Lexus UX vs Lexus IS300H

What's the difference?

The Lexus UX300e Sports Luxury nails the luxury and standard features list! It certainly feels like a premium SUV inside and the updated technology and driving range were sorely needed to keep this competitive, but once you start looking at its rivals, which all offer similar specs and better driving ranges, the price point starts to feel a smidge high. However, the ongoing costs and the complimentary bonuses that Lexus throws in, are great.

Smooth, cosy, quiet, the IS looks and feels better than ever, but without a doubt this hybrid version is a car best suited to cruising the dense metropolis of Chiba at midnight more than it is carving up a bunch of S-bends in the Australian countryside on the weekend.

While that might still limit its appeal for fans of German sports luxury sedans and place it further from the original IS’s ambitions, it does offer an intriguing efficiency and luxury focused alternative, without the compromises brought by rivals with more sporting intent. In a way then, the IS 300h perhaps inadvertently best embodies what Lexus is as a brand.

The design hasn’t seen much change and Lexus seems to be encouraging an understated EV design as it looks just like its fuel-based siblings.

I don’t mind that it’s not as futuristic as some of its competitors and that, at first glance, there isn’t anything to set it apart.

The front sports a classic Lexus 'spindle' grille and the external lights are large but the rear side lights jut out rather severely, reminding me too much of its Toyota counterparts.

The rear features a cool LED strip light for the brakes, which elevates its night-time presence.

The sporty-looking 18-inch alloy wheels are a nice touch but the plastic mouldings around the base of the car detract from the premium-level this model sits in. It’s not as slick-looking as it could be.

Having said that, the interior earns back points courtesy of its premium feel with leather-accented trims and Japanese Washi paper influenced accent panels. But there is a lot happening with the dashboard.

It’s a little overwhelming at first because it protrudes well into the cabin and features multiple cutaways, but you get used to it after a while.

There are also little knobs on either side of the instrument panel that look out of place to me and resemble horns.

Look closely and quite a lot has changed. This is really a story of doing a facelift right. Lexus has kept all the great-looking bits of the car that launched in 2013, like its striking side profile and angular accents, while dumping most of its least popular elements like the spidery front light-clusters and busy front splitter, in favour of something more refined and conservative.

It even adds some new flair in the rear three-quarter, with dramatic LED light-clusters working their way into a trendy highlight strip across the boot lid.

These changes all add up for a much tougher, sportier, and nuanced design compared to the outgoing car. One that manages to make an eight-year old design look as contemporary as ever.

I even liked our test car in its plain black shade, although I'm less sure about those conservative-to-a-fault, almost Camry-esque alloy wheels.

On the inside, sadly not a whole lot has changed. The busy design looked dated when this generation of IS launched in 2013, and it still looks dated now.

The visual assault of buttons, toggles, displays, textures, and trims is a lot to take in, and makes the cabin feel smaller than it is.

It probably didn’t help the sensory overload of this car’s interior as I hopped out of the stripped-back interior in the Tesla Model 3 I had the week before.

My less-than-impressed brother, a student of design, described the IS’s interior best when he told me “It’s a bit maximalist, don’t you think?”

If nothing else, at least Lexus hasn’t blatantly imitated anyone else when it comes to its interior, but the brand remains firm on dorky design items like the laptop touchpad, redundant drive-select dial, and odd vacant panels under the climate unit which do it no favours.

A welcome upgrade for the 2021 model year is the new media screen, a highlight piece perched atop the dash. It’s bright, has excellent contrast, and doesn’t seem to fall victim to glare.

The Apple CarPlay support I used was seamless and sharp and made the most of the available real-estate in its widescreen layout.

I somehow didn’t mind that the instrument cluster in this base car is analog. It almost suits the IS’s character better than a digital set-up would. Also offered is a small information display between the dials which I used for monitoring the hybrid drive.

A final note on the IS’s design. The fit and finish is quality, inside and out. It leaves you with an impression that this is an immaculately built vehicle, one that should be a must for all luxury cars, and always a strong point for Lexus.

As soon as you slide in, you’re reminded that the UX is a small SUV. Even with the driver's seat at its lowest position I still knock my knees on the steering wheel when getting in and out of the car.

The higher door sills also accentuate the penned in feeling despite there being plenty of head- and legroom in the front row! 

Then comes the back seat, which is super tight on space. I’m 168cm (5'6") and my headroom is fine but the legroom sucks. My knees press into the back of the driver’s seat (set for my driving position).

There’s also not a lot of space underneath the seat for toes, so I wouldn’t recommend the UX to anyone who regularly transports tall passengers. 

Having said that the seats in both rows are very comfortable and the leather trims feel lovely to touch. Both front seats are electric with heat and ventilation functions but only the driver’s side enjoys adjustable lumbar support. 

Storage is good throughout the car, which is not usually the case for the small SUV class. Up front you get a glove box, two cupholders, two drink bottle holders and a middle console that opens from both sides, which is handy and cool.

In the rear you get two cupholders in a fold-down armrest and map pockets but no storage bins in either door unfortunately.

Other amenities in the back are very good for this class with the heated outboard seats, directional air vents, reading lights and two USB-C ports.  

On that note, the upgraded multimedia system is now easier to use while on the go, is responsive to touch and looks great.

Some of the information on the system can be annoying to find but the customisations available on the 7.0-inch digital instrument panel more than make up for it.

There is a coloured head-up display, wireless Apple CarPlay, wired Android Auto and satellite navigation.

All are easy to use and won’t confuse you too much!

The charging options are great with each row getting two USB-C ports but the front also gets a USB-A port, 12-volt socket and a wireless charging pad. You’re seriously spoilt for choice.  

The boot space sits at a small 314L, which is 100L less than the previous model but that’s because Lexus has made a little storage nook underneath the floor for the tyre repair kit and cable pouches.

It's a great boot because it sits high and is easy to access, and I have plenty of room for all of the gear needed for a week’s errands. The hands-free powered tailgate is great, too.

Well, the IS is a sedan, so it doesn’t quite have that high-riding appeal of an SUV, and for this update it has even leaned further into its low-slung proportions with a roofline that descends a further 15mm and a boot lid which is 31mm lower overall.

As with the previous car, the interior is quite closed-in thanks to that busy dash design and large centre console. Rather than feeling claustrophobic though, it is best described as cosy, with lots of plush finishes throughout the doors and centre stack befitting a luxury nameplate.

Adjustability is great for the front two occupants and there are two large bottle holders between the seats, a large but shallow console box under the armrest, bottle holders with adjoining bins in the doors, and a smallish glove box.

That’s about where storage ends though, with no extra trays or bins in front of the oddly placed shifter, just an awkwardly finished plastic panel where it feels like a little tray or storage cutaway should be.

The touchpad for operating the media screen joins an unnecessary drive-select cluster in eating up centre console space where there could be more storage.

The rear seat is quite limited on space despite being lavishly trimmed. I fit behind my own (182cm/6'0") driving position with little knee or headroom to spare.

Again, it’s cosy and very comfortable, but if you're taller or wider than me you may run into issues.

The centre rear seat is all but useless for adults, with the IS’s rear-drive architecture necessitating a huge transmission tunnel that almost comes as high as the seat base itself.

Storage is limited to pockets on the back of the front seats, small bins in the doors that double as handholds, and a drop-down armrest with two bottle holders.

There are no power outlets for rear passengers, but there are dual adjustable air vents.

Boot space is 450L which is a little small for the class. It’s impressive the hybrid only managed to lose 30 litres compared to petrol-only IS variants, though, so best to count your blessings.

The largest CarsGuide travel case easily fit in the wide but short available space.

To be precise the variant we’re looking at here is the IS 300h Luxury. It’s the base IS trim with the hybrid powertrain and it wears a before on-road costs (MSRP) of $64,500.

Base car or not, the new IS is very well specified. Now standard are 18-inch alloys (up from 17s), full LED headlight clusters, eight-way power adjustable front seats, dual-zone climate control, 10-speaker audio system, and importantly a brilliant new 10.3-inch multimedia screen with widescreen Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, built-in navigation, and DAB+ digital radio support.

Keyless entry and push-start ignition also continue to be offered, as well as a leather-look interior trim which in our car was in a rather contrasting 'Ochre' colour option.

Our IS 300h was also fitted with the creatively named ‘Enhancement Pack 1’ which adds an openable moonroof for $2000. The significantly more expensive ‘Enhancement Pack 2’ ($5500) adds the moonroof alongside 19-inch alloys, upgraded LED headlights, interior ornamentation, scuff plates, a panoramic reversing camera, 17-speaker premium audio, ‘leather-accented’ interior trim, ventilated front seats, and an electric rear sunshade.

These packs are seemingly largely unnecessary but are also very cheap for a brand at the premium end of the market.

Lexus has made pretty much all of its high-end active safety equipment standard on this base ‘Luxury’ for 2021, alongside some previously unavailable tech which we’ll take a look at in the safety section of this review.

At this price the Lexus IS 300h goes into battle against the Mercedes-Benz C 200 ($66,900), BMW 320i ($70,900), Audi A4 35 TFSI ($55,900), and the ever-looming threat of Hyundai’s Genesis, which offers its similarly-sized G70 in base form at $59,300.

Some of these base-spec rivals are cheaper, some are more expensive, but did you notice none of them are hybrids?

Access to Toyota’s affordable and popular hybrid drive is a real point of difference for the Lexus brand, and we expect it’s a key drawcard for the loyal customer base. More on that later.

The UX300e has a fully electric powertrain with a 72.8kWh lithium-ion battery that’s located on the front axle.

The power and torque remain unchanged at 150kW and 300Nm but that’s enough to produce a 0-100km/h sprint time of 7.5-seconds. Plenty of oomph for city-slickers and open-roaders to boot.

The update sees the battery increase in capacity by 34 per cent which means the driving range has jumped from 305km to 440km.

That's still a bit lower than some of the UX's competitors but it certainly helps ease range anxiety! And unlike some of its rivals, the UX300e only sports a front-wheel drive drivetrain.

The IS 300h does stand out from the luxury sedan crowd by offering a hybrid drivetrain at a reasonable price. Some rivals offer plug-in options further up the price scale cementing them as a niche option, but the beauty of this Lexus is its very mild $3000 price jump over the base petrol car.

The base car’s 2.0-litre turbo is dumped in favour of a 2.5-litre non-turbo Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder hybrid set-up similar to the one proving popular in the Toyota Camry and RAV4.

The petrol engine produces 133kW/221Nm on its own, and the electric motor produces 105kW/300Nm. Toyota says the “combined system output” of this is 164kW.

Either way, that's less than the base 2.0 turbo. The 300h also swaps out an eight-speed torque converter automatic in favour of a continuously variable transmission. Rare in a rear-wheel drive car.

My energy consumption sat at an average of 19.5kWh, which is decent considering all of the open-road driving I did.

There are four levels of regenerative braking to help conserve battery percentage but even on the firmest setting, it’s not super noticeable.

When you’re at full charge, multiple notifications and sound alerts pop up on the instrument panel stating ‘Regenerative Braking Limited Press Brake to Decelerate’. It’s quite an intrusive feature but disappears after 20 to 30km.

Despite the bigger battery size, the UX300e can only accept up to 6.6kW on AC charging, whereas, all of its rivals can accept 11kW. On a 240-volt AC charger, expect to see a charge time of nine and a half hours to get to 80 per cent.

Curiously, the UX features two charging ports, on the right-hand-side, there is a Type 2 port and, on the left, a CHAdeMo port, which allows for faster charging.

You'd think it would be easier to simply add the CCS enhancement on the Type 2 port but still, expect to get from 10-80 per cent in 80-minutes on a 50kW fast charger.

As you might hope this hybrid IS has an astoundingly low official/combined fuel consumption rating of 5.1L/100km.

I was pleased to find that after a week of mainly urban driving conditions, our IS was returning a figure of 6.9L/100km. Not bad at all, especially for a class where fuel consumption can get a little out of hand with turbocharged engines or V6s.

Of course, using the hybrid system to your advantage over the long term will get this number much lower, as I discovered on my long-term test of the Toyota Corolla hybrid which essentially uses a smaller version of the same system.

Certainly, if fuel consumption is a high concern, you’re better off with this car than the top-spec V6 (IS 350) which will easily see consumption enter double digits.

Lexus recommends a minimum RON rating of 95 for the IS 300h, and the fuel tank is 66 litres regardless of variant, giving the hybrid an impressive theoretical range of around 1000km.

The UX300e comes into its own when you’re zipping around tight city streets. The power is responsive and the steering crisp with excellent cornering capabilities.

It feels well-placed on the road most of the time but can move around when it gets hit by high winds.

While the power is steady, the tyres can lose a little traction if you’re too quick to accelerate from a full stop.

The ride comfort is also very good with the new acoustic glass and extra insulation around the bonnet and wheel wells providing a whisper quiet cabin space.

The suspension is well-cushioned but not floaty and you won’t wince when you hit a bump, but occasionally you get a thump-thump shudder through the frame on certain rough road surfaces.

It’s not a massive size and you’ll be thankful for that when it comes time to park because it is seriously easy to slide into a spot!

The 360-degree view camera system is top-notch providing clear graphics and a cool feature where the car becomes invisible in the video feed, which makes it even easier to see all around you. Coupled with the front and rear parking sensors, you’re set.

There is no doubt the IS 300h is capable. You can feel it through the car’s solid rear-drive underpinnings, silky smooth steering, and reactive chassis.

What this car doesn’t offer is excitement in quite the same sense as many of its rivals. That’s down to this hybrid’s drivetrain. It just doesn’t have that powerful follow-through in the same way turbocharged BMWs or Audis or Mercedes do.

If it’s that 'sports luxury' experience you’re seeking better off looking to the base 2.0-litre turbo or the V6 and their eight-speed automatics.

The 300h does offer something a bit different. The gentle refined efficiency of Toyota’s signature hybrid system in a luxury rear-drive package that’s smaller than this car’s ES bigger brother.

While it may feel capable thanks to the lighter suspension components and altered track that the brand has committed to for this update, the hybrid drive matches this car’s softer character brought about by its gentle suspension tune and light steering.

This is an easy car to drive around a city, it filters out bumps nicely, while offering near silence in the cabin and breezy steering for every day scenarios like manoeuvring in tight parking lots.

The CVT auto and instantaneous torque available from the electric motor make it best at traffic speeds, being both reactive and predictable, with silent acceleration when inching forward at the lights or cruising along at 50km/h.

As you might expect though, the wheezy Atkinson cycle engine and CVT conspire for a noisy and less than engaging experience under heavy acceleration.

It’s not as though you’re rewarded with particular vigour either, with this combination being a bit sluggish when a lot is asked of it.

It loses its reactivity and refinement at higher speeds or in the corners on country roads as the transmission elastically tries to keep up with the demands of the driver.

Still, few luxury sedans are quite as purpose-built for the toils of a city, and if you want to get drawn into this car’s hybrid drive antics, it’s easy to make a game out of saving fuel by trying to rely on its low-speed electric motor capability.

Really then, it leans into its urban luxury appeal. A luxury sedan for the streets of Tokyo. An ideal car in this class for the urban environment.

If you don’t care for the thrill of a turbocharger or frequently seek to explore the twists of your nearest B-road, you could do worse than the comfort and ambiance the 300h offers.

A full active safety suite is now standard across the IS range, including freeway-speed auto emergency braking with pedestrian detection (works during the day and at night) and cyclist detection (works during the day only), and a new intersection braking feature, lane keep assist with lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert with reverse auto braking, traffic sign recognition, adaptive cruise control, and auto high-beam assist.

There is also an auto SOS function, as recently added to the Toyota Yaris Cross, which automatically triggers if an airbag is deployed. On the topic of airbags, every IS has a thorough suite of 10 (dual front, dual side, quad head, dual front knee).

This all adds up with the standard array of stability, brake, and traction controls for a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating, although the IS was last assessed way back in 2016.

The IS is built in Japan.

The UX comes with a five-year/unlimited km warranty but the battery is covered by a 10-year or up to 160,000km warranty, which is better than most in this class.

This also comes with a five-year capped-priced servicing plan where services cost a flat $295, which is good but the servicing intervals are more in line with a fuel-based car at every 12-months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first. It’s typical to see intervals stretched out at every two years for an EV.

Lexus also throws in a few sweeteners for owners with three-year complimentary subscriptions to both ChargeFox and Lexus Connected Services, as well as, installation of an at-home wall charger. It’s not often you see the word ‘complimentary’ coupled with a luxury brand, so that’s a nice touch.

Lexus gets slightly ahead of the luxury pack with an extra year of warranty. While BMW and Audi still sit on three, Lexus offers four, but it is limited to 100,000km and is still outdone by Mercedes-Benz and Korean newcomer, Genesis, offering five-year/unlimited kilometre promises.

The IS has capped price servicing fixed at $495 for the first three years of ownership with roadside assist, and the brand will even pick up and drop off your car, or offer a free loan car during every 12 month or 15,000km service.

It’s worth noting that German rivals offer pre-paid service packages out to five years, and Genesis is trying to make a splash with free servicing.

Lexus does offer a luxury ownership program dubbed ‘Encore’ which includes invites to experiences and certain partnerships with restaurants and the like to keep potential owners enticed.