New 2024 Lexus LBX small SUV all set for reveal

VSR · June 1, 2023

I actually do see a market for the LBX, yes it will cannibalize the UX sales a little bit, it will also be able to compete with the Audi A1, Audi Q2, BMW 1 Series , A Class (older A class buyers), those who don't company car buy. Those looking to part x a lexus CT but the UX is a bit too dear for them. I think they will sell well on the mobility scheme. I can see younger drivers liking the LBX, as the UK is more aimed at those in their late 30's, i see the LBX appealing to those with young families in their late 20's who may buy a juke but have deeper pockets. I personally would rather a new IS300h coming to the uk, but i guess this will do as well.

Linas.P · June 1, 2023

4 hours ago, VSR said:

LBX appealing to those with young families in their late 20's who may buy a juke but have deeper pockets.

Yes, but... it just means Toyotas are getting too expensive. LBX is downgrade from CT, UX should not be "aspirations thing" either... it is literally one of the smallest and cheapest "premium" cars... how it cost £40k I have no clue... and I have no clue why and who buys them. Not strictly speaking because it is bad car, but how it makes sense to pay such money I just don't know. There is no explanation.

And there is absolutely no comparison between LBX and Juke - Juke is whole class above, it is equivalent to UX if not a little bit more practical (somehow they shaped it in such way that it has more space)... and to be fair whereas I really hated hard on old Juke, the current one looks alright and at £20k starting price I do see the point of it. I would not like to own either, but if tiny cross-over is your thing, then Juke is pretty much the cheapest way into the game without buying something extremely bland like Dacia Duster (which by the way not much cheaper at £17k)...

Which goes back to exactly the point I made - Toyota looked at CHR and Nissan Juke and thought - "alright CHR is clearly way too expensive for what it is as Nissan Juke is arguably better car and better value for money, but we can't just discount it... we need a cheaper car"... so they made Yaris-Cross. The whole point of it's existence is to BE CHEAP... now Lexus took the car which is otherwise shaite and only exist to be a value proposition and turn it into "luxury" tin can on the wheels... not only it isn't Luxury or Premium, but it isn't even good value.. so they removed the sole reason why the car exists in the first place!

Linas.P · June 5, 2023

So as all details have been revealed now I am still sticking to my verdict. It is wrong car for wrong brand and despite price not being revealed yet it is certainly going to be over £30k and knowing how UK prices work I reckon over £35k.

Now on positive note I think it looks good, it does mostly look like hatchback which is lifted, so perhaps for people who wanted to replace CT it will be an option. I mean that is what crossover suppose to be - something between SUV and hatchback. So looks wise - it is actually alright, although considering how utterly ugly is Yaris Cross it isn't much of achievement to improve upon it.

Now looking at the details revealed... there are plenty of red-flags talking exactly about what is wrong with Lexus. I don't know if they are ignorant or they are preaching to ignorant, probably both... the problem is that real car enthusiasts are dying breed and most of the people nowadays are just clueless.

Here are few examples:

Quote

The improved battery initially gives "electric car" like performance

They talking about the car which does 0-60 in 9.2s... what electric car?! A milk van from 1980s? "Electric car like" - I would say should be well under 6s. The slowest Tesla is 6.5s if I am not mistaken and from there on everything else is much faster. Even the horrible UX300e is 7.3s which really doesn't even count as electric car.

Then there are other statements like:

Quote

Sound proofing adds weight so instead we focused on reducing the noise sources

They literally preaching to morons! One of the differences between premium, mainstream and economy cars are the amount of sound deadening. This is why when driving premium car it is difficult to feel speed and sometimes I am speeding without realising it, just because car is so well insulated... yet in economy car it lacks all that and even doing 60 on motorway feels like you are about to fly off the road because of all noises. Remember LBX is based on most basic economy shaite-box and it seems Lexus kept it as it was... So in short - don't expect any luxury or premium feeling when driving it. But Lexus tries to turn this into some sort of positive.

Then there was a claim about supposed "Eco friendliness of it" - apparently it is under 120g/co2... which is TRASH! IS300h from 2013 was rated at 99-108g/co2... so how comes this trash box with 1.5L engines isn't beating it. Anything over 50g would be unacceptable and they boasting about 120g! Well sure they said "under" so it may as well be 50g, but just weird they pick 120g as starting point then. I guess what I am trying to say - engine in LBX is not sophisticated, but rather cheap engine designed for the cheapest of economy cars.

All in all - the car that does no need to exist and that Lexus does not need in their line-up... instead of giving us something interesting they are feeding some fashion trash to people who are even more ignorant then they are themselves. I guess I am just disappointed that once great brand is now turning into complete failure.

Basically if we take that picture with ape evolution where apes turned into humans and then at some point evolution reversed, then I think same could be done with cars. Cars have been improving for over 100 years and Lexus LS400 was probably the pinnacle of car evolution, build quality, engineering etc. and since then Lexus made great cars for maybe decade or two... and now we clearly going backwards with each coming year.

davidif · June 5, 2023

Safe to say that Linus Isn't convinced 🤣

Gary H · June 5, 2023

I have to say I wasn't overly impressed from the 'taster' pictures we had and I'm still not impressed with what we see now in the official pictures – either inside or out. The dashboard looks rather plain and simple.

Obviously my feelings towards it may change after seeing it in the metal but for now at least, it’s not something I'd consider or a route I thought Lexus would end up going down. It very much seems to be a way of devaluing the brand and what it stands for, but I suppose they’re going for increased sales. Time will tell.

As for price - if it's upwards of £30k for a base model, then that's just insane. I paid just under £40k for my UX F-Sport with the Premium Plus Pack, Tech & Safety Pack and Adventure Pro Pack...and I already thought the UX was slightly overpriced three years ago.

Las Palmas · June 5, 2023

13cm less long than the CT, not higher, could be interesting. The CT is fine; will not last forever though still drives like new. Does not look like the UX, which is good in my eyes. Might be too cramped on rear seat, the little one normally will get bigger but will have to see it, UX less spacious on rear seat than CT, wife did not fit comfortable on seat behind driver and she is not big. Car for us is 95% used for shorter tours, school, supermarkets, swimming. Once monthly to a vegetable market a bit up on the island.

Funny that most written on the new car is about power and that is outright stupid. It is a city car and who want to lose driver's licence? Much less about inside space. Same type Battery as in CT (no Li-Ion). Much good is to say about it.

Do not like touch screens, they tend to get dirty,

I do appreciate finding a parking space for a small car, close to not that difficult, whereas finding parking space here for the big SUV's is like winning in lottery.

Las Palmas · June 5, 2023

4 hours ago, Linas.P said:

One of the differences between premium, mainstream and economy cars are the amount of sound deadening. This is why when driving premium car it is difficult to feel speed and sometimes I am speeding without realising it, just because car is so well insulated... yet in economy car it lacks all that and even doing 60 on motorway feels like you are about to fly off the road because of all noises. Remember LBX is based on most basic economy shaite-box and it seems Lexus kept it as it was... So in short - don't expect any luxury or premium feeling when driving it. But Lexus tries to turn this into some sort of positive.

Then there was a claim about supposed "Eco friendliness of it" - apparently it is under 120g/co2... which is TRASH! IS300h from 2013 was rated at 99-108g/co2... so how comes this trash box with 1.5L engines isn't beating it. Anything over 50g would be unacceptable and they boasting about 120g! Well sure they said "under" so it may as well be 50g, but just weird they pick 120g as starting point then. I guess what I am trying to say - engine in LBX is not sophisticated, but rather cheap engine designed for the cheapest of economy cars.

All in all - the car that does no need to exist and that Lexus does not need in their line-up... instead of giving us something interesting they are feeding some fashion trash to people who are even more ignorant then they are themselves. I guess I am just disappointed that once great brand is now turning into complete failure.

Basically if we take that picture with ape evolution where apes turned into humans and then at some point evolution reversed, then I think same could be done with cars. Cars have been improving for over 100 years and Lexus LS400 was probably the pinnacle of car evolution, build quality, engineering etc. and since then Lexus made great cars for maybe decade or two... and now we clearly going backwards with each coming year.

Much of what you mention is correct, only different people have different wishes.

The CT is not a premium car and still very much OK. Sound proofing is hardly existing in it which was easy to see when changing from Pirelli P7 to Continental UltraContact, now road noise is about half and if the car had been sound proofed the difference between the tyres would have been less.

ECO friendliness is some bull**** all are talking about and do not really do anything to get.

Last point you have here is very correct. Since LS Lexus quality has been going down. Maybe for the reason that people tend to change cars pretty often and few of the first-time buyers will keep their cars longer than they will still be covered by warranty.

DavidCM · June 5, 2023

First of all...not another SUV.

However,in the photos(both in and out),it looks quite pleasant to me.. nothing too out of the ordinary,but not too weird either.

It looks quite nice,if you want that sort of thing.

Linas.P · June 5, 2023

1 hour ago, Las Palmas said:

Much of what you mention is correct, only different people have different wishes.

The CT is not a premium car and still very much OK. Sound proofing is hardly existing in it which was easy to see when changing from Pirelli P7 to Continental UltraContact, now road noise is about half and if the car had been sound proofed the difference between the tyres would have been less.

ECO friendliness is some bull**** all are talking about and do not really do anything to get.

Last point you have here is very correct. Since LS Lexus quality has been going down. Maybe for the reason that people tend to change cars pretty often and few of the first-time buyers will keep their cars longer than they will still be covered by warranty.

Sound proofing in CT was mainstream, same as equivalent Golf, Corolla, Mazda3 etc. The Auris (on which CT was based) was maybe slightly better than Corolla, but just barely. The economy cars which are step down from more mainstream models like Yaris are the type of cars where you hear everything, every panel rattling, every stone hitting the underside of the car etc. That is what Yaris is - bare bones shaite box on the wheel, made to be cheap and comfort or anything else apart of cheap price are last priorities.

Different people may have different wishes, but I hope all reasonable people want to get best car for their money and ideally "A GOOD CAR" generally. LBX is neither, it is not good car and it is horrible value for money. I completely agree with you that some people may want smaller car for city and that is fine, but again I hope they want "good little car" and not just any car where they are overpaying for the badge despite it not being "improved" over the car it is based on. What was the price of new CT? I thought at launch it was something like £23k? This will be model whole class below it for over £30k.

And yes I do agree that for the car it is - a city car, basically a shopping car with the engine... the performance figures are not important and as you said it seems they should have talked more about practicality and maybe fuel economy... but in typical Lexus fashion they trying to sell this as some sort of "sports car". Not going to repeat my charade about IS300h, but the issue was the same - as a car IS300h is fine car, it just isn't sporty or fast, if Lexus wouldn't have marketed it as such and claimed that "300 stands for equivalent performance to 3L engine" it would have been fine.

As well - look how hard they are trying to portray it as "premium". This is literally the cheapest and worst car Toyota currently makes (Aygo = Citroen C1, build by joint venture in CZ using Daihatsu engine, not even sure it is right to call it Toyota)... there is nothing premium about it. BUT in all press picture they chosen this "Rose Gold" colour to make it look more premium - sorry Toyota you fooling nothing. Pig with lipstick is still a pig.

dutchie01 · June 5, 2023

Maybe in the flesh it will be different but for now i will pass.

styling very conservative and predictable on the brink of boring. Drivetrain likewise and underpowered. Overall not a very competitive package me thinks. Competition in this segment is fierce. Ex30, crv, countryman, tiguan, q2, x1 etc etc. This one will not sell well thats my prediction.

cadman2k · June 5, 2023

The Lexus marketing personnel have confidence that it will sell well within Europe so you would expect that is based on well researched information within market trends and not just a best guess.

New cars within a brand have quite a high cost for development, especially if using unique parts.

Although it has simalarities to Yaris cross same engine tweaked along with drivetrain it looks as though it is quite unique with bodyparts / interior etc. Would be interesting to know how many millions have been spent in development.

Theres a What car first impression video worth a look at for initial views which has more detailed information above the lexus launch video

https://youtu.be/Q2PiZ2k0hYM

Linas.P · June 5, 2023

43 minutes ago, cadman2k said:

The Lexus marketing personnel have confidence that it will sell well within Europe so you would expect that is based on well researched information within market trends and not just a best guess.

New cars within a brand have quite a high cost for development, especially if using unique parts.

Although it has simalarities to Yaris cross same engine tweaked along with drivetrain it looks as though it is quite unique with bodyparts / interior etc. Would be interesting to know how many millions have been spent in development.

Theres a What car first impression video worth a look at for initial views which has more detailed information above the lexus launch video

https://youtu.be/Q2PiZ2k0hYM

I doubt much was spent... as it is kind of the point of badge engineering. If Lexus really wanted to spend loads of money developing a car then they wouldn't have picked Yaris Cross, they would have made one from grounds up and wouldn't need to talk around lacking sound insulation. Or "electric car like" acceleration when it simply isn't. I know it is not quite fair comparison but BMW i8 managers 4.4s with 1.5L engine and Battery from 10 years ago. I am not expecting 4s from shopping cart, but I just don't understand what was the point of statement, why pretend it is sporty when it clearly isn't and to be fair doesn't need to be.

So yes I am sure they spent maybe a $50 million on developing it, but in terms of car development that isn't that much, the car is still basically Yaris Cross with different styling. I am no expert, but I red somewhere that stamping die manufacturing costs ~ $500k-2milliom. If we estimate that car has say 9 unique pan panels and average a little bit... then we talking ~$20 million for the body panels. Interiors and electrical part are subcontracted anyway, so it does not cost Lexus anything to develop it, they just have to commit to order certain number of units. Now assuming LBX will cost at least £5,000 more that Yaris Cross (~£34k) then they need to sell just around 10,000 cars to break even and after that is pure profit.

As I said before... the reason LBX exist is basically because Toyota are way too expensive nowadays. Damn shaitbox Yaris Cross costs £24-29k... and they did realise that any more than that and they are in BMW territory, nobody would buy Toyota supermini for £35k, but now that it has Lexus badge on it... perhaps it is okey?!

Gary H · June 11, 2023

On 6/5/2023 at 4:44 PM, Las Palmas said:

13cm less long than the CT, not higher, could be interesting. The CT is fine; will not last forever though still drives like new. Does not look like the UX, which is good in my eyes. Might be too cramped on rear seat, the little one normally will get bigger but will have to see it, UX less spacious on rear seat than CT, wife did not fit comfortable on seat behind driver and she is not big. Car for us is 95% used for shorter tours, school, supermarkets, swimming. Once monthly to a vegetable market a bit up on the island.

That’s one of the reasons why I’m moving to the NX from the UX. It’s not that the UX has been too small for me over the last three years and three months. For me to commute back and forth to work in and for the odd day trip out, the majority of it’s life with me, it's been absolutely great. It’s just on those occasions where I’ve had overnight/two night stays away and rear seat passengers it’s sadly proven to be just 'a bit' too small for my needs. Especially where boot space is concerned - which has always been the biggest drawback of the UX for me. If the rear cabin was about 10% bigger and the boot about 20/25% bigger - I’d have been quite happy to order another UX. The LBX would simply be too small for me - so I think it would be aimed at a kind-of 'premium supermini' market. I’m struggling to think how it will be marketed in this respect. As I've said before, the UX is about as small Lexus should have gone in my humble opinion.

Mincey · June 11, 2023

1 hour ago, Gary H said:

As I've said before, the UX is about as small Lexus should have gone in my humble opinion.

I would concur. I had a UX as a loaner some time ago and was very put off by the lack of boot space. I guess they're doing it to keep up with similarly sized Scheissewagens?

Las Palmas · June 11, 2023

3 hours ago, Gary H said:

That’s one of the reasons why I’m moving to the NX from the UX. It’s not that the UX has been too small for me over the last three years and three months. For me to commute back and forth to work in and for the odd day trip out, the majority of it’s life with me, it's been absolutely great. It’s just on those occasions where I’ve had overnight/two night stays away and rear seat passengers it’s sadly proven to be just 'a bit' too small for my needs. Especially where boot space is concerned - which has always been the biggest drawback of the UX for me. If the rear cabin was about 10% bigger and the boot about 20/25% bigger - I’d have been quite happy to order another UX. The LBX would simply be too small for me - so I think it would be aimed at a kind-of 'premium supermini' market. I’m struggling to think how it will be marketed in this respect. As I've said before, the UX is about as small Lexus should have gone in my humble opinion.

Wife tried to sit on rear seat while front seat was adjusted to me and she never said the CT was having a great rear seat, but she said that the UX was uncomfortable. If rear seat in the new is as (much or little) comfortable as in the CT it could be OK. These are not really cars for touring through Europe or similar anyway. They are city cars and possible to find parking space to.