Lexus LBX 2023 Review | First Drive

In the marketing la-la land where trendy, city-dwelling young things burn disposable income on brand new cars and not student loan payments, sky-high rents and other boring realities the Lexus LBX looks just the ticket for realising the brand’s ambitions to, bluntly, project a more youthful image and boost sales. Or it might, were it not for the fact the fiercely competitive B-segment SUV sector it joins is increasingly populated with more of-the-moment electrified alternatives from up-and-coming new brands and reimagined ‘legacy’ ones like Volvo and Smart, a good number (including the latter two) leveraging the economies of scale through Chinese ownership to achieve near price parity with internal combustion equivalents.

With the established premium brands seeing the writing on the wall and staking their survival on selling smaller numbers of more expensive, higher-margin cars it feels an odd time for Lexus to be making this apparent attempt to go for volume. Especially given the LBX’s Yaris Cross underpinnings and what, in this day and age, seems a fairly minimal amount of hybridisation and conspicuous absence of the headline-grabbing performance stats boasted by battery-powered rivals. If Lexus really wants to escape the country club retiree image this technically cautious approach looks, on the face of it, a funny way of going about it. Or does it know something we don’t?   

Designed very much with Europe in mind from the start, the LBX may be built on more humble Toyota foundations but promises significantly enhanced engineering underneath and more style on top. So, the body gets extra reinforcement and sound deadening while the three-cylinder petrol engine on the internal combustion side of the hybrid powertrain gains a balancer shaft with hopes of improving refinement over the Yaris Cross equivalent.

The style is also a little softer than the aggressively slash-cut Lexus norm, the signature ‘spindle’ grille reimagined in subtler form and the overall proportions generically conforming to class norms of raised ride height, a low roofline and a relatively muscular, wheel in each corner stance.

A livelier colour palette of strong yellows, reds and an expensive-looking bronze shade speaks to the younger – and female – customers Lexus hopes to attract, a two-tone roof on ‘Design’ models helping it stand out a little more.

In an age where equivalently priced, fully electric crossovers can nail supercars off the line the numbers on the LBX’s spec sheet look, let’s put this generously, modest. Using a version of the tried and tested Toyota/Lexus hybrid system the system output of 136ps (100kW) combines a 1.5-litre petrol engine and electric motor powering the front wheels through a CVT-style transmission.

A more expensive Nickel-metal Hydride (NiMH) battery apparently improves response for the electric motor over the Lithium-ion equivalent in the Yaris Cross, too. A version with an additional rear motor (and fancier multi-link rear suspension rather than the standard beam layout) joins the range in due course but is actually even slower off the line. None of which sounds especially promising until you consider the impressively athletic kerbweight, which varies according to trim and spec but, at around 1,300kg, is as much as a couple of hundred kilos lighter than many rivals. And much less than fully electric equivalents. Thankfully this matters far more than 0-62mph times out on the road, the LBX feeling enjoyably agile and light on its feet, with fast, positive steering and none of the thudding through bumps of its heavier, over-wheeled rivals.

There’s a little more tyre roar than you might expect given Lexus’s fixation on NVH, and if you try and extract every ounce of performance you the internal combustion engine and CVT-style transmission deliver more in the way of revs and noise than meaningful forward progress. Better to take a more chilled approach and let the electric motor fill in the torque curve off the line and in the mid-range, which it does with proven efficiency. This is especially effective around town, where even with a small battery the LBX maximises time on electric power and switches between this and the combustion engine near-seamlessly.

On the inside flasher trim levels get attractive contrast upholstery in various combinations of leather both real and synthetic, with our test car including contrasting Ultrasuede panels for a sportier vibe. If lacking any particular wow factor it’s a neat, and pleasingly compact, combination, hopefully bringing with it a sense of premium quality to this mainstream sector of the market. Or so Lexus promises.

What the LBX lacks in gimmickry and enormous screens inside it more than makes up for in its combination of crisp, understated design and sense it’s all put together with a focus on quality. And here Lexus really scores its premium points over equivalents like the DS3, let alone more mainstream options like a Vauxhall Mokka or Ford Puma. Fresh from driving the Volvo EX30 we also appreciated the retention of physical switchgear and, well, an instrument cluster putting things like speed and other vital info in your eyeline. And not on a crowded, multipurpose central touchscreen. Which is quaint. We also liked the slim pillars, and better-than-average visibility at junctions. All of this takes the stress out of hectic city driving, and means less reliance on sensors, beepers and buzzers and other alerts for what’s going on around you. You still get all that, inevitably. And more of it the further up the range you go. But the ability to confidently judge road position pairs with that fleet-footed agility for an enjoyable driving experience.

It’s a little tight in the back, and those looking for a practical compact crossover will probably prefer the likes of the new Mini Countryman Lexus namechecks as one of its key rivals. But for the child-free youngsters Lexus wants to attract – and the older, downsizing empty nesters it more likely will – the LBX feels small enough to fling around town without feeling overwhelmed by the big boys in faster-flowing motorway traffic.

A token base trim – Urban – does the job of nailing an eye-catching price point but the real meat of the range is in the mid-level Premium and Premium Plus models with the familiar Takumi sitting at the top of the line-up. It’s probably worth holding out for the full 12.3-inch digital instruments and head-up display on Premium Plus if you can. These combine with a relatively small (but perfectly usable) central screen through which you will likely want to run your phone apps via CarPlay or Android Auto in preference to the car’s built-in system. This is clean and functional enough, but lacking the graphical sparkle or surprise and delight of some rivals.

It’s also badly in need of a home button to switch between these two environments, though we’ll always give thanks for a proper physical volume knob in this day and age. All LBXs also get the neat ‘E-latch’ system, which on all but the base model works with the blind-spot and other sensors to prevent the door from releasing if doing so threatens to wing a passing cyclist or other road user. Three cheers for that, with one deducted for the intrusive driver scanning monitor on our test car and its insistence we sat up straight to track our eye movements. While prone to over-sensitivity it’s not as intrusive as some, though. Generally, the equipment levels look pretty decent, though if you want the proper Lexus vibe with the Mark Levinson hi-fi, LED headlights, heated steering wheel and more you need to commit to the full Takumi spec.

Accepting that cars of this size and stature seem to be what folk want Lexus has done a decent job of downsizing expectations of quality and refinement from its bigger vehicles into this smaller package. And if performance isn’t going to blow your socks off it feels brisk enough at the kind of speeds and throttle inputs most normal people use, while the ‘stick it in D and go’ simplicity of the hybrid system is refreshingly easy to live with.

Is it electrified enough in this day and age, though? On the face of it perhaps not, but real-world fuel consumption is probably better all-round than a plug-in while the smaller battery saves both cost and weight to the advantage, respectively, of pricing and fun at the wheel. Both are welcome, and the fact you don’t have to hook it up to the mains may count in its favour for urban buyers without a driveway or designated parking spot to plug in. With this proven and more pragmatic approach to electrification, maybe Lexus does know something we don’t after all.