{"id":1214157,"date":"2023-12-20T18:01:53","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T23:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1214157"},"modified":"2023-12-20T18:01:53","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T23:01:53","slug":"lexus-lbx-is-the-luxury-city-car-you-never-knew-you-didnt-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1214157","title":{"rendered":"Lexus' LBX is the luxury city car you never knew you didn\u2019t need"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u201cCompliance Car\u201d is a vehicle designed not to be sold in large quantities but to satisfy rules around range-wide consumption. For instance, makers of enormous, gas-belching trucks may have to offer a thrifty, gas-sipping ride to balance out the emissions numbers. One infamous example is Aston Martin\u2019s Cygnet<\/a>, a rebadged Toyota iQ with a luxury interior that sold for three times the iQ\u2019s price. Now, imagine a company chose<\/em> to make one of those vehicles intentionally. That\u2019s the best way to describe Lexus\u2019 new LBX<\/a>, a small but luxurious, Europe-exclusive city car that you\u2019ll love sitting in while waiting in traffic.<\/p>\n

The LBX is a subcompact car based on the same underlying platform (GA-B) as Toyota\u2019s Yaris Cross<\/a>, its tiny crossover SUV. The Yaris Cross is a city runaround pretending to be an SUV, complete with flared wheel arches, high ride height and optional All Wheel Drive. Lexus is keen to point out that this isn\u2019t a rebadge, and that the luxury automaker has refined every facet of its design. The wheelbase is longer and wider, the powertrain smaller and faster, with luxury kit everywhere you look. You can call this many things, but it\u2019s not a lazy cash-grab, especially given how much of the early chatter<\/a> around<\/a> this car talked about it diluting<\/a> Lexus\u2019 brand.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Daniel Cooper \/ Engadget<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Inside, you\u2019ll find a 1.5 liter, three-cylinder VVT-iE engine with a bi-polar Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH<\/a>) battery. That composition offers higher power density and faster response with a smaller footprint than Toyota\u2019s own-brand hybrids, with a lighter weight which is key in such a small car. The combined total output is a restrained 136 DIN hp, which is fitting for a car designed to sit in traffic. But Lexus piqued my interest in this car by claiming that its new hybrid system offered \u201cpowerful acceleration like that of a battery electric vehicle.\u201d Given the stately<\/em> manner in which most small hybrids move, I was curious to put that claim to the test.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re only accelerating to get off the line when the lights change, then you\u2019ll find plenty to like here. It\u2019s too much of a stretch to compare it to an EV but if you\u2019re looking for a performant city car, it\u2019s no slouch. It thrives in the cities, where its small-ish size, speed and driveability let you dart around corners and dive into tight spaces. But this power doesn\u2019t run too far beyond the lights, and putting your foot down on the highway exposes this engine. No amount of sound dampening tech \u2014 and there\u2019s a lot of it in this car \u2014 can mask the LBX\u2019s anguished screams when you try to accelerate or put the power down going up hills.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Daniel Cooper \/ Engadget<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Up front, it\u2019s roomy with a comfortable driving position, while the rear bench seat is higher to offer the passengers a better view. I\u2019m 5\u2019 11\u201d and had enough headroom, but I doubt anyone taller than me would fancy riding in here for long. There\u2019s not a huge amount of rear legroom either, so you wouldn\u2019t want to do a long trip in one of these.<\/p>\n

The Lexus LBX is a lot<\/em> of car, too much for the role in your life that it\u2019s intended to play, with a lot of frou-frou. Given this is a car designed for short journeys, I\u2019m not sure it needs to have as much technology on board as it actually does. The model I tested had a digital instrument binnacle, a big central console and a heads-up display. Plus, flappy paddles so you can control your braking level and<\/em> three USB-C ports in the central console. Oh, and a suite of safety tools that were so sensitive it\u2019d erupt in a chorus of pings and bongs if I so much as glanced at the accelerator before the way in front of me was clear.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Daniel Cooper \/ Engadget<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Lexus says the LBX is targeted at \u201cyounger, city-smart Europeans\u201d rather than the company\u2019s traditional, older base. The marketing is full of youths in red vinyl overcoats and Vitaly jewelry but I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s the demographic who\u2019ll be interested. I\u2019m not sure too many young, city smart Europeans could afford a car like this, or even know how to drive in the first place. Some of the recent stats have been skewed by COVID but the general trend of young people learning to drive has pointed down<\/a> for a while. The company\u2019s representatives did mention they thought another potential demographic would be empty nesters looking to downsize.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the price, with the base model costing \u00a329,995 (around $37,700) on the road in the UK while the fully-specced model is \u00a340,545 (around $50,870). Nobody needs to be told if that\u2019s a lot or not, especially given the various ways people buy new cars these days. But Lexus, knowing that it\u2019s not going to undercut similarly high-spec city cars in the space, say that while the up-front price is higher, it\u2019ll save drivers plenty with its fuel economy. I\u2019m not sure how many people buy a luxury car because they\u2019re keeping their eye on the dollars and cents.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Daniel Cooper \/ Engadget<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Fundamentally, as much as I like the LBX, I\u2019m unable to square its inherent contradictions as they pile up on top of one another. There are very few faults that I can pick at which are tied to just this vehicle, rather than the quirks inherent in the company\u2019s range. But I just can\u2019t see a world in which people would line up to buy a car that\u2019s this<\/em> over-equipped and over-specced given the environment in which it thrives.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/lexus-lbx-is-the-luxury-city-car-you-never-knew-you-didnt-need-230153698.html?src=rss
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\nSource: Engadget – Lexus’ LBX is the luxury city car you never knew you didn\u2019t need<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A \u201cCompliance Car\u201d is a vehicle designed not to be sold in large quantities but to satisfy rules around range-wide consumption. For instance, makers of enormous, gas-belching trucks may have to offer a thrifty, gas-sipping ride to balance out the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1214157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1214157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}