Tofino, British Columbia – A mid-size, luxury crossover utility vehicle, let alone one without an engine at all, would not have been on a short-list of vehicles I’d want to pilot through the winding Vancouver Island roads on the way to the scenic town of Tofino. And yet, at the helm of the 2026 Lexus RZ550e F-Sport, I was having fun. Laughing, even. I wasn’t thinking of much else, save for an argument I’d had just a few days earlier.

I got into a heated discussion with a colleague of mine about the Lexus LFA Concept that was recently displayed alongside the new Toyota Gazoo Racing GT supercar. He loved the style of it, but dismissed it entirely due to Lexus’s choice to make it electric, and said it’s a disgrace to the LFA name, and the heroic V10 that powered the original. I then promptly got on a plane to Vancouver to join Lexus Canada for a 35th anniversary event, a three-part celebration, with this episode looking to the future of the brand.

I don’t love electric vehicles personally, but I generally try to lean towards being optimistic and give the benefit of the doubt, if for no other reason but to preserve my own sanity and not get lost in curmudgeonly miasma. All cars are innocent until proven guilty, and I didn’t care for my colleague writing off the gorgeous LFA Concept just because it’s electric. It could not have been more fitting that this unlikeliest of heroes, the refreshed 2026 Lexus RZ550e, proved me so right just a few days later.

What’s new?

The Lexus RZ lineup gets some mild updates for 2026, nearly all of which are under the skin – it was already a striking, futuristic looker among commuter crossovers, and remains so, inside and out. The real tweaks come in the form of an updated battery with a 77kWh capacity, fed by a NACS port for greater flexibility, and new motors that are more powerful and more efficient. 

The new battery can handle a 10-80% percent DC fast-charge in about half an hour, but more important is the upgraded 11kW onboard AC inverter, which means you can charge all the way from toast to most on a real level 2 charger that you’re likely to have at your home or office in 7 hours – 57% faster than before. Even more key is that these charging figures remain consistent well below freezing temperatures, which nearly every other EV still struggles with.

This all helps enable greater range, with the base RZ350e getting a sizeable bump up to an estimated 478 kilometers, finally making Toyota’s EV platform competitive with the rest of the industry. The new RZ550e F-Sport sacrifices a bit of that, dipping down to 369 kilometers, but offers dual motors producing 402 horsepower; torque figures are unpublished, but suffice to say its straight-line thrust is befitting of the F-Sport badge. 

Okay, this is all unremarkable stuff. EVs being quick hasn’t been news for more than a decade, and the charging and range updates are lovely, but only serve to bring it in line with everyone else, and doesn’t really advance the plot. What does make things interesting is the RZ550e’s new M Mode: the M stands for manual.

The “M” is for hilarious

Admittedly, this isn’t really new, either: Hyundai very famously did it first, and fabulously well. This system works in much the same way, using steering wheel mounted paddles and sharp breaks in momentum to simulate the action of shifting, and indeed the feel of a powertrain at all. It has a powerband of sorts, building towards the top of its simulated rev range, and falling off above that, before running up against its redline and abruptly halting.

A note on that: Lexus will let you do it wrong. You can drive it all day long at 46 km/h, foot floored, pinging off the rev limiter, if you resist shifting out of “first gear.” If you select the next gear while still floored you’ll be jolted into your seat, and jolted out when you butt up against the limiter again. Conversely, if you try to take off while being in too high of a gear and too low of “revs,” it will bog and barely accelerate until it either builds some steam or until you shift down. It won’t correct you, but instead intuitively nudge you towards doing it right with its numberless tachometer and the obvious reward of abundant, smooth power delivery if done properly. You know, like a fun car.

This isn’t at all meant to throw shade, but it’s less showboaty than Hyundai’s system. Whether this is for better or worse is up to you, but I feel it’s more than fitting for a Lexus. There is no external projection of noise, no configurable sound stages, no fake pops and burbles, and indeed no attempt to reproduce an engine sound at all. What there is is a fairly soft whir, a mezzo-soprano tone that’s equal parts futuristic warp drive and classic gear whine, that changes in pitch with “revs,” and even swells and shrinks with throttle application. This is all gimmickry laid overtop of a sterile powertrain to feign a sense of feeling, but the feelings it elicits are real, and very amusing.

More than motor

Of course if the Lexus RZ550e F-Sport only had that to stand on, it wouldn’t stand out. The RZ’s chassis had to be modified and stiffened to accommodate the larger battery, and Toyota’s deliberate choice to keep this platform and its battery and the smaller side means that it’s relatively lightweight among electric vehicles, tipping in at just under 4,700 lbs, some 500 lbs lighter than a Porsche Macan EV.

The steering is lightly weighted and delivers decent feedback, and the chassis offers surprising balance and impressive grip. It’s light on its feet and eager to change directions, confidently relaying what the front and rear suspenders are doing, and isn’t overly reliant on traction and stability control to keep things on the straight and narrow, as we’ve seen in some similar vehicles. No one-pedal drive is available, but the brake feel and regenerative braking feels natural and suits the character of the car. In a word, it’s satisfying, and far more so than I would have ever expected. 

It’s still a Lexus

Having said all that, it’s still a Lexus, and still very much a comfort oriented experience first. Along with the added chassis bracing comes additional sound deadening, and I can confirm that it is exceptionally quiet, even on snow tires at substantial speeds. The ride quality is well gauged and adept at isolating you from rough pavement, even on this model’s 20-inch wheels. Its ability to seamlessly flip between stirring and soothing is formidable.

Beyond all that, it’s largely unchanged, which isn’t a problem at all. The cabin is lovely and well appointed, the user interface is generally pretty slick with a capable of navigation hiccups that are easily circumvented by use of standard wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There’s plenty of storage, rear seat leg room is good, and cargo space is only okay, but enough for most situations. It’s still a Toyota, and as such, it just works. 

And there’s still “buts”

There’s a handful of critiques: I personally found the voice functionality to be borderline useless, but Toyota has shown they know the way forward with the RAV4 and that will probably make its way over to this. There are also zero options on the RZ550e; they all come exactly like this, in Wind grey with a black leather and dark grey ultrasuede interior. The rest of the RZ lineup has a wide selection of colorways and handsome two-tone paint schemes. Here’s hoping that’ll make its way here in short order.

Either way, it’s certainly not a bad buy for $77,900 before any EV rebates. It comes with features befitting a much more expensive vehicle, like a 13-speaker Mark Levinson sound system, and a very trick electrochromatic glass moonroof that instantly turns opaque at the touch of a button, say nothing of Lexus’ vaunted build quality and dealer experience. It offers performance matching other luxury brand EVs, while undercutting them on price, seemingly without giving much of anything up, and delivering a driving experience that’s more memorable than most.

If this 2026 Lexus RZ550e F-Sport is supposed to represent the future of Lexus, I’d say we’re in good hands. I’m not saying that forcing electric motors to pretend to be something they aren’t is the definitive way forward, but it shows that Toyota and Lexus care deeply about the driving experience, and if they can make a humdrum crossover more fun than it has any right to be, imagine what they could do with something like say, an LFA?