6 Thoughts About the 2024 Lexus RX 500h

Quick Facts:

The Lexus RX has been America’s best-selling luxury vehicle for more than a decade
The RX 500h is a 366-horsepower hybrid version rated for 27 mpg in the city and 28 on the highway
For 2024, Lexus has introduced a new plug-in hybrid RX450h+ with 35 miles of electric range

Overview

The Lexus RX has been America’s best-selling luxury vehicle for over a decade. Last year, more than 114,000 Americans took one home – almost double the number of vehicles the entire Infiniti brand sold. Lexus has figured out the ideal luxury car formula. It’s just the right size – smaller than a midsize BMW X5 or Mercedes-Benz GLE but bigger than a compact BMW X3 or Mercedes-Benz GLC. It cocoons drivers from the road in serene surroundings. And it links famous Toyota reliability with soft-touch leather and luxury panache. The RX was thoroughly redesigned for the 2023 model year. Designers kept the curvy style the model has long been known for but deemphasized its oversized spindle grille by neatly fading it into the bodywork at the top. For 2024, Lexus hasn’t seen a reason to change much. The company introduces a new plug-in hybrid version, the RX 450h+. Our tester was the top-of-the-line RX 500h F Sport Performance all-wheel drive (AWD) model with a Convenience Package adding a panoramic view monitor that really does help with parking and a Mark Levinson 21-speaker, 1800-watt Pureplay surround sound system. All told, the sticker read $73,050 after a $1,350 delivery fee.

1. Sometimes the Crowd Is Right

One of the most boring facts of my amazing job driving many different cars every year is that the usual answers are usually right. America’s best-selling cars are all pretty good. It would take a lot to unseat one. This is the best-selling luxury vehicle in the country and has been for more than a decade. It keeps that title because it does everything very well. It’s extremely comfortable. Every control is in a logical place and easy to use. It cradles you in calm amidst traffic but can give you some fun on an open road. If you buy the best-selling luxury car, you’ll likely have no regrets.

2. Lexus Will Keep Its Skinny Jeans, Thanks

Supposedly, big pants are back in style. The runways in Paris and Milan are once again filled with jeans as wide as sails, and The New York Times is publishing 4,000-word paeans to billowy legs. You probably don’t care. You spent money on a wardrobe full of tighter-fitting pants, and they still fit. Big pants still look weird to you. Likewise, the automotive world is all boxy SUVs this year. Every new crossover announced looks like an automotive hiking boot. Designers are going out of their way to draw more rugged lines for SUVs that will never leave the pavement. This doesn’t look like one of those. It’s pretty curvy. It’s what designers aimed for when you bought those pants a few years ago. And it’s nice. Can a luxury vehicle be unpretentious? When it doesn’t pretend it’s about to compete in the Paris-Dakar Rally and knows it’s mostly taking you to work and back, yes, it can.

3. The 350 Is Probably Enough

My RX 500h F Sport Performance tester got 366 hp from a turbocharged 4-cylinder engine combined with an electric motor. The combination made it all-wheel drive (AWD). The EPA rates it for 27 mpg in combined city and highway driving. It carried an asking price, including delivery, of $73,050. A base RX 350 also uses a turbocharged 4-cylinder engine, getting 275 hp from it. Less, but plenty. The EPA rates this for 25 mpg in front-wheel drive (FWD) format or 24 mpg in AWD – almost the same figure as the 500h. It starts at $50,450 delivered. Most of what I enjoyed about the RX – its sublime ride, exceptional quietitude, and near-ideal ergonomics – is found in the one that costs more than $20,000 less. The 500h is exceptional, but I’m not sure it’s $20,000 better than the base model. If a hybrid appeals to you, the 350h is still nearly $20K cheaper.

4. But One Option Is More Than Worth Its Price

What’s the single best-produced album you can think of? One where you can tell the engineer moved microphones to odd locations in the room to catch echoes, and you’re so intimately familiar with every second that you know precisely when the singer draws in breath? That one. Play that one. That 21-speaker Mark Levinson surround sound system is the best part of this car and one of the best parts of any car available at any price. Car cabins are where audio engineers can do some of their best work. Where else do they get you seated in one position, on soft echo-absorbing materials, with hard glass all around you to trap the sound? Concert halls don’t have conditions that perfect for the audio engineer’s craft.

Too few cars take advantage of it. The Levinson setup is so good I longed for it when I wasn’t in the car. I went for drives just to listen to music I hadn’t heard in years. I searched the Internet for albums that music producers thought were particularly well-produced. In my 500h F Sport Performance, the sound system added $2,265 to the price. But you don’t have to pay that much. That price includes other goodies like a 3-year trial of cloud-based navigation you’ll probably ignore because your phone can navigate. On trims as low as the Premium+ (starting price $54,450 delivered), it costs just $1,160 with all the same speakers but without the subscription. Spring for it. It will probably make you enjoy the car more than the extra horsepower.

5. Lexus Actually Cares About Color

Most people are boring. According to global paint giant BASF, 81% of cars sold anywhere on the planet last year were white, black, or gray. Most car companies have embraced the boring. Many barely bother to offer a chromatic color at all. When they do, it’s a medium blue or occasionally red. As journalists, we expect the test vehicle to show up in a gray right out of a 1930s movie. So, I was delighted to see my tester appear in a gorgeous, rich copper shade Lexus calls Copper Crest. In low light, it was almost pink (passing by my house in early morning, a friend texted to call it mauve). In brighter light, it shimmered like a fresh penny. It had depth. It had character. Shockingly, Copper Crest might be Lexus’s second-best color. Consider Nori Green, too. Between two gray cars in the parking lot, you’ll feel like the main character.

6. This Car Couldn’t See My Face

I have one tiny quibble. I wish Lexus would move the camera that monitors the driver to be sure they’re watching the road. The driver attention monitor itself is great – in a recent round of Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests, every other manufacturer’s system was found unacceptable. Lexus built the only system that was deemed “Acceptable” overall. But it’s located in a bubble on the steering column where the driver’s hands easily block it. I’m used to driving a car with a stick and often absent-mindedly place my left hand on the wheel and my right on the shifter out of habit. Every time I did, the RX would warn me that I had deactivated the monitor. This has not been a problem in other cars. It’s a tiny quibble, sure. But I wish Lexus would move the thing that watches your face inside the instrument cluster so it could easily see your face. It’s not a reason not to buy the car. If I owned it, I’m sure I could adjust to keeping my hands out of its way. Related: 2024 Lexus RX: Choosing the Right Trim.

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2024 Lexus RX 500h

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