Breaking brand ground
The UX300e was Lexus’ first pure-EV — and now it’s had a major update
The Lexus UX300e paved the way for BEVs from Lexus and Toyota. While Nissan virtually established mainstream EVs with the Leaf and Honda with the Insight, the likes of Mazda, Mitsubishi and Subaru have all been a little slow to adopt to mainstream EVs.
Whether that’s good or bad is really still open to debate, and with the NZ Clean Car Discount at an end after 21⁄2 years, and a huge 14 years after the Leaf launched, we are finally seeing more BEVs from the biggest car brands, Toyota and Lexus.
We drove the Lexus RX recently, and with the Toyota bZ4X now here, Lexus has also updated the UX300e Limited, first arriving in NZ in Q2 2022, updated for late-2023 with minor but significant improvements.
It’s an EV arriving with a devildon’t-care attitude, and a slightly different mindset; it’s merely adding an option to the Lexus range, rather than forcing buyers into an EV.
Range of 440km not enough? No problem. $89,900 retail put you off? Fine then, because there are plenty of buyers queued up for the compact luxury SUV. New orders for UX300e are closed, if your preferred colour isn’t already in stock in NZ.
Regardless, the UX300e might be the brand’s first EV, but the model feels way less about the BEV side, and more about a fuel-friendly premium compact SUV; the EV to
buy when you’re not particularly fussed about specifically buying an EV.
Almost the antithesis of a Tesla, and it’s nothing overt — more the little things, like the state of charge: there isn’t a percentage gauge on the digital dash. Instead, Lexus uses the conventional fuel gauge with five level marks.
There’s a discrete battery use/ regen gauge within the digitised analogue speedometer, and a prominent Eco, Normal, Power dial right up top of the dash.
Dialled to Eco, range showed 426km on a full charge, and it’s one of those EVs where turning on the
AC saps 10-15 per cent of the range. Keep in mind, though, that the 73kWh battery is a big step up from the 2022 model’s 54kWh version.
There’s also the charging side, which uses two plugs: the Chademo for DC charging, with maximum recharging rate of just 50kW — though we often saw 20-30kW on a new 50kW charger, when the battery was in a discharged state and should take more.
There’s home charging, of course, via a Type 2 AC, where its max rate is just 6.6kW: most home Wallboxes can output 7-8kW — so charging the UX seems to be behind the typical EV curve.
EV stuff aside, the Lexus UX300e is a remarkably impressive vehicle, carrying through the premium look and feel of its larger range siblings.
Its perforated white leather with auto heated and cooled seats and steering wheel, in tune with the AC system, is a welcoming sight, along with twin cup-holders and a wireless charging mat.
A Mark Levinson audio system combined with sound deadening both offer a premium, quiet drive.
An electric sunroof, active cruise control with stop-go, Head-Up Display and so much loaded tech we’ve come to expect from a Lexus are all loaded into the UX.
The UX is instantly torquey and smooth, as electric tends to be, with three modes for sport, normal and eco — it’ll dash to 100km/h in 7.5 seconds, though it’s clearly a frontwheel drive and isn’t immune to wheelspin exiting slower corners with an eager throttle.
The rear seat is compact SUVsized, though the trade-off is a big boot, that’s practical and a sizeable 367 litres.
Think of the UX300e as a wellequipped, competitively priced premium compact SUV, rather than a luxury EV SUV, and it very effectively manages to impress.