The Lexus RZ Megathread (550e, 500e 350e)

[internalaudit]

You have no idea how easy it is to get a good riding and handling Chinese EV for a low price. Adaptive and semi-active suspensions are standard equipment on many cars sold between ¥200k and ¥400k. And you can get fully active suspensions that ride no worse than Mercedes AirMatic on cars 1/5 the price of a Maybach. Noise reduction wheels and tires, dual pane windows, zero gravity seats are also standard equipment on even non-luxury cars. And "poor handling" Chinese EVs are setting one lap record after another and even Porsche now has to take them seriously.

And let's not forget how quickly GWM is stealing market share from Toyota trucks in Australia. And GWM mostly makes ICEVs.

If you want to dismiss Chinese cars at least use the right argument. These cars are over equipped and will have parts fail right after warranty expires and becomes a money sink after 100000km. But you can say the same for many German cars.

Can you name a few of these vehicles that won kudos or accolades and cite your sources?

The only thing you mentioned that seems performance-related is is air suspension, everything else is just more luxury.

 

[ssun30]

I usually don’t like to advocate Chinese stuff, but I think a lot of people are still living in their own bubble, and this video essentially proves that. If these kinds of vehicles were to enter the U.S. market, it would likely trigger a major industry shake-up, and I don’t think traditional automakers would fare too well in the face of such disruption.

Chinese brands need to raise prices of their international models a lot to make up for the domestic price war. But even then they will have a big price advantage.

We've already seen this before with 90s Japanese cars. Consumers can only benefit from competition. If Chinese cars are not effectively banned in US it won't take Lexus USA 3 years to make dual pane windows standard on the RX. The "premium" package from vast majority of legacy brands these days is just to fleece customers.

 

[Kelvin2020]

 

[spwolf]

Ok, back to TMC.

These are the updates that bring RZ and BZ4X to be competitive in 2021-2023.

- It seems that charging is now faster, at 30m 10%-80% vs 45m before.
- RZ gets 77kwh gross capacity battery, which is better but not really luxury vehicle standard.
- All new motors add power and efficiency, they are supposed to be 20% more efficient overall than before, when TMC falsely claimed to be most efficient on the market.
- Infotainment upgrade - 14" screen and drive display now separate from wheel and moved up top.
- 11-22kw charging for AC!
- Destination planning plus manual/auto preheating of battery added


These are good updates and if all are true, you can now buy these vehicles without making a big mistake.

Now, the cool car is just announced CHR+. It gets all those technologies and 77kwh battery, at price point 10k (hopefully) cheaper than BZ4X. If thats the case, thats then competitive because at $40k you dont expect larger batteries or 800v charging.

It also looks good!

 

[ssun30]

Ok, back to TMC.

These are the updates that bring RZ and BZ4X to be competitive in 2021-2023.

- It seems that charging is now faster, at 30m 10%-80% vs 45m before.
- RZ gets 77kwh gross capacity battery, which is better but not really luxury vehicle standard.
- All new motors add power and efficiency, they are supposed to be 20% more efficient overall than before, when TMC falsely claimed to be most efficient on the market.
- Infotainment upgrade - 14" screen and drive display now separate from wheel and moved up top.
- 11-22kw charging for AC!
- Destination planning plus manual/auto preheating of battery added


These are good updates and if all are true, you can now buy these vehicles without making a big mistake.

Now, the cool car is just announced CHR+. It gets all those technologies and 77kwh battery, at price point 10k (hopefully) cheaper than BZ4X. If thats the case, thats then competitive because at $40k you dont expect larger batteries or 800v charging.

It also looks good!

I agree, the C-HR+ is a much, much more compelling product (strange it also gets a bigger battery than the bZ4X). Now what's really strange is Lexus is not releasing a new UX EV based on the now bigger and more spacious C-HR+. The UX EV might be their most important product in Europe but it's not getting an update.

They added a lot of features that make them up to date with products from around 2022. But then again the industry is at a bottleneck after all the low-hanging fruits are picked and we likely won't see a lot of major innovations for the next 3 years. In terms of packaging they still look like how someone would build an EV in 2017.