2024 Lexus TX 550h plug-in hybrid is the lone star of TX

The 2024 Lexus TX is strictly what it must be—nearly, in one in every of its variations.

It’s an enormous, boxy three-row SUV with adult-size house in all rows, wide-opening doorways, a great deal of flat-folding cargo versatility, and low raise heights—plus a TX 500h hybrid model, in addition to an obtainable TX 550h+ plug-in hybrid model that may go as much as 33 electrical miles.

In a primary drive of the 2024 Lexus TX lineup this previous week, I discovered that it positively hits a candy spot available in the market. It feels extra composed and settled within the corners, or on uneven highway surfaces, versus even larger, truck-based SUVs just like the Lincoln Navigator or Cadillac Escalade. And in most respects it provides all of the sides of a Lexus—a characteristic record wealthy with comforts and tech, luxurious cabin trims, and an understated design that appears the half on the surface. 

It’s all good in most ways in which households are going to care about—simply underwhelming when it comes to what’s underneath the hood. Except we’re speaking in regards to the sweetheart of the lineup, the top-of-the-line TX550h, which holds its personal versus the Volvo XC90 Recharge, amongst others.

Skip to the plug-in, the place all of the items play properly collectively

The TX 550h+ incorporates a 259-hp, 3.5-liter V-6 engine, as a part of Toyota’s planetary hybrid system additionally incorporating a 179-hp traction motor. For the rear wheels there’s a 101-hp electrical motor, and your entire system makes a mixed 404 hp. It has an enormous 18.1-kwh lithium-ion battery pack that Lexus estimates might be good for a 33-mile EV vary, and it’s rated at 29 mpg mixed after that, as a hybrid.

This plug-in hybrid runs on a two-traction-motor system in its EV mode and feels quiet and fast sufficient. I drove it just a few miles that approach—sufficient to pattern that it doesn’t really feel like a compromise and, like the superb NX 450h+, gained’t instantly name on the gasoline engine while you flooring the accelerator in EV mode. 

The PHEV, as a hybrid, delivers torque instantly in response to accelerator inputs. Sure, the sound from the 550h+ engine doesn’t fairly rise and fall with the feeling of acceleration and pace, but it surely’s fully forgivable as a result of the V-6 sounds so significantly better than the four-banger in different fashions (I’ll get to that extra).

Holding the EV mode button down to interact Cost mode, which tends to run the engine extra to cost the battery, I aimed to pattern the worst-case situation for powertrain noise and the V-6 remained clean and remoted.

Whereas the 500h F Sport does really feel a bit edgier than the remainder of the lineup, the top-of-the-line TX 550h+ is the efficiency candy spot, if in case you have the price range for this mannequin’s anticipated worth someplace north of $75,000. Its experience is pillowy but with sufficient underlying firmness, matched with a powertrain that’s fast when wanted, matches the dynamic character of the car greatest, and principally stays out of the soundtrack—to not point out the advantages of its plug-in electrical vary.

F Sport TX 500h hybrid journeys by itself combined alerts

The non-plug-in TX 500h F Sport fashions occupy the upscale center of the TX lineup, beginning at $69,350 and $72,650 for the Premium and Luxurious variations, respectively—versus as little as $55,050 for non-hybrid variations—and Lexus factors to it because the extra partaking drive within the lineup. After puzzling over this mannequin essentially the most, I’d name it perky however mercurial.

The TX 500h will get an 85-hp permanent-magnet electrical motor packaged inside a six-speed computerized transmission, with a barely totally different model of that turbo-4, making 271 hp and 339 lb-ft. Individually there’s a 1.4-kwh nickel metallic hydride battery pack, and 101-hp rear motor that completely drives the rear wheels. When you depend the system as a complete it makes 366 hp. 

The system, which is badged Hybrid Max on Toyotas, doesn’t have a reputation on the Lexus facet. Lexus officers instructed me that you simply gained’t see this hybrid system on something with out an F Sport badge.

Naohisa Hatta, chief engineer for the TX, defined to me that the 500h F Sport’s hybrid system was developed to satisfy a really particular set of driving attributes. It’s a set of attributes I perceive higher, after being in a couple of fashions with this technique, however I nonetheless query its motive for being, and it feels much more misplaced within the TX than within the Lexus RX or Toyota Crown. 

Following different slower-moving site visitors on a winding Texas Hill Nation highway, the TX 500h felt unsure and indecisive at instances in its powertrain habits, together with some jarring shifts whereas my accelerator inputs have been clean. However in any other case, this F Sport model felt fully in its factor when it comes to experience and dealing with. Toggling between its drive modes, I couldn’t discover one during which the hybrid system’s low-speed drivability points have been quelled. My pre-production mannequin carried some uncouth vibration by the pedal space, and the soundtrack from the four-cylinder engine is coarse regardless of using energetic noise cancellation tech.

However then I stepped on it, and all was properly. Distilled down, the TX 500h appears calibrated for arrow-straight streets and fast-moving curvy backroads, and it smooths out its eccentric habits the more durable you drive it. 

The journey laptop jogged my memory of an extra down facet to this setup, which is while you do step on it a bit extra, mileage plummets. Though this preliminary expertise with the TX 500h was restricted to a few loops amounting to lower than 60 miles, over a mix of roads, it indicated that mpg numbers within the low 20s may be anticipated. 

You’ll be able to’t fairly have it multi functional Lexus TX

Whereas there could also be a spot for the Hybrid Max system, for lack of a greater identify, an extended stint within the 550h+ in its hybrid mode actually underscored the prevalence of this powertrain for this car. 

The 550h+ weighs about 400 kilos greater than the F Sport 500h, however in something however laborious efficiency driving I’d have guessed it the lighter of the 2. After disabling the Proactive Driving Help characteristic in each fashions, which ramps up regen at unpredictable instances, the calibration of the 550h+ merely felt comfy with the entire car, serving to erase a few of the feeling of heft with light regen, whereas additionally feeling fairly sprightly with its wall of torque on the prepared, no lumpy shifts required. 

By the specs, the 550h+ additionally supplies the quickest acceleration within the lineup, at 5.9 seconds, whereas the 500h isn’t far behind at 6.1 seconds and the TX 350 takes 7.8-8.0 seconds. All variations can tow as much as 5,000 kilos.

Ignoring the qualms in regards to the powertrain within the TX 500h, it does have the higher dealing with within the lineup, and it’s the one mannequin to supply a rear-wheel steering system. The TX’s entrance and rear suspensions get their very own subframes for isolation from highway harshness, and the entrance strut, rear five-link structure permits these fashions to experience and nook way more like a big sedan than a body-on-frame SUV. Lexus says that the F-Sport “heightens the driving expertise at each flip,” and I agree that it feels a bit extra nimble when pressed laborious. 

All TX fashions get ventilated disc brakes entrance and rear, however the TX 500h and 550h+ each get upgraded aluminum monobloc 6-piston entrance calipers with bigger discs. 

In an ideal world, an F Sport 550h+ with rear-wheel steering could be the true flagship that the lineup appears to be lacking proper now. Chief engineer Hatta didn’t dismiss the steering chance, however maybe the remainder is but to return. 

Will hybrid Lexus TX fashions be laborious to search out?

Lexus three my impressions right into a tailspin with the admission that it sees non-hybrid TX 350 variations making up 80% of the lineup in its first yr—with the TX 550h+ PHEV making up a minority of the remaining 20%. 

Once more scrutinizing what’s underneath the hood, the bottom TX 350 is simply OK. It has a 2.4-liter turbo-4, making 275 hp and 317 lb-ft of torque and working by an 8-speed computerized transmission, in front- or all-wheel-drive variations. Efficiency is sufficient however underwhelming, with its 0-60 mph instances at or close to eight seconds, a deep pause from a standing begin, and a few downshifts of a gear or three required to faucet into engine revs on two-laners in Hill Nation. 

The image’s much less rosy when you think about that mannequin’s gasoline financial system—simply 23 mpg mixed whether or not you go along with front- or all-wheel drive (go along with the latter, in case you should). Sure, that’s simply 1 mpg higher than the nearly-as-large Lexus RX 350 L that was bought up till final yr with a far smoother, spunkier-feeling V-6. 

The 2024 TX completely nails the system of what an American-sized three-row SUV must be in structure, consolation, and options. Let’s simply hope it doesn’t marginalize the mannequin that drives greatest and makes essentially the most sense right here for lots of households—with near-30-mpg hybrid efficiency, sufficient electrical miles for the commute, and essentially the most refined expertise. That’s what, a minimum of for now, makes it the lone star of this lineup.