Lexus Electrified Sports EV concept bows as new LFA-inspired halo for all-electric brand
Lexus also showed off the upcoming RZ crossover SUV, a new electric sedan and a large SUV as it prepares to embrace EVs.
Lexus wasn't left out of Toyota's massive electric vehicle presentation on Tuesday. While Toyota works to build out its "Beyond Zero" sub-brand and prepares some seriously cool EVs, Lexus has its own plans. Folks, they include a spiritual successor to the outrageous LFA supercar.
It's called the Lexus Electrified Sports EV concept and it looks pretty darn good thus far. This car, pictured above, will spearhead the Lexus brand as a new halo vehicle -- designed to draw attention and burnish the brand -- while it works on producing a handful of new EVs to bolster the luxury division. It's Lexus' intention to only sell EVs in the US by 2030.
The Electrified Sports EV concept takes cues from the past LFA's "secret sauce," Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said in the presentation. That includes the way it drives and how engineers extracted performance from the past car. We should expect 0-60 mph times in the sub-2-second range. Toyota also said it imagines this vehicle will rock solid-state battery technology, which the automaker continues to pursue, and it's hoping for 435 miles of range from the electric supercar.
While the world waits for the production version of this car, Lexus will get down to business with EVs with the RZ. The SUV rides on the same platform as the Toyota BZ4X and Subaru Solterra, but Lexus promised it will drive and feel like everything the brand builds. After the RZ, Lexus teased plans for a large SUV, perhaps a close cousin of another Toyota concept shown during the presentation, and a new Lexus sedan. They look properly Lexus, with new takes on the giant spindle grilles, while the sedan and Sports EV concepts actually go for a more pinched and low fascia. I personally see a lot of Toyota FT-1 concept in both of them, which is no bad thing at all.
Toyota underscored not every vehicle it showed will directly translate to production, but many of them will enter production in the next few years. All together, Toyota and Lexus will have 30 electric cars on sale by the end of this decade around the world.
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