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The Lexus ES is one of the most comfortable, refined and quiet electric saloons on sale, with limousine-like levels of legroom for rear passengers, and soft-touch controls for the driver.
The Lexus ES was first introduced when the brand was founded in 1989, although it was 2018 before it arrived in Europe, with the seventh-generation hybrid model. It has achieved global sales well in excess of three million units. The all-new ES is available only as a battery electric model in the UK as the ES 350e.
Judging by people’s responses, the Lexus ES – with a design inspired by the Lexus LF-ZC Concept – has a dramatic appearance (even in the grey/blue colour of our test car). One taxi driver described it as looking like a plane. It’s also very long. Any car over 5 metres in length is long, and the ES measures 5,145mm, which means it’s 165mm longer than its predecessor. The wheelbase is also 80mm longer than the old model, resulting in huge, limousine-like amounts of rear legroom.
The ES may look like a fastback with a hatchback, but it’s a saloon with a boot. The boot is shallow, but it goes back a long way, and offers a decent 512 litres of space. However there’s virtually no space underneath the boot floor and there’s no frunk, so you’re left having to store the charging cable bag in the boot.
The interior feels very posh, with our test car featuring white leather and bamboo-effect trim. The exterior door handles are sensible – they don’t protrude from the door and so don’t mess up the aerodynamics, or the looks, but they’re easier to use than most flush door handles.
The all-new ES is built on Lexus’s K-platform global architecture, redesigned to accommodate the electric powertrain. It features a 77 kWh lithium ion battery with 72 kWh usable capacity, and is front-wheel drive.
Virtually all electric cars are refined and quiet, but the Lexus ES takes this to the next level. And it adds another fairly unique quality: all car controls feel super-soft touch, with responses from the car being incredibly smooth.
Based on this, as you might expect, ride quality is extremely comfortable, even with the 21-inch alloy wheels of our Premium Plus test car rather than the standard 19-inch wheels.
You would imagine a 5-metre+ luxury saloon to be rear-wheel drive but, no, the Lexus ES is front-wheel drive. That means that you don’t get the rewarding rear-wheel drive handling, which is a shame because the ES is a saloon rather than an SUV and so it sits very low to the ground, which should result in a sporty driving experience. Front-wheel drive really shouldn’t work for a car of this size and in this class, but Lexus has somehow managed to curtail the worst traits of front-wheel drive EVs, wheelspin and torque steer; rather than the front wheels scrabbling for grip, everything generally remains very calm.
One reason for this is likely to be the relative lack of power; the Lexus ES is focused on comfort, not performance (or sharp dynamic responses). The statistics back this up. The ES 350e Premium Plus is a £70,000 luxury saloon but it only has 221 bhp of power, 269 Nm of torque, a 0-62 mph time of 8.0 seconds and a top speed of 99 mph. There are Chinese electric family hatchbacks with twice the performance at half the price. There’s also a Lexus ES 550e model, with more performance and all-wheel drive, but it’s not on sale in the UK.
The cockpit features a small, stubby gear selector on the centre console which, in our opinion, is preferable to changing gear using a steering wheel-mounted stalk. And you can change the level of brake regen using steering wheel-mounted paddles, which is a better solution than having to do this on the touchscreen.
However there are no physical controls to change the drive modes (the choices are Normal, Eco, Sport, Range and Custom); the only way to do this is via the touchscreen. Under the ‘Drive Performance’ menu there’s a screen for ‘Active Sound Design’, with the volume choices of Off, Low, Medium or High, and sound source of Standard or… well, just Standard – there’s no other option.
Under the 14-inch touchscreen, on soft material, is a row of ‘Hidden Switches’, including for cabin temperature adjustment, which become illuminated when you get in the car. The touchscreen has a helpful column of standard shortcuts on the right-hand side of the screen.
Lexus says that the ES is the first Lexus to adopt a new multimedia system with four times faster processing speed and eight times greater storage capacity. However the appearance of the screens looks very similar to previous Lexus models, which means that there are rivals with more modern visual design.
Switching off the driver assistance settings requires a bit of searching through the menus and sub-menus, but the ES has less intrusive ADAS systems than most new EVs.
The Lexus ES 350e Premium Plus has a combined WLTP electric driving range of 357 miles. After a week on test the real-world range averaged 281 miles, which is significantly less than the official figure. Consumption (WLTP) is 3.9 miles/kWh (for ES models with 21-inch wheels).
The maximum DC rapid charging rate is 150 kW, which is slower than you would expect from a £70k luxury saloon. This should deliver a 10% to 80% charge in 30 minutes.
The Lexus ES is available in three equipment grades: ES 350e Premium (£59,345), ES 350e Premium Plus (£68,245) and ES 350e Takumi (£72,545).
Our test car came in Glacier Blue, described as a ‘special metallic paint’ (although it looks like a solid colour) costing £1,250. Other choices include four ‘sonic’ finishes – Sonic Copper, Sonic Titanium, Sonic Platinum and Sonic Grey, which Lexus says “achieve a deeper lustre and interplay of light and shade across the bodywork”. Nova White and Graphite Black are also available.
The Lexus ES 350e is an extremely refined, quiet and comfortable car, with ‘soft-touch’ control weights and smooth responses. Rear passengers enjoy huge amounts of legroom. The interior is very luxurious, and the exterior styling certainly turned heads. The ES may look like a fastback with a hatchback but it’s a saloon with a boot. Most cars in this class are rear-wheel drive, but the ES 350e is front-wheel drive, although the wheelspin and torque steer issues with front-wheel drive EVs are well controlled. This is likely due in part to the fact that the ES 350e doesn’t have huge amounts of power and performance – certainly not for a £70,000 luxury saloon. Although the official driving range is reasonable, the real-world range fell quite a way short of this figure, and most rivals will have faster DC charging than the 150 kW figure of the ES. The Lexus ES 350e is awarded a Green Car Guide rating of 8 out of 10.
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Paul Clarke, GreenCarGuide Editor
