NX 450h+ inconsistent petrol and electric range

[Cicoria]

Hello everyone,

I have my NX 450h+ since late october and as of today I've put on her 4500 km.

My previous car was an UX 250h which I bought in 2019 and sold for the new NX because I needed more space, it was a very good car with low fuel consumption but the interior space was not acceptable sadly considered the size so eventually I had to buy a bigger model.

So, since I'm used to the previous UX I can say that I'm familiar with Lexus cars and ecosystem (the new infotainment is WAY better that the old one) and while so far I'm rather happy with the NX, I'm bothered by two things: the random estimations for the electric and petrol range and the excessive time the car spend with the petrol engine running (compared to the UX).

I need to hear from other owners if this behavior is normal for this car/model because the dealer and Lexus have been royally useless (I'm outside the UK). 

The range problem consists in the car horrifically underestimating the range I can get with the residual EV charge and petrol in the tank and this makes me nervous because I get low range figures when I have a lot of fuel in the tank, despite the average consumption of 16,5 km/L (38-39 mpg).

Every time I take the car, say that I drive for 15-20 km and the range goes down 60 km which is 3x more than the distance I traveled, but the thing that makes me mad is when I start with a full tank or so after resetting the avg consumption from the screen.

One day I took the car from the garage with the total range estimate at 690 km (included the EV range of 15 km) and I drove the car for a round trip of 340 km (211 miles) for a total consumption of 14 km/L (33 mpg) and when I parked the car in the evening the dashboard and the app said that the residual range was 180 km. The day after I drove the car again for another 40 km (25 miles) total with a way lower fuel consumption than the day before, because I didn't drove on the highway, and still I parked the car with a residual range of 120 km (74 miles).

Now the fun part: the day after I went to the petrol station to refuel and to my surprise I added 35 liters (7.7 gallons) because I still had 20 liters in the tank (4.4 gallons)!

The same happens with estimated EV range, because right now with 50% of Battery left I have an estimated range of 15 km (9.3 miles) and I've never ever been able to drive for the official figure of at least 70 km (44 miles), although I have to admit that I rarely charge the car because I can't do it in my garage (long story short: ordered a 350h but it was delayed to late 2024 with all the other 350h Luxury models and had to swap it for a 450h+ Luxury because otherwise I would've been without car after 1 year of waiting).

It's clear that there's something software wise that is acting up even though the dealer says that there are no errors and tried to reset "something" the last time I went there to collect the second key. 

Also, another thing that I noticed is that compared to the previous UX 250h, this NX keeps the petrol engine on a lot of time more even when the engine is at the right temperature after a highway trip, it's easy to turn it on even with bland accelerations. This translated is short trips, like 8-9 km to the supermarket, with a fuel consumption of 12 km/L (28 mpg) which goes down to 16,5 km/L (39 mpg) for the return trip on the same road, but then again if I take Lexus Link and watch both travels I see that the EV % usage is almost identical (35-39%).

With the UX on the same trip I had better fuel consumption, like 20% lower, but then again that car weighs 500 kg less than the NX so it's expected, right?

Overall I like this new NX but I dislike the massive presence of electronics, I feel like I'm driving a computer on wheels sometimes, but at least it's very comfortable and has a lot of power. 

 

[Xez]

Hi, I’m driving the same engine set up in my RX and experience similar misleading range figures. I believe that the overall range is being calculated based upon the in-car calculation of mpg (mine is currently showing approximately 66mpg). This is obviously being distorted by all the occasions where I’m driving purely on EV. Therefore I have seen an overall range in excess of 700 miles, only to see it falling rapidly as we travel on a long journey. The EV range versus real travelled miles I use as a very broad estimate as there’s so many factors that impact the actual outcome. So in summary I tend to ignore the EV range indicator but always refill the petrol when I see 2-3 bars remaining on the graphic.

I would like a more accurate range assessment to be displayed, and coming from a background of finance and IT, wouldn’t have thought it was too difficult for Lexus to provide given the car has a mass of data being collected. 
 

My ICE also runs during times when I’ve selected EV and still have available range, but having looked through the manual I can see that there are a number of different scenarios that would cause this to happen.

Hope you enjoy your car..

[Cicoria]

7 hours ago, Xez said:

Hi, I’m driving the same engine set up in my RX and experience similar misleading range figures. [...]

Thank you for your reply.

I almost never use pure EV mode, however I noticed that it doesn't matter if I achieve 5L/100 km or 8L/100 km fuel consumption, the range only goes down and more than the kilometers I have driven, that's why it's so irritating and misleading. I've never experienced something like this on any other manufacturer cars, it has to be said.

I would definitely enjoy my car more if there wasn't this source of pointless stress. 

I'll soon refuel because I have a 340 km trip tomorrow and currenty my range is 480 km with 74% of the tank...let's see how many liters I'll have to pump in until the tank is full.

[Cicoria]

2 hours ago, Cicoria said:

I'll soon refuel because I have a 340 km trip tomorrow and currenty my range is 480 km with 74% of the tank...let's see how many liters I'll have to pump in until the tank is full.

Update: I refueled and added 15L of petrol to completely fill it so the 74% tank figure before refueling was correct because there were 40L of petrol left.

In the end, it's the predicted range that is not to be trusted.