One of life’s little SUV luxuries
Premium Japanese brand launches a baby SUV with a big-car price, writes David Linklater.
instrument panel finish, 13-speaker Mark Levinson surround sound and sunroof.
Lexus New Zealand did launch the UX at a dedicated media event. But instead of hosting a drive on that particular day, it gave us long-lead access to 200 and 250h models in the weeks beforehand.
As far as first impressions go, it was a chance to experience the UX on familiar roads with a lot more freedom than we’d usually have on a pre-set drive route restricted to one day.
The standard petrol powertrain is impressive for the same reason it works so well in the Corolla: it has plenty of power and the CVT has a ‘‘geared’’ start function that avoids the flaring you often get with this transmission technology.
Lexus still can’t manage to make a hybrid with a plug (proper EVs are still several years away), but regardless – a petrol-andelectricity mix is what this luxury brand is all about, so we reckon that’s the way to go.
Five of the seven versions available are hybrid and Lexus reckons the 250h will account for 65 per cent of overall sales.
The hybrid powertrain uses the same all-new 2.0-litre petrol engine as the conventional UX, which means it’s unique to this model for now. The Corolla and CT200h use an older 1.8-litre powerplant for their hybrid systems.
The UX 250h is also craftily refined in that it’s so quiet at urban speeds on a light throttle, it genuinely feels like a pure-electric car: smooth and strangely silent. It can run on battery at very low speed of course, but unless you’re watching that ‘‘EV’’ light on the instrument panel it’s often hard to pick when the petrol engine has fired up.
AWD sounds appealing but we didn’t get to drive that one – and besides, it’s only available in the top-line Limited for $76k.
The rigid platform provides good handling capabilities, but we’re still not sure you need the sporty custom drive-mode and adaptive chassis stuff in a car like this, so we’d pass on the F Sport and stick with the $62,900 entrylevel 250h, which still looks suitably dramatic and benefits from the same quality that you get with the much more expensive models.
The UX has striking styling in any specification, a genuinely good chassis and beautiful touchy feely interior.
It’s full of safety specification and the hybrid technology remains a unique selling proposition in this segment.
Plus that light bar at the back looks really cool.
Because you don’t think a luxury car should have CVT. Because the shallow 327-litre boot seems ridiculously small. Or you reckon the UX is still expensive for a car that contains quite a bit of Corolla.