Lexus UX designed for the modern urban explorer
This week was our first time with the new Lexus ultra-urban UX, designed for those that live in the city with limited space for an automobile, yet still wanting the freedom that one offers, along with the luxury that is always associated with the Lexus name.
In fact the name itself comes from the words
Urban
X-cross over or
UX.
The folks at
Lexus explain that they would expect this little ‘Ute’ to not only be many buyers first Lexus, but for many their first foray into the luxury market.
With this in mind the UX is very competitively priced with even the hybrid that we drove starting at just $34,000.
“The Lexus UX is designed for the modern urban explorer seeking a fresh, contemporary and dynamic take on luxury driving,” said Chika Kako, executive vice president of Lexus International and chief engineer of the UX.
“We designed the UX to appeal to young buyers who seek not only what is new and exciting, but what is also relevant to their lifestyles.”
Even though we are maybe not the youngest of buyers at this point in our life cycle, we still fell in love with the very nimble UX right from the start.
Being a smaller SUV it was an automobile that we really enjoyed and found it very easy to get around town in, it was especially great when it came to tight parking and tight driving situations.
Being a luxury crossover we were not disappointed with any of the features that came along with our weekly test drive. The engineers set out to create a diving experience from the UX that would mimic as closely as possible what the public would expect from a sedan.
At the end of the week would have to say mission accomplished as it was so easy to get in and out of our driveway, garage and any parking situation we were presented with. Along with being an SUV comes a higher ground clearance so we felt more in control of the drive out on the open road.
Of course having the hybrid was even that much more enjoyable, with Toyota always seeming to lead the way in this category with different types of systems in their vehicles. Yet having to come up with a fully electric vehicle they have focused more on electric additions that increase base gas mileage numbers.
The new hybrid system uses electric motors both on the front and rear of the UX to help with linear acceleration and keep the engine from giving the feeling that it is being overworked. The rear motor can also help with over steer and under steer if needed adding power to either wheel when needed.
It will also work in conjunction with the navigation system to predict traffic, hills and other ways that it can keep the batteries charged. This system will even learn a drivers habits as he goes through a daily routine and will anticipate places to help with charging, adding power etc.
So how did we do after a week of normal around Utah Valley Driving, well better than the EPA would have expected us to do, as we came in with a very respectable 42 miles per gallon! Taking into the consideration that base price of the new UX this would be worth every penny to attain numbers like this!
We were especially impressed with the way the hybrid system was set up using the same 2.0 liter 4 cylinder engine that comes with the gas only UX, by adding the extra electric motors total horsepower reached 181 ponies which was proved to be plenty of power for normal driving.
However the real magic in the new crossover came in the way they have engineered the CVT or continuously variable transmission, through the magic of engineering they have made it so electric motor do most of the heavy lifting during initial acceleration more mimicking a normal gear box with the CVT coming into play after the UX has already gained speed.
This was awesome as we did not experience the growls and groans that are normally associated with this type of set up along with the fact it was very hard to tell we were not driving with a standard 8 speed gear set up. However they accomplished this feat our hats are off to those that made it happen.
Inside as we said the luxury side of Lexus really was the high point, with the huge 10.25 inch screen up front that came with the addition of the navigation package. There was still the Lexus track pad set up that can still be somewhat frustrating for us to use, however it is getting better.
They have added some fingertip controls located at the end of the hand rest that allowed us to control volume, hit enter, change songs things like that, it became second nature to use those controls as much as possible after just a couple of days with the UX.
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto were standard features along with 4 USB charging ports. The Lexus Enform App Suite comes with a one year free trial and will allow users to communicate with the UX via Alexa Skills, which is pretty cool allowing Alexa to start the vehicle, send directions right to the navigation and things like that.
The seats of course were leather clad, heated and ventilated along with a heated steering wheel, yes this would be the perfect urban Utah snow vehicle. Other additions to our test ride were a huge moon roof, blind spot monitoring and a wireless phone charger.
On the safety side the UX comes standard with forward collision warning and intervention, radar cruise control, lane tracking assist, lane departure warning, pedestrian detection, road sign assist and automatic high beam headlamps.
The new UX is bound to make a statement no matter what your age, it looks great, handles great and is a fine way to get into the luxury SUV market.
Base Price: $34,000 Price as driven: $43,060