TOYOTA CITY, Japan — After years of evaluating the big names in Germany’s premium segment, Lexus has finally found a way to match their much-lauded performances.
Lexus engineers studied Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi vehicles through 2018. One thing they discovered was that Lexus wasn’t rivaling the Germans in body rigidity.
The Japanese competitor wants to add braces to the front, rear and two center tunnel sections of each nameplate in a bid to increase rigidity for more responsive handling.
The goal is to make Lexus vehicles as sporty and exciting as they are safe and sophisticated.
Engineers are testing the tweaks and plan to roll out the improvements with annual model changes and mid-cycle updates. The enhancements, in the works since 2018, are part of a process known internally as ajimigakiJapanese term for enhancing the driving pleasure of the Lexus brand.
Toyota Motor Corp.’s high-end brand wants driving dynamics to set its products apart, especially as the industry moves into the era of electric vehicles. President Akio Toyoda, as the ultimate arbiter of all things Lexus, has mandated the brand to develop a unified driving signature that is exhilarating and precise, but also reassuring with a sense of security and control.
“Our goal is to have the same driving pleasure no matter which Lexus model you are driving,” said Toshinori Ito, project manager for Lexus’s performance and sensitivity development department.
On the one hand, executives want to differentiate Lexus with dynamic driving characteristics in an era when electric motors and batteries could easily turn cars into commodities.
But betting everything on traditional performance also carries risks.
Today’s EV enthusiasts seem more enamored with digital gadgets like large touchscreens and connectivity than the mechanics of cornering stiffness and roll angle. And how can Lexus sell handling and dynamics in a future where vehicles drive themselves?
While Lexus has lagged behind Tesla in digital technology and has historically lagged the Germans in drivability, industry observers say Lexus is pulling ahead of the Germans.
“Lexus needs passion and impact because driving with passion is still one of the most important values of a premium brand,” said Takaki Nakanishi, chief analyst at Nakanishi Research Institute in Tokyo. “People who spend money on these cars really enjoy driving.”
Starting in 2026, Lexus will also introduce a new dedicated platform for its next generation of electric vehicles, an architecture that upgrades handling and response calculations.
Gigacasting is expected to be employed in the manufacturing of these next-generation platforms, and Toyota engineers hope it will add additional structural rigidity, Nakanishi noted.
Before benchmarking, Lexus focused its rigidity efforts primarily on the rear module, Ito told Automotive News during a July 30 visit to Lexus’ new global headquarters at Toyota Motor’s sprawling Shimoyama technical center outside Toyota City.
“We didn’t fully understand the four body positions,” Ito said. “We learned about it by studying the competition. Once we realized it, we wanted to add it to all Lexus models.”
Engineers will add braces to the front module and the front and rear tunnel segments as well. The improvements were introduced on the all-electric RZ crossover, which received the front braces when it went on sale in 2022. The NX crossover got the treatment at the front in March 2023 and then at the rear in a March 2024 update.
Tests were carried out on all nameplates, from the ES sedan to the LM people mover, at the Shimoyama track. “We confirmed that this can be done across the board,” Ito said.
Product planners can add reinforcements to certain segments in small model changes. But the real goal is to add the supports to all four modules, which requires more extensive platform revisions.
Therefore, nameplates can only undergo a complete redesign during complete model changes.
By improving stiffness across the portfolio, Lexus said it has found a missing piece of its unified driving signature. The ability to immediately test tweaks outside the brand’s new Shimoyama headquarters is a big plus. The sprawling complex is Lexus’s new engineering nerve center with a maze of garage space where technicians can tinker with new ideas in prototypes.
A test drive around the proving ground’s “mini-Nürburgring” track demonstrated the impact of the stiffness improvements. Laps around the circuit in “before” and “after” models of the NX crossover showed noticeable improvements in steering response in the updated versions.
Most significantly, when it came to evaluating ride and handling, Tesla wasn’t in the running.
The American EV upstart, the country’s best-selling all-electric brand, has many admirable qualities and is ahead of Lexus in many ways, Ito said. But driving joy is not one of them.
“With Tesla,” he said, “we don’t feel the need to improve the driving dynamics.”