Pros: high-quality cabin, plenty of technology, sleek appearance, decent range
Cons: EV is underpowered, below-par charging speeds, tyre and wind noise, inert chassis
Lexus ES Design
With its sleek, swoopy looks and flowing roofline, the new Lexus ES looks less like a saloon in profile than its immediate predecessor. But it remains a ‘true’ four-door, with a separate boot area to the main passenger cabin. There are two powertrain choices in the new car, either a hybrid called the ES 300h or, the big news, a fully electric car badged the ES 350e – but whichever one you choose, they look almost identical on the outside. They both also run on a solitary design of aerodynamically optimised alloy wheel, measuring 19 inches in diameter.
Lexus ES Interior
Undeniably the star showing of the Lexus ES is its sumptuous cabin. The build quality throughout is superb, there’s a new design of smaller, rounder steering wheel, you can even option up bamboo door cards with a backlit effect at night for a really classy ambience, and of course there’s the usual Lexus high-tech quotient as well – such as twin digital screens (a 14-inch infotainment panel and a 12.3-inch instrument cluster), ‘hidden’ control pads which only illuminate on the dash once the car is powered on, and a potent 17-speaker Mark Levinson sound system being available on the hybrid, among many more items.
It’s spacious, too, with plenty of legroom in the back, but taller people might find the sloping roofline does impinge somewhat on outright head space. At the rear of the car is a 512-litre boot, but the rear seats do not fold down at all – the only concession to versatility here is a through-loading ski hatch in the bench – while there is no ‘frunk’ in the electric variant of the Lexus.
Lexus ES Performance & Drive
The 350e is powered by a single electric motor which is front-mounted and then fed by a 72kWh battery. This propulsion unit is borrowed from the much more affordable Toyota bZ4X electric SUV, so its meagre 224hp/269Nm outputs do not make for great reading in a class which includes the powerful likes of the BMW i5, Audi A6 e-tron, Polestar 4 and Volvo ES90.
Speed is certainly not the be-all and end-all to an EV, of course, but in this premium saloon sector effortless performance is surely something customers are going to want, even if they don’t use it very often. Sadly, the slow and underpowered Lexus doesn’t feel very upmarket at all on the move. It could do with being a much stronger dual-motor car to truly convince, and luckily there is a 500e variant available in wider European markets. We’d like that to come here sooner, rather than later.
The ES might have gotten away with its sluggish straight-line performance if it was unparalleled for refinement and comfort, but sadly it isn’t even that. For most of the time, if the road conditions are favourable, yes – the Lexus is very smooth, quiet and accommodating. But on bumpier roads, its body control gets out of hand and so the whole car becomes bouncy, while too often its (relatively small) wheels thump through only modest imperfections in the road’s surface with an overt bang. There was also excessive wind noise from the closed panoramic sunroof at more than 80km/h, while tyre roar at motorway speeds on abraded tarmac was too noticeable – this is a Lexus, after all, it should always be whisper-quiet. Especially as an EV.
The ES 350e also doesn’t handle that sharply, although that has never been Lexus’ corporate remit, and because it only uses 400-volt architecture then its charging speeds are behind pretty much every one of its competitors. At 150kW peak on DC outlets, it’ll take 28 minutes to perform a 10-80 per cent charge on the Lexus’ battery and remember it’s not even very big on capacity at 72kWh in the first place. Expect an official range of up to 581km from the ES 350e; again, not a number which comes near to some of the leading lights in this sector.
Lexus ES Pricing
Available in just one specification of Dynamic, the Lexus ES 350e comes in at €71,525. That does make it marginally cheaper than some key rivals, but not by enough to offset the significant power and dynamic advantages those other cars have when compared with the Japanese machine. Yes, there’s plenty of standard kit on the ES 350e, as you’d expect, yet there are some items that we’d like to have here in Ireland which are available elsewhere (the ‘ottoman’ reclining and massaging rear seats in the Takumi-grade cars, for instance) that are denied to us.
For reference, the ES 300h hybrid will be sold in regular Dynamic specification (€69,330) or with a Tech Pack bundle that takes it price up to €74,440. It is this latter car which is the only ES sold with the sensational Mark Levinson sound system.
Carzone Verdict
In many regards, the new Lexus ES is a very pleasant machine and, if you’re a big fan of this Japanese brand already, you may very well love the alternative way the 350e electric goes about its business. But, for our liking, the EV is too undernourished in the performance department for this exalted class of car, its charging speeds are behind the curve, and there are a few too many demonstrable occasions when its ride and refinement are not up to Lexus’ own usual high standards either.