First electric Lexus - 2026 Lexus RZ 550e F Sport - Review & City Drive

This feels really, really, really good. I thought I'm going to hate it. I'll be honest with you. Initially, when Lexus offered this to me, I said, interesting. Let's see. I thought I would hate it. Hello, hello, and welcome back to another video. My name is George. And today in front of us, we've got a beautiful Lexus RZ 550e. And today we're going to take this bad boy for a drive. We're going to talk about it. I'm going to show you the interior, exterior and explain to you how cool the new technology of the drive-by wire is from Lexus. So stay until the end of the video to find out all about this thing. The RZ is Lexus's first try at the full electric car. This is the F Sport edition as well. 550 is the top of the range, 400 horsepower, the fastest Lexus on production right now. And this is also the first full electric Lexus in history, basically. This is the first one, the RZ. As I said, this is the 550e, which is the top of the line, is the fastest, the most luxurious, got all the specs. This one is the Takumi edition as well. So it's basically fully loaded. I'll put the spec sheet on the screen right now. This thing is around 70,000 pounds. It's got the Takumi kit, basically. It's the fully specced out version. It's not the bi-color, because you can get this in a two-tone situation, but I think this looks much better. This grey with gloss black accents. Obviously, gloss black is not ideal for the exterior and even the interior, really, because it gets a lot of fingerprints, a lot of micro scratches. However, this thing does look pretty good. It's got quite angular, quite strong shape to it. It's got this very chiseled front, as you can see. Very nice shape to it. Honestly, it's got nice broad cheeks. It's quite muscular. It's quite nice looking, honestly. Lexus has actually given this to me for six months, so it's going to be my daily. I've had it for a couple of weeks now, and I've been driving it around the city. Honestly, it's been absolutely fantastic. The key feature of this car, as you will see in a second, is the very trick steering wheel, which is not a steering wheel. It's a yoke, basically. It has drive by wire, which means the wheels and the steering are not connected physically with anything. There's an actuator and a motor in the dash for the steering, and there's a couple actuators in the frame, obviously, in the steering rack for the wheels. Of course, this sounds sketchy and suspicious at first, because obviously, there is nothing connecting the wheels to the actual steering. However, Lexus has gone above and beyond to make sure that this is safe. It's got precautions around the fail systems and all this kind of stuff. You might be wondering, how is this thing to drive? Well, we'll get to that in a second, because we will be driving this around the city today, because this is basically where this car is going to live. It has been living with me for a number of weeks, as I said, and it's going to be living with me for a few more months. I'll be driving it 90 laps at a time in the city. As far as the exterior goes, it's got beautiful 21-inch alloys with aero caps, blue brake calipers. You might be able to see it here, blue brake calipers. Tyres, of course, Dunlop EV tyres, nothing fancy there. Around the rear, the boot space is phenomenal. Boot space, as I said, phenomenal amount of space. This is a pretty big bag for camera gear. You've got storage in here for your cables and a bunch of other stuff that I don't use, and it goes further down. This is a very nice cover. Obviously, you can take this off if you want to, but it's a great cover for the boot. The seat folders also have a lot of space back there. You've got a 1,500-watt socket here, UK socket, and you've got one in the car as well, so plenty of space in the boot. The back seats as well are huge. There's so much space in the back seats here. Easily one of the most comfortable cars I've had for a while, really, especially at this price range. This is my comfortable entry seat, so it's pretty far backwards, but I can slide in here, no problem at all. Look how much space I've got. I'm six foot, headroom, same thing, plenty of space. I don't have any sort of issues with headroom. Yeah, plenty of space. You've got this armrest here with cup holders. Easy, as I was saying, the extra socket down there. Of course, you've got two USB-Cs, heated seats in the rear, which is nice. Climate control, well, climate vents here in the rear. Plenty of space, honestly. There is so much space, and as I said, this seat is very far backwards now because it's easy access entry, whatever it's called. When I'm actually driving, the seat will be even more forwards. There is basically zero hump in the floor here, so for the rear seat, for the middle person sitting, you can sit like this, no problem at all. No issues whatsoever in the back of this car. Easy to get in and out as well. The doors open up quite wide, and in the front, oh, by the way, the handles don't actually pull. It's just like a solid frame, but inside there, there's a button, basically, so you just click that. I've locked the car. You just click it, and then the door pops because these are electronic doors, and this is also a button, so you just press it, and it unlocks. Also, if you want manual latch, fail-safe, basically, you just pull on it twice, and then the door unlocks. So, there's that. Let me close it. There you go. Open it. This is the piece de la résistance in this car, the yoke. So, obviously, as you can see, it's all actual steering wheel, and this is not connected to the wheels, basically. So, let me show you around here first, and then we'll talk about it. In here, we've got very interesting microfiber Alcantara situation laser with nice engravings. You'll get some very beautiful projected lights. It's got three projectors here, which will project a pattern on the door, and I'll show you this in a future video when we're going to do a night drive with this car. Material quality on the inside is really, really, really good. Alcantara, well, I don't even know if it's Alcantara, but I think it's the same material as on the doors. We've got this on the seat, on the bolster here. We've got nice leather-like material. I don't think it's leather, but it's whatever. It feels very, very, very premium, very nice. Same thing here. Good materials, basically, everywhere. Everywhere you touch and everywhere you look, you've got nice materials, nice and soft materials. Here, basically, you don't have a glove box, but you have this thing. So, you've got this, where it's quite deep. It goes all the way down. I've got my bag in there. I don't know if you can see, but you can access it from both sides. So, this is the glove box inside this central console. Of course, cup holders, phone charger, massive, massive storage area here. This goes quite deep. I've got a bunch of stuff in here, so it goes quite deep. You can open it from this side, or you can open it from the passenger side, so it goes both ways. So, let me jump in and show you the view of the cockpit here. This is the POV, basically, and we'll take this bad boy for a drive in a second, as I said, around the city. However, the view out of the windshield is very good. The visibility in this car is great, honestly. Let me close the door so you can have a proper understanding of this. So, the visibility is great, honestly. It's rather, rather good. Obviously, these windows here, will not help a lot with navigation, but to address the elephant in the room, this steering wheel. Basically, let me power the car on, and then I can show you how this works properly. So, this wheel is basically an F1 style steering wheel, because it only has 200 degrees of rotation. So, from flat, that is full lock, so the wheels are completely turned, and that is full lock. So, whenever you're driving around the city, you basically only just do this. You don't need to turn the wheels much, because the wheels will be turning. The faster you go, however, the less sensitive this becomes. So, when you're on motorway highways, you only need a little bit, like normal cars, you only need a little bit of input, because the steering becomes less sensitive. So, there's no such thing as, oh, it's too sharp, I'm going to do this and suddenly fly off the road. No, no, no. Lexus have spent years and years with professional race car drivers, with all kinds of professional people, to basically dial this steering wheel to a perfect setup. And honestly, coming from a guy that's very much into his sports car, very much into analog cars, this feels really, really, really good. I thought I'm going to hate it, I'll be honest with you. Initially, when Lexus offered this to me, I said, interesting, let's see, I thought I would hate it. Genuinely, this has been one of the best steering feels and just city driving cars I've had in a very long time. It takes a couple of days to get used to it, but I'll be straight with you. The amount of times I tried to grab the steering from here in the first week is not even funny. However, once you get used to it, it's so good. I generally just drive this one hand 19 absolute times, I'm just chilling like this, parking lot, boom, boom, easy. You've got your wipers here, your windshield wiper situation, you've got your signal left and right here, you're flashing, and you can also be able to see, we've got paddle shifters here. This is for the manual mode. You can basically put this thing in manual mode and it makes a fake sound and also acts like it's got a gearbox. It's gimmicky, to say the least. I never use it, whatever. It's there, sure, like the Hyundai Ioniq, I think it's got it as well, but whatever, it's just gimmicky. You also use these paddles to change the regenerative braking bias. If you want it harsher, less harsh, whatever. You've got these tactile buttons here, which they're touch sensitive, but they're actual buttons, so you have to press them to do anything. You'll see cruise control, lane assist, changing through menus, you've got a couple of menus. Same thing on the other side, it's for music or whatever you want to choose. They look a bit confusing at first, but it took me a couple of hours, a day or two tops to get used to them, so it's no problem at all. You change the frequency of your auto wipers and this is the lights, basically. You've got the fog lights here and you can change stuff. I wanted to move the car a bit because the sun was blasting in the screen. The screen is fantastic. It's massive, as you can see. You can do so much with it. Of course, you've got the Apple CarPlay. You can just use Apple CarPlay, no problem at all, or you can use the navigation from the car. That's also very, very, very good. You've got all the settings for your car. 90% of the time I drive, it's in eco because it's just better in the city. It doesn't jolt, it's not too sharp on the throttle. It's great. Sport mode, of course, sharpens everything up. Throttle response, all of it, just quicker. Of course, you've got a million settings here, which you can choose. I'm not going to go through those because it's boring. Climate control. Well, the climate controls are here, as you can see, but you've got a bunch of things like the Nano EX, whatever, which is like air purifier, so you're getting all nice, beautiful air in the cabin. Of course, climate control settings right here. They are touchscreen, but they never go away. They're always there, basically. If you need to change temperature, it's an actual dial here, which is great. That is about it, really, here. Of course, you've got the USB-Cs, the chargers here. You've got a wireless charger here as well. Cup holders. This is where your gear shifter situation is, so you push down to go neutral, left, right to go drive, and then left to go reverse, and then press P once you park. Of course, you've got the parking brake here as well. That is basically it for the interior. Besides that, I can tell you more as we drive. I'm going to take this out of the parking lot here and take you for a drive around the city. I'll take you along with me to tell you how this thing behaves. Let's do that. Behind the wheel of the RZ 550e. Initially, the first thing you realize when you get into this car is how nice and quiet it is. It's got double-glazed windows, and it's very, very quiet in this cabin. It's rather a pleasant experience. The second thing is how easy it is to maneuver. As you can see, 90-degree turn, maybe 45 degrees, 45, 60 degrees of steering is necessary for that. This steering around the city is absolutely gorgeous. Another thing about the steering is whilst it's not connected to the front wheels directly, it feels very, very, very sharp. When it comes to avoiding stuff on the road, it's super, super sharp, super easy to use, to maneuver. It is rather, rather pleasant to just be in. The interior, as I said, the interior quality and the way you sit in this car is also very, very, very good. It's comfortable. Long distances or a long time spent in the car is not a problem whatsoever. The seats are very supportive, got a lumbar support as well. You can adjust them up, down, left, right, all these type of ways. No problems at all. Actually, I'm going to adjust mine slightly backwards now. There you go. The way you grab the steering wheel is also very, very natural and comfortable. It's the usual position with your hand. If you want to just chill and you don't want to just hold it like this, you can rest your elbows on these things here, on the door and on the center console. Grab it from here like I usually do, just drive like this, or I do this sometimes, or even here, just laying my hands on it. When it comes to comfort and how comfortable it is to drive, because this is not an actual wheel, it's really not bad. I thought it would be a lot more annoying, but to my surprise, it is rather, rather good. One thing that you do need to get used to is the indicator stalks. They are built into the wheel, so they turn with the wheel. Wheel, yaw, because it's not a wheel. That takes a little bit of getting used to because a lot of times I would hold my right hand on the wheel, turn the wheel and then I would try to find the stalk on the left side here on the column, but obviously it's on the wheel. As long as you keep your both hands on the wheel and turn with it, you will always have it here, so that's not a problem at all. Of course, the controls for the media and all this stuff, changing the volume and doing all these things are very easy to access with your thumbs, very nicely placed. The screen in the middle, I barely look at it because the heads-up display is incredibly sharp and incredibly good, which I can't really say about this screen here. Somehow, for some reason, this screen is a bit blurry. It's probably a defect from factory, a mistake on Lexus's side, because it's not just this car. All of them have this slightly blurry. It feels like it just... Apologies for that, guys. Somebody was calling me, but I was saying this screen, it feels like it's slightly out of focus and I think it's a mistake on Lexus's side and development side. I don't know how this happened, but yeah, the screen is not unreadable or anything because you can clearly see everything on it. It's just that it's slightly blurry. It's got this matte texture on top of it, which is anti-glare and I think that is the reason for the sort of blur. It's not actually blurry, it's just this coating on top of it, which removes reflections that make it seem like it's blurry. Anyway, 99.9% of the time, I'm just looking at the heads-up display because all the information you see here, it's in the heads-up display, which is, as I said, incredibly clear and you've got so many things that you can choose and move and whatever. It's great. I never need to look at the screen. Anyway, that out of the way, city driving, suspension, all this stuff. Because it's the F Sport, I believe this has a stiffer suspension than the normal RZs, like the RZ350, I believe, and 400. I'm not exactly sure what the other models are. This being a 550E F Sport as well, it's slightly stiffer suspension. I don't think it's too stiff. While, yes, it's a bit firm, I like it this way. The car feels a bit more well put together. You can actually take some corners with it. It's not just like a boat. In the city, it's plenty smooth, honestly. I've driven, as I said, for a few weeks, couldn't tell that it's spoilt or anything. It's just good. The suspension is good, compliant. It soaks up the bumps properly. You still feel the road. It's good. In terms of feeling the road, as I was saying earlier, this steering, especially if you put it in Sport, which I'll do right now, it becomes super sharp. It's very, very, very good, honestly. When I'm driving on a B road, on a road that I actually need to know where my wheels are, it's very, very precise. I'm talking, I know exactly where my wheels are placed. Whenever I'm maneuvering in a tight parking spot or a tight area, it's so easy to maneuver because you know exactly where the wheels are. Yes, it does take a couple of days, a week or so to get used to the fact that it's just a yoke and this is a full lock, basically. Not basically, it is full lock. Once you do get used to it, it's such a good experience, if that makes sense. I've driven this for a few weeks and then I jumped into another car which has a normal traditional steering wheel and that felt ancient to drive. It's weird to say that, but when I realized I need to turn the wheel so much to maneuver, I was thinking, wow, it makes so much sense to have this kind of steering. I'm not saying this because Lexus gave me this car or anything. No, this is my true opinion. Mind you, this comes from a car guy, from a proper true car guy. My favorite cars are the likes of 997 GT3 RS and the Porsches and M3 E92s and that kind of car. Those are my kind of favorite cars, but this as a daily, it's really bloody good. I'm not saying that lightly. I've had so many cars and this is a phenomenal daily. Is it a dream car? No, not really. It's not meant to be, but is it a really, really good car around the city? Absolutely is. It's fantastic around the city and this is where this car is supposed to live, honestly. As you can see, maneuvering is so easy in it. You're just getting out of situations, you're maneuvering around. It's so, so, so nice. I'll show you some maneuvering in a second where we go in some tighter spots, tighter areas. Hopefully, you can't hear the noise outside because there's construction happening around me. I'll keep quiet for now and I'll resume later. The only drawback of this car is the range because the range is really not that good. On a full charge, you're getting about 220-ish miles, real-world miles, which is not a lot, especially at this price point and at this day and age. 220 miles on a full charge is really not that much. 80% charge, which is 90% of the time that you'll be using this car because you don't want to wait for the other 20%. 80% charge gets you around 165-170 miles with AC. I don't talk about none of that non-AC bullshit because who drives a car with no AC? 170-160 miles of range with 80% battery. On a fast charger, from 10% to 15% all the way up to 80%, it takes around 20 minutes to charge. It's not super slow. It's average. Most cars take this amount of time. On a normal 11-watt charger, the small ones on the street or at home, takes about three and a half hours to do 10% to 80% or about five, almost six hours to do from 10% to 20% to 100%. Just normal charging times, really. But the only drawback, as I said, is the fact that it has quite a small range. I've used it 99% of the time in the city. So far, I haven't run into any problems with it. The range hasn't been an issue because around the city, 160 miles last you a full week easily. So I haven't had any problems with it so far. I doubt I will because, as I said, it's my daily and I'll use it in the city to go gym, to go whatever inside the city. So 10, 15 miles a day tops. However, if you do need to go on longer journeys, the 550E might not be the car for you. You might want to look at the other versions which have a longer range. I'm not exactly sure how long, but I'll put them on the screen so you can compare them yourself. This has over 400 horsepower, so it is the fastest one. However, if you don't need the speed, you're better off to just getting the lower trim, the lower model which has a better range. And that's also a single motor, not a twin motor like this car. This car has two motors, one in the front, one in the rear. And it's just better for speed and better for fast driving and all that stuff. So yeah, this is basically it for the city drive. I'm going to do a separate video with the dynamic drive. But while I'm here, actually, let's do some maneuvering. So if you need to go in tight spaces like this, it's super, super easy to maneuver. You need to turn around, easy one handed full lock, reverse one handed again. Camera is really, really, really good. And that is it. There you go. After you, sir. That is it. It's so, so easy to maneuver. You are reversing and going into spots so, so, so easily with this car because that 200 degree of rotation on the wheel makes it so that you basically don't need both hands. And if you do use both hands, you'll basically never really sort of cross your arms unless you are doing quite literally full lock to full lock. 90% of the scenarios you're driving, you will never, ever need to cross your hands. Most you ever do is like this 90 degrees, well, 45 degrees really. And that's it. So as I said, throughout this video, driving this car around the city is really, really easy and really good. So guys, I think this brings us to the end of the video. Thank you very, very much for watching. I hope this has been useful. I've been able to educate you on the RZ. As I said, this is the only Lexus, the newest and the only Lexus that you can get as a full EV. So yeah, it's good. What can I say? Besides the range, everything else this car offers is really, really, really good. So I hope this will help you in your decision making. And I hope you will be able to see how this compares to other cars in the market. Until the next video, which will be country road driving where I can take this in a more dynamic environment, faster speeds, all that so you can see how that aspect of it is. This has been a pleasure to do and I hope to see you guys in the video. So until then, peace out, take care and I'll see you then.