The Lexus RZ450e 2023 Electric crossovers have already begun arriving in the United States, but the brand’s first mass-produced global electric vehicle won’t come with the brand’s latest technology. Lexus won’t offer wire-driven steering at the launch of the RZ 450e EV in the US. Both will be offered in the US at an unspecified date, Lexus confirmed to Green Car Reports over the weekend.
At launch, the RZ 450e will only be sold with conventional electric-assisted rack and pinion steering, like in related versions. Toyota bZ4X 2023. It is connected to a regular steering wheel, unlike the flat bottom steering wheel, the convertible with wire steering looks like a video game console as well as a yoke used in the aviation industry.
When this system arrives at the Lexus RZ in the US, it will be offered alongside the conventional steering. Lexus doesn’t have a price or timeline for when that will happen, and it doesn’t have a name either.
“We don’t call it a yoke,” Leigh Anne Sessions, senior manager at Lexus Communications, said at a press conference. “We haven’t named it yet.”
It won’t be called One Motion Grip, or OMG, as in Europe, where the system is scheduled to launch as an option in the 2025 model year.
Lexus RZ450e 2023
Expected to debut in subsequent models, the wire-driven system can be fitted with a conventional steering wheel and is still undergoing iterative testing including a rather favorable first impression. when GCR tested prototype versions of this steering system. Lexus RZ450e 2023 in May 2022.
Assistant Chief Engineer Yushi Higashiyama said: “Steering by wire is one of the core technologies that keep Lexus moving forward. “Acceleration and braking have improved so much, we had to update the system. steering system to create that trio for direct connection to the vehicle.”
About the same size as the Lexus NX compact crossover but with the same wheelbase as the larger Lexus RX, the 2023 Lexus RZ 450e uses a 71.4 kWh battery to power a 150 kW motor at the front and 80 kw motor in the rear as standard all-wheel drive. Lexus estimates a capacity of 313 horsepower and acceleration time from 0-100 km / h in 5.3 seconds.
Lexus isn’t the first automaker to experiment with a new steering system in an electric vehicle. Tesla introduced a lever on the Model S and Model X, then bowed to customer complaints and offered a regular steering wheel two years after being on the market. The Lexus system differs from Tesla’s in that it can only rotate 150 degrees before locking.
Patience seems to be the right approach when it comes to reinventing the wheel.
“Right now, we’re enjoying an extra time to really tweak the system,” says Higashiyama. “Steering is a very important part of the car.”
