership where he had gone to get his Lexus washed. In the showroom he saw a used Lexus RZ450e with 891 miles on it. The MSRP was around $64,000, but the dealer was asking $46,000 for it "as is". He wanted to know what I thought of it as a possible purchase. (He's a subject of amusement among all our friends for the intensity of his attraction to a good deal.)

I didn't even know that Lexus made a BEV, but before I went to my computer to check it out, I told him to stay away from any almost-new Lexus that a Lexus dealer was selling with no warranty. Not only is that fishy, it is also particular folly to buy any EV without a battery pack and drive unit warranty during the period in which the factory warranty should be in effect (usually eight years).

Then I got to my computer where I was soon wondering why Lexus even bothered -- or dared -- to put this car on the market. With the larger wheels, it has an EPA-rated range of 196 miles. A "Car & Driver" review that put it through their standard real-world range test found it actually delivered 120 miles of range in real-world driving. I literally stared at the passage in the review trying to figure out what I was misunderstanding. Could Lexus have actually put a car on the market in 2023-24 that was a throwback to the early days of some Nissan Leafs?

Then I moved on to the photo section of the review and saw this photo of the front end compartment:



View attachment 19391

You might as well have an internal combustion engine in there. Not only is this poor packaging reducing cargo space in the car (which "Car & Driver" dinged for having poor rear storage due to a sharply sloping roof), you've got a lot of weight bringing the center of gravity higher than it should be in an EV, thus diminishing one of an EV's potential handling advantages.

When I look at what Lucid managed to do with range efficiency and space packing on their first effort and what Lexus had done with its first BEV effort, I am even more impressed with Lucid. It almost seems as if Lexus, with this car, is trying to help Toyota drive home the point that EV's deserve to be a technology dead end.

I like frunks! Your report of 120 mile range on the RZ450e is accurate, but be sure not to turn on the climate system, that puny 196 estimated range immediately drops about 30 miles. My Lexus dealer provided this less than desirable BEV as loaner in March. It was comfortable, handled like a couch, was adequately fast (0-60 5.1 sec) dorky looking and expensive. Not for me, but I was curious about EVs that advertise higher range and ended up driving home a '24 Pure in May.

 

[scal_air]

Yeah, retrofitting an ICE car for BEV has so many disadvantages and you see that in interior room, trunk space and handling. You really need to design the car from scratch to receive all the benefits that we get from our Air.