2019 Lexus UX provides plenty of luxe for your buck
The Cadillac Cimarron, a dressed-up Chevrolet Cavalier from the 1980s, has been the butt of jokes for decades. But today, no automaker is above slapping a luxury badge on a front-wheeldrive economy car and jacking up the price. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz all do it now with various entry-level models; even Aston Martin dabbled in the dark art with the Cygnet city car.
Lexus tried and failed once at this entry-luxury game. It turned out there wasn’t much demand for the mildly luxed-up Prius that was the CT200h hybrid hatchback or — worse — the ungainly HS250h. But everybody wants crossovers nowadays, so that’s what Lexus’s new starter model is. For its latest dalliance with lowcost luxury, Lexus wisely hews closer to modern buyers’ preferences, proffering the new UX crossover. The UX is essentially a Toyota underneath, using the same underpinnings as the C-HR and the same base powertrain as the Corolla hatchback, but it incorporates the key tenets — plastic cladding, all-wheel-drive availability, and the L badge — that those Toyotas lack.
SMALLER THAN THE OTHER SMALL LEXUS SUV
The UX slots in below the NX in the Lexus lineup; it’s about five inches shorter, five inches lower, and one inch narrower. That means it’s about the same size as the Audi Q3, the BMW X1, and the Mercedes-Benz GLA, but because the larger NX competes with those cars, too, Lexus insists that price is the differentiator between the two siblings. The UX starts at $33,025. That undercuts the NX by more than $4000 while offering more standard features than the German competitors, which come sparsely equipped in their base forms. Numerous active-safety systems and Apple CarPlay are standard on the UX but cost thousands extra on the BMW X1, for instance.
Even nicely equipped versions of the UX that Lexus sent us for testing cost reasonable amounts. A UX250h hybrid with a fair amount of equipment stickered at $38,240, while an essentially fully loaded UX200 with its sportoriented F Sport package (pictured) rang up at $41,285, nearly $10,000 less than the last Mercedes GLA250 we tested.
Even though it’s being pitched as a low-priced Lexus, the UX does a better job of imitating the luxury quotient of its bigger siblings than the German mini-utes do. A nice mix of materials inside includes expensive-feeling plastics, soft faux leather, and an interesting trim piece on the dash that is meant to evoke a type of Japanese paper. Unfortunately, the frustrating infotainment touchpad carries over from other Lexus models. Curiously, the volume and tuning knobs have been relocated from the center stack to the center console and are little wheels that are supposed to be easily flickable by the fin
gers of a hand resting at the end of the armrest. It seems logical, but the layout takes some getting used to, and we’re not sure it’s better than having knobs on the dashboard.
OUTSIZE OUTSIDE, NOT INSIDE
The UX’s small footprint is a limiting factor for cargo capacity, and packaging is not this vehicle’s strong suit. The hatch opening is small with an uncomfortably tall lift-over height, and there’s not much space to be had overall — just 17 cubic feet in the hybrid model and 22 in the standard version. Granted, most of the vehicles in this class don’t shine in this respect, although the BMW X1 boasts 27 cubic feet of cargo space, and the boxy Volvo XC40 offers 32 cubes.
Lexus has gone far outside the box with the UX’s styling and has applied a surfeit of flourishes for such a small package, perhaps to ensure that it won’t be mistaken for a Toyota. It surely won’t be, but it’s also far from pretty. On the other hand, interesting color choices, including a green and an orange for the exterior and a two-tone blue-and-white interior option, help give the UX more youthful energy than other Lexus models can offer. We think the brighter colors show off the crossover’s surfacing the best.
BEHIND THE FACADE
If the UX is a commuter car under its funky skin, it’s a good car to drive. We continue to be impressed with the dynamic qualities of Toyota models that ride on the brand’s TNGA family of platforms, and the UX’s chassis boasts progressive-feeling steering, nicely tuned damping, and a satisfying sense of quiet refinement. It is a shame that the best version we sampled, a UX200 with the F Sport package, won’t be available in the United States with the adaptive dampers that were featured on a European example we drove. In the States, the F Sport package brings a retuned suspension along with a few visual upgrades and more supportive seats.
The powertrains are less convincing. The front-wheel-driveonly UX200’s 169-hp 2.0-liter inline-four sounds coarse at higher revs, and while the continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) it pairs with works well enough, this combo has nothing on the German minicrossovers’ strong turbocharged fours. The UX250h’s hybrid drivetrain offers a total of 175 horses and modest all-wheel-drive capability, courtesy of a small electric motor lashed to the rear axle (which only works at speeds up to 45 mph). It’s quieter than the base engine but still doesn’t feel as if it belongs in a luxury car. F Sport models have silly fake engine noises pumped into the cabin; the deception is particularly egregious in the hybrid, where the fake noises have seemingly no bearing on engine speed or anything mechanical, as they even simulate throttle-blipping downshifts when the car is running in electric mode.
Neither UX has the quickness to back up these faux-sporty sounds. Both the UX200 and the UX250h went from zero to 60 mph in a sluggish 8.6 seconds, which is not only far behind its competitors but also slower than compact cars such as the Honda Civic and Mazda 3.
At least both of the UX’s economy-car-like powertrains provide economy-car-like fuel economy, ranging from 33 to 39 mpg combined, according to the EPA. Lexus claims that the latter number makes the UX250h hybrid the most efficient vehicle without a plug that’s categorized as a crossover or SUV-although that’s splitting some fine hairs. Regardless, in our testing, both UXs were thrifty: The UX200 averaged 28 mpg with us and returned 35 mpg on our 75-mph highway fueleconomy test, while the hybrid hit 31 mpg both for its overall average and its highway fuel-economy run.
Our more cynical side wants to deride Lexus for pandering to badge snobs with a vehicle that amounts to little more than a dressed-up econobox. But all the cool kids are doing it these days, and the UX is mostly convincing in its impersonation of a premium product, thanks to its plush interior, agreeable demeanor, and — yes — even its polarizing looks.