The Lexus RZ has been rebuilt for 2026, and the headline change is not the one Lexus leads with. The battery is bigger, the onboard charger has doubled, and there are now three versions where there used to be a 300e and a 450e.
The interesting one is the RZ 550e, because it is the first car Lexus has sold in the UK with steer by wire: no mechanical connection between the wheel and the front axle, a wheel that is not round, and about 200 degrees of lock to lock instead of nearly three full turns. That is a genuinely unusual thing to be able to lease, and it is standard on one version and unavailable on the other two.
Here is what the three versions actually are, what separates them beyond power, and the figures Lexus publishes two different answers for.
The Three Versions
| RZ 350e | RZ 500e | RZ 550e | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drive | Front wheel | Direct4 all wheel | Direct4 all wheel |
| System output | 221bhp | 376bhp | 402bhp |
| 0 to 62mph | 7.5 seconds | 4.6 seconds | 4.4 seconds |
| Grades | Premium, Premium Plus | Premium, Premium Plus, Takumi | F SPORT, F SPORT Takumi |
| Towing, braked | 750kg | 1,500kg | Not rated to tow |
One naming point, because it is written wrongly everywhere: the version is the RZ 550e and F SPORT is the grade, not part of the model name. There is no non-F SPORT 550e, and Takumi is exclusive to the 500e rather than being the top grade across the range.
All three share the same 77kWh battery, the same 150kW DC peak and the same 22kW onboard AC charger, which is the single biggest practical upgrade on the car and we come back to it below.
Steer by Wire, and What It Actually Means
There is no mechanical link between the steering wheel and the front wheels on the 550e. The system is fully redundant, with every component duplicated and a back-up power supply, and it gives about 200 degrees of lock to lock against nearly three turns on the conventional cars.
Two hundred degrees means you never cross your hands. A three-point turn or a multi-storey ramp happens without shuffling, and the ratio changes with speed so the car is not twitchy on a motorway. It is the sort of thing that sounds like a gimmick and then takes about ten minutes to feel normal.
Its own words are a new-shape steering wheel, 360mm wide by 197mm high, with no upper or lower ring sections, a flat bottom and curved finger grips, and an integrated heater as standard. The word yoke appears only in an image caption on Lexus's own site. Whether a conventional round wheel can be specified instead on the 550e is not published anywhere, so we are not going to tell you either way. If that matters to you, ask us and we will get it confirmed by Lexus before anything is signed.
It is standard on the F SPORT and F SPORT Takumi grades and it is not an option on the 350e or the 500e, which use conventional electric power steering. So if you want it, you are buying the 402bhp car.
The Simulated Manual, Which Is Also 550e Only
Lexus calls it Interactive Manual Drive. It gives you eight virtual gears selected with paddles behind the wheel, engaged by an M mode switch on the console, and it feeds back through throttle response, the way the car pitches, reproduced motor sounds, a curved-bar rev counter and a shift guide.
Whether you want it probably depends on whether you have missed changing gear. What it does well is give you something to do with your hands on a good road, and it can be combined with the drive mode selection so the throttle sharpens at the same time. The car has five drive modes, of which Lexus names Range, Sport and Custom.
Like steer by wire, it is on the 550e F SPORT and F SPORT Takumi and nowhere else.
What Else Separates Them
| What changes | |
|---|---|
| Suspension | MacPherson struts front and double wishbones rear on all three. The F SPORT gets retuned damping and spring rates. Performance dampers and a performance rod are fitted to Takumi, F SPORT and F SPORT Takumi only |
| Brakes | Ventilated discs front and rear on all three. F SPORT adds blue-finished calipers and brake cooling ducts in the lower bumper |
| Wheels | 18 inch standard on 350e and 500e Premium with 20 inch optional, 20 inch on Takumi, and 20 inch F SPORT aero wheels on the 550e. Tyres are staggered, wider at the rear |
| Seats | Heated front seats on all grades. Ventilated front seats from Premium Plus up. Heated rear seats on Takumi, F SPORT and F SPORT Takumi only |
| Panoramic roof | Non-dimming on Premium, Premium Plus and F SPORT. Dimmable on Takumi and F SPORT Takumi, using what Lexus calls dark-dimming blue glass |
Every grade gets the 14 inch LexusLink Pro touchscreen, dual-zone climate with nanoe-X and front radiant heaters, and the head-up display arrives at Premium Plus. Lexus does not state whether the climate controls are physical or on-screen, and does not publish the size of the instrument cluster or the head-up display, so we are not going to guess at any of the three.
Charging, and the Upgrade That Matters Most
The onboard AC charger has gone from 11kW to 22kW, which takes a 10 to 100% AC charge down to three and a half hours. On a single-phase home charger you will not see 22kW, but anywhere with a three-phase supply, which includes a lot of workplace and destination chargers, it halves the time the car is tied up.
DC peak is 150kW on all three versions, with 10 to 80% quoted at 30 minutes in Lexus's technical specification and about 28 minutes on its website. Battery pre-conditioning is standard and it works three ways: manually through the multimedia system, automatically when you set a charger as a destination or waypoint, or on a timer. Lexus's own figure for what that is worth is 10 to 80% in 30 minutes at minus 10 degrees with pre-conditioning against 55 minutes without.
Its technical specification gives 353 miles for the 350e on 18 inch wheels, 311 for the 500e and 280 for the 550e. Its own website says up to 346, 306 and 287. The website is lower on two cars and higher on the third, and nothing on either source reconciles them. We are quoting the website figures because that is what a customer will see, and telling you the specification document says something different. Ask us and we will get the figure confirmed against the exact wheel and grade combination on your quote.
Wheel size costs you a lot here: the 350e drops from 353 miles on 18 inch wheels to 316 on 20 inch, which is 37 miles for a set of wheels. If range is your priority, take the 18s.
The Battery Warranty Is Unusual and Worth Understanding
Lexus runs a Battery Care Warranty rather than a fixed term, and it works differently from every other manufacturer's.
Each warranty period runs to whichever comes first of twelve months from an eligible service, 10,000 miles from that service, or the next eligible service. An eligible service is a scheduled service that includes an EV traction battery health check, carried out by an authorised Lexus repairer in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man and recorded in the service booklet. Each one applies a fresh warranty period, so the cover keeps rolling forward as long as you keep servicing it there.
The outer limit is ten years old or a million miles, and the capacity threshold is 70%. Worth noting that Lexus's own terms contradict themselves slightly on what happens at that threshold, with one clause saying a battery below 70% means the warranty is not applied and another saying batteries below 70% are covered for repair or replacement, so we would not state the outcome with confidence. For a leasing customer on a three or four year agreement none of this is likely to bite, but it is the strongest battery proposition in the premium market if you were going to keep the car.
What Happened to the RZ 450e
It is gone, along with the 300e. Lexus's price list effective 1 October 2026 lists only the 350e, 500e and 550e, where the February 2026 list still carried both older cars.
That matters for one reason beyond availability: the RZ's Euro NCAP five star rating, awarded in 2023, was earned on a 71kWh RZ 450e in Executive grade. That is a car Lexus no longer sells, and the 2026 RZ with its larger battery, what Lexus describes as higher body rigidity and steer by wire on the 550e has not been retested. So the five stars belong to the previous car.
Everything else the update brought: more cells in the 77kWh battery, revised eAxles, the 22kW charger, higher body rigidity, revised suspension, battery pre-conditioning and Interactive Manual Drive. Lexus's quantified gain is up to an additional 58 miles on the front-wheel-drive car on 18 inch wheels.
So Which RZ?
The 350e if range and running cost are the point. It is the longest-ranging version by a wide margin and front-wheel drive is no handicap in a car used mainly on roads. Accept 750kg of towing and 7.5 seconds to 62mph.
The 500e if you want all-wheel drive, want to tow up to 1,500kg, or want Takumi, which is exclusive to this version and brings the dimming roof, heated rear seats and the performance dampers.
The 550e if steer by wire and Interactive Manual Drive are the reason you are interested, because they are not available any other way. The trade is 287 miles rather than 346, and no towing capability at all.
Lexus and Its Rivals
Current lease pricing on the RZ and the cars people shop against it.
Worth Reading First
The guides that cover the charging and the money.
Want the RZ Priced Across Its Three Versions?
Tell us your mileage and whether you tow, and we will quote the 350e, 500e and 550e on the same terms and get the range figure confirmed against your exact wheel and grade combination.
Talk to LetsLeaseFrequently Asked Questions
The RZ 350e with front-wheel drive at 221bhp, the RZ 500e with Direct4 all-wheel drive at 376bhp, and the RZ 550e, also all-wheel drive, at 402bhp. All three use the same 77kWh battery. Worth getting the naming right: the version is the RZ 550e and F SPORT is the grade rather than part of the name, and Takumi is exclusive to the 500e rather than being the range-topping grade.
Only the RZ 550e, on both the F SPORT and F SPORT Takumi grades, and it is not available as an option on the 350e or the 500e, which use conventional electric power steering. There is no mechanical connection between the wheel and the front axle, the system is fully redundant with every component duplicated and a back-up power supply, and it gives about 200 degrees of lock to lock against nearly three turns on the other versions.
Lexus does not call it a yoke. Its own description is a new-shape steering wheel, 360mm wide by 197mm high, with no upper or lower ring sections, a flat bottom, curved finger grips and an integrated heater as standard. The word yoke appears only in an image caption on Lexus's own site. Whether a conventional round wheel can be specified instead on the 550e is not published anywhere, so ask us and we will get it confirmed by Lexus rather than guess.
Lexus publishes two different answers and does not explain the difference. Its website says up to 346 miles for the 350e, 306 for the 500e and 287 for the 550e. Its technical specification document says 353, 311 and 280, so it is lower than the website on two cars and higher on the third. We quote the website figures because that is what a customer sees, and we will get the number confirmed against the exact wheel and grade combination on your quote.
Significantly. The 350e drops from 353 miles on 18 inch wheels to 316 on 20 inch, which is 37 miles for a set of wheels, and the 500e falls from 311 to 283. The 550e comes on 20 inch F SPORT aero wheels only. If range is your priority on a 350e or 500e, take the 18s and it is the single biggest thing you can do about it.
DC peak is 150kW on all three versions, with 10 to 80% quoted at 30 minutes in Lexus's technical specification and about 28 minutes on its website. The bigger change is the AC charger, which has doubled from 11kW to 22kW, taking a 10 to 100% AC charge to three and a half hours. You will not see 22kW on a single-phase home charger, but anywhere with a three-phase supply it halves the time the car is tied up.
It is a simulated manual gearbox: eight virtual gears selected with paddles behind the steering wheel, engaged by an M mode switch on the console, with feedback through throttle response, the way the car pitches, reproduced motor sounds, a curved-bar rev counter and a shift guide. It can be combined with the drive mode selection so the throttle sharpens at the same time. Like steer by wire, it is on the 550e F SPORT and F SPORT Takumi only.
The 500e is rated at 1,500kg braked and the 350e at 750kg. The RZ 550e is not rated to tow at all. Worth knowing that Lexus prints the same figure for braked and unbraked in its specification, which cannot be right because unbraked trailers are capped at 750kg in UK law, so we treat the 500e's figure as the braked rating. If towing is important, ask us to get it confirmed in writing before you order.
Not as a new car. Lexus's price list effective 1 October 2026 lists only the 350e, 500e and 550e, where the list from February 2026 still carried both the 450e and the 300e. That also matters for safety, because the RZ's five star Euro NCAP rating was earned on a 71kWh RZ 450e in Executive grade, which is a car Lexus no longer sells.
Not of its own. The five star rating dates from 2023 and was awarded to the 71kWh RZ 450e in Executive grade, a version no longer sold. The 2026 car has a larger battery, what Lexus describes as higher body rigidity and, on the 550e, steer by wire, and it has not been retested. So the five stars belong to the previous car rather than this one, and Lexus's own press material does not mention Euro NCAP at all.
It is a rolling programme rather than a fixed term, and it is unusual. Each warranty period runs to whichever comes first of twelve months from an eligible service, 10,000 miles from that service, or your next eligible service. An eligible service is a scheduled service including an EV traction battery health check, carried out by an authorised Lexus repairer in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man and recorded in the service booklet, and each one applies a fresh period. The outer limit is ten years or a million miles, and the capacity threshold is 70%. Lexus's own terms are slightly contradictory about what happens at that threshold, so we would not state the outcome with confidence.
LetsLease is a credit broker rather than the lender. We arrange the agreement and place it with a funder such as Lex Autolease, Novuna, Ayvens or Santander, and that funder owns the vehicle and holds the agreement with you. Because we work across several funders rather than one, we can compare how each prices the same car.