Lexus Reserve

[larryadler]

Well there we go then, what does this actually say, I think you’re ahead of me?

This confirms that electric vehicles are the future ( as long as you don’t want to go very far) and if you shell out you wedge of cash for an RZ or a UX electric, when you go on your holidays, Lexus will give you a Hybrid vehicle free of charge, for up to 42 days, because you EV ain’t gonna get you there without multiple charging.

Both vehicle already have 0% finance and £2k off, now it’s a free hybrid as an inducement to purchase.

Is this not, a clear admission that the future, at this present time, is not electric, except in certain circumstances, ie short journeys, and local trips.

This new Lexus Reserve I am sure will be beneficial to certain people, but what a pee take!

[RONNIE W HODGEKINSON]

8 minutes ago, larryadler said:

Well there we go then, what does this actually say, I think you’re ahead of me?

This confirms that electric vehicles are the future ( as long as you don’t want to go very far) and if you shell out you wedge of cash for an RZ or a UX electric, when you go on your holidays, Lexus will give you a Hybrid vehicle free of charge, for up to 42 days, because you EV ain’t gonna get you there without multiple charging.

Both vehicle already have 0% finance and £2k off, now it’s a free hybrid as an inducement to purchase.

Is this not, a clear admission that the future, at this present time, is not electric, except in certain circumstances, ie short journeys, and local trips.

This new Lexus Reserve I am sure will be beneficial to certain people, but what a pee take!

Could,not Agree More..!!

[H3XME]

7 minutes ago, larryadler said:

Well there we go then, what does this actually say, I think you’re ahead of me?

This confirms that electric vehicles are the future ( as long as you don’t want to go very far) and if you shell out you wedge of cash for an RZ or a UX electric, when you go on your holidays, Lexus will give you a Hybrid vehicle free of charge, for up to 42 days, because you EV ain’t gonna get you there without multiple charging.

Both vehicle already have 0% finance and £2k off, now it’s a free hybrid as an inducement to purchase.

Is this not, a clear admission that the future, at this present time, is not electric, except in certain circumstances, ie short journeys, and local trips.

This new Lexus Reserve I am sure will be beneficial to certain people, but what a pee take!

It's absolutely ridiculous it's got to this point. I mean it's absolutely GOOD that they will lend you a regular car for long journeys, but it just shows how far we are technologically from being able to use EV's the same way we use ICE/Hybrid cars in a feasible manner.. 100% agree it just makes you want to buy a hybrid in the first place.

[katabrontes]

In fairness to EVs, of which I remain a sceptic, I saw a Tesla yesterday in Sainte-Foy-la Grande which is about 400 miles from St Malo and there are several Tesla fast charging stations on the motorways (E3/A10)  - very unusual to see any, or more than one or two, on these banks of about 12 chargers.

[H3XME]

4 minutes ago, katabrontes said:

In fairness to EVs, of which I remain a sceptic, I saw a Tesla yesterday in Sainte-Foy-la Grande which is about 400 miles from St Malo and there are several Tesla fast charging stations on the motorways (E3/A10)  - very unusual to see any, or more than one or two, on these banks of about 12 chargers.

Arguably Tesla alone have a better charging network than everyone else combined. And the problem is also the fact that not all chargers are compatible with all EVs. Sure you can get to most places in both EV & ICE/Hybrids, but the stopping every 250 miles is going to set you back some time if you're travelling far enough. Either way, EVs should stay as alternatives to city folks, but it should never ever be a hard replacement for normal engines.

[John Adams]

All I can say is I have done plenty of long trips in my RZ since the update and haven't had a problem. Sure, I have to stop every couple of hours to charge but I also have to stop for a cuppa and the loo so 30-40 minutes is not a problem.

Each to his own but I am sold on ev's but not the way Lexus introduced the RZ. My next car will definitely be an ev, but not a Lexus

[J Henderson]

Well, kudos to Lexus, I guess. Of course this scheme will be first and foremost, a marketing tactic to remove one of the obstacles that might be in the way of Joe Public buying one of their EVs. But, I give them credit for at least acknowledging the problem instead of burying their heads in the sand about it.

EVs have their place, but covering long distances in an efficient manner clearly isn't one of them. Not with the current technology and infrastructure.

Imagine what life would be like if all those vehicles currently transporting goods and services across the country, were forced to stop every couple of hours for 30-40mins. It would be an absolute shambles.

Some of the things we've grown accustomed to, would be thrown into chaos, or at a minimum, severely disrupted - Fresh produce on the shelves when the shops open? Next-day delivery for your online purchases? Newspaper through your letterbox at 7am? Forget it!

[GSLV6]

After looking into it, and looking at stops for some journeys coming up this year, I decided that EV despite all the claims, is unviable for my uses, because even if you can plan in charging stops and book in advance then there is the question of:

• having to load loads of different operators apps on the phone, linking them to a credit card
• arriving often to find charging points unavailable or out of use
• even if you do find one, waiting several hours (potentially) instead of a 5 minute splash and dash for petrol, is going to add significantly to journey times
• range anxiety WILL at some point become a reality when charging points cannot be had at planned stops

and the REALLY big kicker:

• Battery packs are warranted for usually no more than 500-700 cycles or 6 years.  Cost to replace say a 70KW pack is between £4,500 and £6,500 which many owners tend to forget.  Sure, you can probably carry on using them for a few more years but effective capacity will be much reduced by then, so your 250 mile range now may well be closer to 150 in 6 years time, no different to the LiIon battery pack in your phones
• Winter use means a chunk of energy goes into heating the batteries as LiIon doesn't do well in the cold
• A hot summer means cooling the batteries is needed to avoid the odd fire!

We're not there yet and won't be until something more eco friendly than Lithium is used (the devastation it causes to the environment when mined, the effects on the health of the slave labour in China (predominantly) and pollution when spent (only a small proportion are actually recycled).  Hybrid I think is the best we can hope for until then, but even then a well designed smaller capacity petrol engine carries far less weight and overall, even though the green minded won't like to agree, is by far the most efficient/cleanest means of motive power for cars presently.  I'll stick with hybrid for now.

[larryadler]

I couldn’t have put it better myself Paul, a spot on assessment.

I did watch some motoring guru on YouTube last week, and when asked if EV’s were the future, he stated, No, EV’s are the present, who knows what the future holds, sound words too.

[wivenhoe]

GSLV6 - I have a RZ and agree with some of your points, but my ownership over the past year have shown a few of them to be outdated as things have moved on. 

Zap Map is an excellent App which fully integrates in CarPlay - on the hoof you can get it to display the local chargers, their speed and current availability. It even gives how long a charger has been used for, so if they are all in use you’ll know roughly when the first will become available. You can select a site and then Zap Map will use Maps to Google Maps to navigate you to an available charge. The cost is given as well. Recent EV’s will charge from 20% to 80% in less than 30 mins so chargers become free fairly quickly, not hours.

Tesla have opened up a lot of their Supercharger sites to non Tesla’s so that helps availability. 
 
When I bought my car, Lexus were saying the Battery would be 90% at 10 years or 100,000 miles. I think now they are warranting 80% at 8 years, the change due to an increase in range. My range now is about 220 so 80% would be 180 although if they are warranting that, the expectation will be nearer the 90% announced. 

As the RZ has heated seats and radiant heaters, heating takes little range and even with the Auto on, the range only drops say 10 miles. Even at the lowest temperatures last winter the range drop was negligible - I think a lot of the reports regards significant drops are in temperatures much lower than we generally get in the UK.

I’m sure most readers of this RX forum will not be persuaded switching into an EV but I thought I should just set down my experience. I had 4 plug-ins before the RZ, all of which I bought for tax purposes or for the acceleration !
 

[H3XME]

14 hours ago, GSLV6 said:

After looking into it, and looking at stops for some journeys coming up this year, I decided that EV despite all the claims, is unviable for my uses, because even if you can plan in charging stops and book in advance then there is the question of:

• having to load loads of different operators apps on the phone, linking them to a credit card
• arriving often to find charging points unavailable or out of use
• even if you do find one, waiting several hours (potentially) instead of a 5 minute splash and dash for petrol, is going to add significantly to journey times
• range anxiety WILL at some point become a reality when charging points cannot be had at planned stops

and the REALLY big kicker:

• Battery packs are warranted for usually no more than 500-700 cycles or 6 years.  Cost to replace say a 70KW pack is between £4,500 and £6,500 which many owners tend to forget.  Sure, you can probably carry on using them for a few more years but effective capacity will be much reduced by then, so your 250 mile range now may well be closer to 150 in 6 years time, no different to the LiIon battery pack in your phones
• Winter use means a chunk of energy goes into heating the batteries as LiIon doesn't do well in the cold
• A hot summer means cooling the batteries is needed to avoid the odd fire!

We're not there yet and won't be until something more eco friendly than Lithium is used (the devastation it causes to the environment when mined, the effects on the health of the slave labour in China (predominantly) and pollution when spent (only a small proportion are actually recycled).  Hybrid I think is the best we can hope for until then, but even then a well designed smaller capacity petrol engine carries far less weight and overall, even though the green minded won't like to agree, is by far the most efficient/cleanest means of motive power for cars presently.  I'll stick with hybrid for now.

100% Agree.
Toyota have it sussed out. Just look at this. Can't argue with it.

[GSLV6]

11 hours ago, wivenhoe said:

GSLV6 - I have a RZ and agree with some of your points, but my ownership over the past year have shown a few of them to be outdated as things have moved on. 

Zap Map is an excellent App which fully integrates in CarPlay - on the hoof you can get it to display the local chargers, their speed and current availability. It even gives how long a charger has been used for, so if they are all in use you’ll know roughly when the first will become available. You can select a site and then Zap Map will use Maps to Google Maps to navigate you to an available charge. The cost is given as well. Recent EV’s will charge from 20% to 80% in less than 30 mins so chargers become free fairly quickly, not hours.

Tesla have opened up a lot of their Supercharger sites to non Tesla’s so that helps availability. 
 
When I bought my car, Lexus were saying the battery would be 90% at 10 years or 100,000 miles. I think now they are warranting 80% at 8 years, the change due to an increase in range. My range now is about 220 so 80% would be 180 although if they are warranting that, the expectation will be nearer the 90% announced. 

As the RZ has heated seats and radiant heaters, heating takes little range and even with the Auto on, the range only drops say 10 miles. Even at the lowest temperatures last winter the range drop was negligible - I think a lot of the reports regards significant drops are in temperatures much lower than we generally get in the UK.

I’m sure most readers of this RX forum will not be persuaded switching into an EV but I thought I should just set down my experience. I had 4 plug-ins before the RZ, all of which I bought for tax purposes or for the acceleration !
 

I get the claims, as most manufacturers claim similar but the reality (from research) shows that most owners of earlier EVs find that the loss is greater than 10% at 10 years, and there's no denying the lie of the green arguments for them.  There's nothing wrong with EVs for those that like them and enjoy them (and why not?  It's personal choice) but no-one really has to be convinced as the data is there for anyone to find.  They're not sustainable, and as gimmicky (or essential, depending on the pov) and perhaps helpful as the apps like Z Map are, it's no substitute for pulling into the nearest petrol station to top up.  The map apps won't always reliably tell you how many are in service or are free.  I've been talking to several neighbours who own EVs and one has bought another diesel after their frankly stressful attempts at longer distance journeys which they do often for work.  Their long term ownership of EVs convinced them that they will use their ICE car for the longer trips now and they use their EV for more local journeys which is where they score the highest.  They wished now that they'd bought a hybrid instead of having two cars on the driveway where one would have done.  The choice I guess is made depending on use and affordability.  (incidentally, their diesel is cheaper too to run).

As for arguments that infrastructure will catch up, well it's had over ten years to do that and is no-where near, it's disparate due to the number of operators and poorly regulated (on service) with arguably Tesla owners being the only ones  benefitting from more reliable pull in and top up (which is paid for with the car purchase, or used to be).

[wivenhoe]

EV’s and PHEV’s currently not really suitable for ‘road warriors’ neither are petrol or diesels for urban / town driving. I had 4 PHEV’s before the EV and on long journeys a fairly small 2.0 litre engine was carting around added weight in the Battery after about 25 miles. You’ll know what I mean as you drive a 450h. It really is ‘horses for courses’ 

[GSLV6]

I reckon on getting close on 350 miles between top ups from the RX, and it's managing low to mid 30's on mpg so not the cheapest to run but for all that, there's nothing else I'd want to drive presently.  I really do not like the push to ever more reliance on electronics and comms and all the hassles the added complexity brings to ownership and use, albeit it does have it's useful sides too.  The added tech seems for may to be bringing more stresses, not less, and more personal investment too.  We may replace our 2nd car with an EV at some point for the more local trips but it won't be a Lexus, it'll be a cheaper used smaller car.  For the minute our bullet proof honda 1.8 e-VVTi will go on for many years to come and has far less to go wrong (plus is cheaper than many EV's per mile).