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How Far Can a 2024 Lexus RX 450h+ Go On Electricity Alone?

lexus lexus rx 450h2B 2024 01 exterior front angle scaled jpg 2024 Lexus RX450h+ | Cars.com photo by Aaron Bragman

The Lexus RX went on sale more than 20 years ago and is credited by many for being the first true luxury “crossover-style” SUV. Since then, it’s been the Lexus brand’s bestseller in the U.S., a massively popular SUV that can be a cushy family conveyance, a lovely personal luxury vehicle or anything in between. For the 2023 model year, it got a redesign, with bold new styling and a new interior with new tech and multimedia systems, and for 2024, it added something new: a plug-in hybrid version, the RX 450h+. The “h” in the name tells you it’s a hybrid, and the plus sign tells you it’s the plug-in version, which is different from the less expensive, less electrically-capable standard hybrid model.

Related: 2024 Lexus RX 450h+ PHEV Quick Spin: When You’re Not Ready for a Full EV

We’ve driven a number of Lexus and Toyota plug-in hybrids this year (Lexus is Toyota’s luxury brand, and they share many common hybrid-system components), and so far, all of them have overdelivered on their stated electric-only range. According to Lexus, a ‘24 RX 450h+ should be able to go 37 miles on electric power alone before the onboard gas engine kicks in to keep you moving. We wanted to see if that holds true in real-world driving.

lexus lexus rx 450h2B 2024 07 interior front row jpg 2024 Lexus RX450h+ | Cars.com photo by Aaron Bragman

The Ride

Resplendent in lovely Nori Green Pearl is the test vehicle, a new 2024 RX 450h+. It features a plug-in hybrid powertrain that combines a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine and two electric motors for standard all-wheel drive. Lexus says that it makes 304 system horsepower and can sprint from 0-60 mph in just 6.2 seconds, which is more than adequately quick. It uses a standard J1772 plug to recharge the onboard lithium-ion battery pack, which is larger than the nickel-metal-hydride pack still used in the regular RX 350h. If you put the RX 450h+ on a 240-volt Level 2 charger with adequate amperage, it’ll recharge the battery in about 2.5 hours using the car’s onboard 6.6-kilowatt charger, which is pretty typical for a PHEV.

Like other Lexus PHEVs, it has a few different modes to help maximize range. There’s an EV mode that will keep it in electric-only operation for as long as it has a charge, provided you don’t ask too much of it — floor the accelerator pedal, for instance, or go above a certain speed on the highway, and the gas engine will kick on as you’ve overwhelmed what the electric-only system can do. Or you can just keep it in Hybrid mode and let it decide what’s best, which usually means using up the electricity in the battery pack before the gas engine comes on, but sometimes means combining the two. You can also put it in Charge mode, which will charge the battery by running the gas engine — but that’s not an efficient way to recharge the battery, and the “use the gas engine constantly” mode is really best for highway driving, where high speeds and high wind resistance can drain the battery pretty quickly. Using the EV-only mode around town and the “keep charged” mode on the highway is usually the best strategy for vehicles such as this.

lexus lexus rx 450h2B 2024 03 exterior rear angle scaled jpg 2024 Lexus RX450h+ | Cars.com photo by Aaron Bragman

The rest of the RX 450h+ is fairly standard stuff that’s available in the rest of the RX lineup. The PHEV only comes in the Luxury grade of the pantheon of RX trims (base, Premium, Premium Plus, Luxury and F Sport). That means it comes pretty much loaded with all the bells and whistles available on an RX, including things like a head-up display, perforated semi-aniline leather interior, heated and ventilated front and rear seats, ambient lighting, a heated wood-and-leather steering wheel and a panoramic glass roof. A 21-speaker Mark Levinson premium audio system is one of the few options. The starting price of this variant is $70,580 (all prices include destination fee), and the as-tested price is $76,505.

The Route

When testing PHEVs, I use a standardized route that starts in Ann Arbor, Mich., and proceeds east on surface streets that combine stop-and-go urban traffic with higher-speed divided boulevards to Dearborn, Mich., just outside Detroit proper. Speed limits on the route do not top 55 mph, and actual speeds are always kept within 5 mph of the posted limit. No sudden acceleration or deceleration is used, climate controls are kept off to reduce the likelihood of the engine kicking on and windows are kept up to maximize aerodynamic efficiency. Other than that, the goal is to drive as normally as possible, with no hypermiling strategies like super-slow acceleration. We like to keep up with traffic, not be a rolling roadblock.

Weather conditions for this test were perfect — sunny, not too warm, not too cold, calm winds. All that was left was to charge it up, make sure the gas tank was full and the tires were set to their recommended cold pressures, and see just what the RX 450h+ could deliver.

lexus lexus rx 450h2B 2024 09 interior instrument panel scaled jpg 2024 Lexus RX450h+ | Cars.com photo by Aaron Bragman

The Results

I set off with the Lexus telling me that it had 37 miles of electric range before it would need to use the gas engine to keep me going, pretty much exactly what the vehicle is rated to get. By the time that meter had gone to zero and the 2.5-liter four-banger sprang to life, the odometer read 43.6 miles traveled, or nearly 18% better than the all-electric range the RX 450h+ is rated to achieve. This tracks with our experiences with other Lexus and Toyota vehicles, such as the Lexus TX 550h+ and the Toyota Prius Prime, both of which also significantly overdelivered on electric-only range tests without much effort on the driver’s part. When the juice runs out, the RX’s four-cylinder engine kicks on to keep you going, and the SUV is manufacturer-rated at 36/33/35 mpg city/highway/combined, which seems reasonable for a mid-size luxury SUV like this.

And it must be said, the driving experience of this RX PHEV is quite nice. All of the new Lexus models are delightful to drive, with quiet operation, a smooth ride and well-balanced handling. As far as the actual luxuriousness of the cabin, I tend to find them not nearly as nice as Lexus models used to be, with a cheaper feel that the expensive RX 450h+ sadly does not avoid.

lexus lexus rx 450h2B 2024 10 interior instrument panel scaled jpg 2024 Lexus RX450h+ | Cars.com photo by Aaron Bragman

But like all PHEVs that have a regular hybrid variant, the real question is whether spending the extra money for the extended electric range and larger battery of the PHEV makes financial sense. The RX 450h+ starts at nearly $10,000 more than a RX 350h Luxury, which has a slightly better fuel economy rating of 37/34/36 mpg. You have to drive a lot of electric-only miles to recoup the extra coin for an RX 450h+, but some folks just prefer the silent operation of a PHEV in electric-only mode for the vast majority of their daily use and having that gasoline backup for longer voyages. For them, a new 2024 RX 450h+ should work nicely.

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Aaron Bragman
Detroit Bureau Chief Aaron Bragman has had over 25 years of experience in the auto industry as a journalist, analyst, purchasing agent and program manager. Bragman grew up around his father’s classic Triumph sports cars (which were all sold and gone when he turned 16, much to his frustration) and comes from a Detroit family where cars put food on tables as much as smiles on faces. Today, he’s a member of the Automotive Press Association and the Midwest Automotive Media Association. His pronouns are he/him, but his adjectives are fat/sassy.
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