Lexus Teases All-New Electric SUV With Design Cues From LF-30 Concept

Some chose to lay low and keep quiet about it while, in the background, they hurried to get things ready and release an EV of their own, but not Lexus. Toyota's luxury division was among those who spoke out against battery-powered EVs and advertised its hybrids as a better alternative for the eco-friendly driver.

Well, it looks like not even Lexus can hide from what seems like wide-spread electrification anymore, with the company talking more and more about ditching internal combustion engines altogether. It all started with the LF-30 Electrified concept introduced at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show, but now, one year later, Lexus is following that up by teasing a battery-powered SUV that seemingly borrows some design cues from the show car.

A switch to electric power warrants some changes to the design of the vehicles, particularly in the case of Lexus, a brand whose identity relies so heavily on the size and shape of the radiator grille these days. Since EVs don't need all that air shoved under the hood but will benefit from a low drag coefficient, it's clear Lexus designers would have to find different solutions for the brand's EVs.

Well, the upcoming model is only shown in a few dark shots that don't really reveal that much, but the little we can see suggests the lit-up Lexus logo, that central apron, the slim headlights, and the big vents below them that we've seen on the LF-30 might make a comeback with this yet-unnamed model that should be revealed in the first quarter of 2021.

In an interview published on Lexus' YouTube channel, Takashi Watanabe, Lexus electrified chief engineer, and Koichi Suga, chief designer at Lexus talk about the DIRECT4 drivetrain, the dual-motor setup the company is seemingly going to use for its electric vehicles.

Lexus goes into a lot of detail about DIRECT4, but it's really nothing new for anyone who's been keeping tabs on the evolution of electric vehicles. The Japanese company insists on how it will allow the vehicle to jostle the power around between axles and each individual wheel to offer the best possible driving experience - the kind of PR talk you would expect from a company that's lagging behind.

The nearly 13-minutes-long video includes some footage of a heavily camouflaged compact SUV while the info on the screen informs us it's equipped with two motors, each developing 204 PS (201 hp/150 kW) and 221 lb-ft (300 Nm) of torque. However, we don't know whether the final production car will retain the same characteristics.

So far, things are looking good for the first-ever Lexus EV. However, we're still left in the dark in two key aspects: maximum range and price. It's been demonstrated that a good EV can render both pretty irrelevant - see what Porsche did with the Taycan, though whether its range is actually such a big problem is still debatable. Still, we doubt that Lexus can come up with something equally exciting as the Taycan. We'd love to be proven wrong, though.