Passions and ObsessionsVideo

Luxury and class—without showing off

I took the Lexus RX500h F-Sport Direct-4 to Batangas. Not only can this car tackle any road, it can also do it without stress

Lexus RX500h
Apa Ongpin test drives Lexus RX500h.

Lexus has developed a distinct and refined style that distinguishes it and makes it identifiable, standing out but in a subtle way.

THIS mid-size performance SUV does everything well—it has to—as a contender in a crowded segment. It competes with premium European SUVs, including Audi, BMW, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Volkswagen, and Volvo, and is priced accordingly. It also performs accordingly.

It is engaging to drive: quiet, quick, smooth, comfortable, spacious, nimble, with excellent acceleration, handling, and braking. It is sharply styled without having to be fashion-forward. It is evidently designed for owners who habitually drive themselves (and are thus willing to pay extra for performance), but in this market, I expect that the majority of people who can afford this car (it starts at P6,418,000 on lexus.com.ph) will have drivers, particularly for urban daily commuting.

I took this car out of town for a weekend stay in a lovely farmhouse-style B&B in Batangas, with a majestic view overlooking Taal Lake and the volcano—the place is a separate story, let’s talk about the car.

The trip started with dense urban traffic. The RX500h excelled in squirting through gaps and accelerating and braking. Visibility is excellent. The interior is very comfortable, the leather seats were supportive, and the aircon had no problems maintaining a comfortable 22°C. The motor, at city speeds, and especially in EV mode, is so quiet that Lexus actually adds artificial engine sound to tell you it’s working.

The car has an excellent Mark Levinson (this name means something to audiophiles) sound system, with something like 21 speakers. It sounds superb, but it took a while for us to figure out how to connect our phones to it. More on that later.

We got on SLEX, and went straight through to Star Tollway. Although we did not exceed 120 km/h, the RX500h showed its tremendous power in bursts of acceleration. This time, you could hear the four-cylinder turbo motor roar for real, but it’s still quiet, as if it was happening a long way away.

The car is rated at 366 horsepower, and more importantly, 406 lb.-ft. of torque. It will do 0 to 100 km/h in 6.2 seconds, which is sports car, if not supercar, territory. Yet, it delivers this power with amazing fuel economy, listed at 6.5 liters per 100 km, or roughly 15.4 km per liter on the highway. Real world reviews suggest that this number is actually 9-10 liters per 100 km, or around 10-11 km per liter, but that’s still really good for a 2.5-ton SUV. Not that most Lexus owners would care much about the price of fuel.

By comparison, the Lexus RX350, a non-hybrid with the same gasoline motor but no electric motors, gets 275 horsepower and 317 lb.-ft. of torque, and makes 0 to 100 km/h in 7.6 seconds. The RX500h has more power than it needs, for most real-world driving situations, but it’s great to have that in reserve. It is the main thing the buyers are paying for, over the RX350.

Precise steering

The suspension is European-firm, rather than American-soft. We could feel the ripples of the STAR Tollway, but it was well-insulated, by no means unpleasant. Certainly, the firm setting gave positive handling and excellent roadholding. The steering was precise without being too tight, a good balance. It would be interesting to take this car to its limits in speed and handling, but I doubt that very few owners will— because those limits are out there.

Exiting the Star Tollway, we took a series of two-lane roads, and stopped for lunch. Then there was more two-lane road, a lot of it populated by annoying tricycles puttering along at 30 km/h. This is where the prodigious overtaking power of the Lexus came in real handy.  The last stretch was a two-way, single-lane dirt road up the mountain. This road was designed so that if you see an oncoming car, one of you has to pull over and give way. Obviously, you can’t go very fast in such a situation. The Lexus handled this very well, and we enjoyed the scenery, instead of worrying about the hazards.

The drive was refreshing, not only because the car was so capable, but because it engaged with its passengers so well

We got to the top of the mountain, and our destination, after around three hours, including our lunch break. The drive was refreshing, not only because the car was so capable, but because it engaged with its passengers so well, conveying us in comfort, and giving us a feeling of confidence. This car can not only tackle any road, it can do it without stress or too much concentration. Despite it being an all-wheel drive, I wouldn’t take it off-road. It can handle rough roads, no problem, but they have to be roads.

The engine compartment is tidy, but gives good access to the regular service points. The motor itself is so quiet at low rpm’s, Lexus has had to add artificial sound through the loudspeakers, to reassure you that it’s working.

We need to get technical for a moment, because after all, this vehicle is a technical achievement, much more than a styling achievement. The RX500h F-Sport is a hybrid in the Lexus/Toyota idiom, which means that it can use the power from either the internal combustion engine (ICE), or the two electric motors, or both, to drive the wheels. This is different from some other manufacturers, who use the internal combustion engine solely as a generator, for charging the battery.

The Lexus/Toyota approach is based on a sophisticated transmission and engine-management system, to blend the power from the different sources. This technology was developed by Toyota for the pioneering Prius, which was the first mass-produced hybrid car in the world, in 1997. They’ve stayed with this approach ever since. It’s more or less transparent to the non-enthusiast user, except that it delivers tremendous efficiency.

The stock dark-grey anodized 21-inch alloy wheels are handsome, and give a glimpse of the powerful brakes behind.

The RX500h has two electric motors, one on each transaxle, making it an all-wheel-drive, although it can select 100 percent front-wheel drive or 100 percent rear-wheel drive when necessary. It can even manage the distribution of torque to each of the four wheels, using its “Direct-4” system, a sort of hyper traction-control that controls both engine power distribution and individual wheel braking. This has major effects on both handling and safety. The car can actually take curves faster, and it can stop at shorter distances than most other cars.

The car can actually take curves faster, and it can stop at shorter distances than most other cars

Compared to previous models, the RX500h has several technological innovations, particularly in the haptics and user interfaces, that are a bit unfamiliar to me. Here are some examples:

First, the interior door handles aren’t handles, they’re buttons. Instead of pulling them outward to unlatch the door, you push them inward to open the door. If you do pull them outward (because you can), you have to do it twice to unlatch the door. It took us a while to figure this out. The outside door handles are buttons as well. You need to click a ridge on the inside to open the door.

Second, you can use the buttons on the steering wheel to navigate through the instrument cluster and the 14-inch display, and the nested menus for various functions, including the infotainment.

Another example of this was when I was trying to put the transmission into “Park.” Like the door handles, the gearshift lever isn’t a lever—it’s an electronic switch, with no mechanical connection. Pushing it forward from Drive first gets you into Neutral, then Reverse. To put the car in Park, one must simply press the letter P button.

Third, for several functions, I had to use the touch screen, which I do not like to do, because I prefer to avoid taking my hands off the steering wheel and my eyes off the road, when driving. But using it, you can check the tire pressure, toggle with display brightness, set autolock, use Waze, and even sync it wth Apple CarPlay or Android Auto so you can access apps such as Viber and Messages.

What used to be a single ceiling lamp is now an overhead instrument cluster. It includes four separate light sources, speakers and a small indicator panel for the alarms and notifications, controls for the power sunroof, and a drawer for sunglasses, which is also handy for RFID cards.

Fourth, the car’s proximity alarms are extremely sensitive, which, in Manila traffic, is annoying. As we all know, motorcycles here are very fond of cutting close to cars, so in heavy traffic, the Lexus was constantly beeping, chiming, etc. to alert me. I suppose there must be a way to adjust this sensitivity—just turn the proximity alarm off.

The Lexus RX500h is for owners who demand extra performance with luxury, and are willing to pay for it. It’s not as flashy as some of its competitors, but that happens to be what I personally consider an important component of Lexus’ brand: luxury and class, without showing off.

About author

Articles

Rafael Alfonso Salvador García Ongpin, or “Apa” has been a reporter, photographer, news anchor, newspaper and magazine writer and editor, actor, TV host (including the Binibining Pilipinas pageant), and TV producer and director. He was the founding bassist of the Blue Rats blues band and was a partner in Club Dredd, the seminal rock club of the 1990’s. After earning his MBA in 1997, he worked as an executive in the hotel, quick service restaurant, travel, logistics, radio, publishing, gaming, property and software businesses. He is a management consultant, book author, magazine editor and entrepreneur in the boat business. He is married to Ana Ysabel Rapadas, and has three sons.

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