Lexus NX 450h+ long-term review

I bid farewell to Chief, my circa-$92K Lexus RX 350h Luxury large hybrid SUV long-term loaner, around two years ago. And here we are, at the start of 2026, saying hello to the newest steed in the Chasing Cars long-term garage, the NX 450h+ F Sport midsize family hauler.

The first double-take was price. Here was a smaller, older-generation (from 2022 onward) SUV – a dead ringer for the larger RX in many respects, inside and out – and it’s priced from $96,000. Yep, four grand more outright, for a smaller Lexus SUV model (if now, in 2026, $97,200 before on-roads and goodies).

The question of value for money marks the kick-off of six months and a target of 10,000 kilometres of custodianship. And I suspect it will remain ever-present until the day, sometime around mid-2026, a final verdict is handed down and its key is handed back to Lexus Australia, as its various virtues are stacked up and measured against what’s around $107K on road.

That’s big coin, even among the Audi Q5s, BMW X3s, Mercedes-Benz GLCs and some 31 other nameplates consider premium ($60K-plus) midsize SUVs on the local market that the NX wishes to swoon buyers away from.

How’d that go for Lexus in 2025? Handsomely, indeed. The NX (6024 units) was its segment’s biggest seller last year, comfortably supplanting Mazda CX-60 (5410) and BMW X3 (4909) into second and third place respectively. The NX is certainly a popular rig amongst Aussies.

Regardless, most gravitate to less, ahem, fiscally adventurous variants than our new 450h+ F Sport, a plug-in hybrid version sat right at the 16-variant-strong lineup’s summit.

With the lowly 250 grades now discontinued, the NX range kicks off with the 350h Luxury ($71,700 list), a front-driven petrol-electric hybrid. Nicer Sport Luxury and F Sport trims can be had with the same powertrain ($79,200).

Adding AWD to the self-charging hybrid commands extra outlays of between $4800 (Luxury) and $5800 (Sport Luxury and F Sport). Turbo petrol all-wheel drive? It’s exclusively a racier F Sport grade ($79,450).

Want more? Feature-adding Enhancement Pack 1 and Pack 2 bundles are available throughout the range, priced between $3000-$6000.

A latecomer (November 2025) to the range was 450h+ Luxury ($84,500) at the entry point to the plug-in hybrid AWD powertrain (plus Enhancement Pack 1 as standard) leaving an $11,500 stretch up to our as-tested ultimate grade, the 450+ F Sport ($96,000) that adds Enhancement Pack 2 as standard plus, one imagines, the kitchen sink.

Navigate this long-term Lexus NX 450h+ review

• Month 1: All you can eat
• Month 2: Mysterious fuel consumption

Month 2: Mysterious fuel consumption

Negotiating the nightmare of calculating bona-fide PHEV efficiency

• Kilometres this month: 5400km (1900kms travelled)
• Fuel economy this month: 5.5L/100km
• Running costs this month: $210

What’s the real efficiency of the Lexus NX plug-in hybrid? Or any PHEV? It depends…

I’ve always been dubious of plug-in fuel economy claims. And not wholly because testing is performed in a laboratory to Australian Design Rules standards (ADR81/02) by the government (rather than the vehicle importer).

It’s because its ethos carried over from ICE fuel efficiency testing (where it works) to a petrol-electric dual-power-source format (where it doesn’t under any reasonably sound logic).

The turbo-petrol NX 350: its 8.4L/100km combined claim is easy to assess by simply refilling what was once a brimmed fuel tank after (duh) 100km of travel.

The self-charging NX 350h hybrid and its 5.0L/100km claim? Same process, similar accuracy in the results, where results may vary ‘a bit’ due to inconsistencies in driving style, powertrain behaviour, orientation of the moon, etcetera…

…but you get an indicative ballpark figure of what fuel consumption to expect.

PHEV? You brim the tank, top-up the battery, drive 100kms, measure fuel usage, hey presto, right? Well, no. And not for any simple single reason.

Our NX 450h+ has a 1.3L/100km combined fuel claim. So that’s 87-ish kilometres of pure electric, a remaining 13km on petrol power…there’s your figure. Except it’s a fantasy figure unless you’re prepared to stop the car, refill <and> recharge the battery, every single 100 kilometres of travel. It’s a fallacy.

Now, in 2026, some PHEVs offer over 100kms of pure EV driving. Using dimwitted convention, fuel consumption would therefore be zero-per-hundred. Which is certainly not the reality once the vehicle travels significantly further…

Come Month 2 of our Lexus loan, the first port of call was to assess fuel consumption on a dead battery. After the first 87km-ish, battery depleted (for the moment), the NX 450h+ jumps up to around 6.0L/100km. And there it sits until, soon enough, reciprocal self-charging trickles electrons into the 18.1kWh lithium-ion battery and it drops closer to 5.0L/100km…

Of course, results will vary – and wildly – depending on owner usage. Plug your PHEV into the home and work wallbox religiously everyday, you might rarely ever use internal combustion: 0.0L/100km. Never plug in and you’re at 6.0L. Individuals’ reality will be somewhere between.

Still, a litres-per-hundred figure provides indicative relativity on running costs – fuel and electricity – against ICE or self-charging alternatives. So, logically, a genuine figure demands similar science, right?

Fully charged and tank brimmed, we drove the Lexus until a) the battery depleted on its own accord after about 87kms and b) the 55-litre tank ran dry, about 920 kilometres (at 6.0L per) further along the exercise. So…1000km using 55 litres. Or 5.5L/100km on average. In the real world.

Simple, right? Well, no. Results will vary whether that’s a thousand kays of peak-hour driving, or you’re road tripping on the cruise control between Sydney and Melbourne. On that, Lexus (that is, government ADRs) doesn’t supply figures for urban or extra urban consumption like there is for ICE and self-charging hybrids…

Perhaps because it’s complicated. One of these complications is drive mode choice: Eco, Normal, Sport S or feistiest Sport S+ affects the petrol-electric output balance and, therefore, petrol and electric consumption. But there’s more to it than that…

The PHEV has four other operational modes: EV Mode is wholly electric drive, even at full throttle; Auto EV/HV for mostly electric with a petrol boost under heavy throttle; HV mode which is essentially self-regulated hybrid shuffling and; Battery Charging mode, which favours ICE to replenish the battery, on balance.

In truth, our Lexus spends all of its time pinned to HV self-regulation, in Normal drive mode, and plugged into a wall when it’s practicable to do so. And you know what? It works perfectly fine and is pretty damn good on balance, without any other complication…

Month 1: All you can eat

Last-minute copper swap saves us from an uncomfortable doppleganger

• Kilometres this month: Odometer start 3514 – this month 504km
• Fuel economy this month: 5.9L/100km
• Running costs this month: $81.33
  

What is it?

When handed the key to the fanciest 450h+ F Sport spec of the biggest-selling premium midsize SUV in Australia for a six-month custodianship, there’s little one might complain about. For full disclosure – and usual practice for Toyota/Lexus local arms – Lexus Australia is also stumping up for fuel and electron outlay. Nice.

But the concern was colour. “Khaki Metal” said the e-mail, which is the same colour as my last Lexus long-termer, the RX 350h Luxury nicknamed ‘Chief’ from a couple of years back. A great rig, that. Solid and comfy. I was a big fan. But given the large-segment RX and midsize NX look so damn similar to one another, some might think they’re twins of sorts.

“Sorry,” read a subsequent Lexus Oz email. “We’ve had to change the booking to a Sonic Copper example…” Phew!

Given their similar designs, I’d mistakenly thought the NX was simply the larger RX with 16 centimetres sliced from its wheelbase. There’s more to it. Overall length is 230mm shorter (4890mm vs 4660mm), the front and rear treatments are distinctive to each model, and the NX doesn’t have the RX’s curvaceous rear hunches or teardrop rear glasshouse signature.

They’re quite different inside, too. Lots of commonality in the display hardware, switchgear and design ethos, yes, but the theme is quite different once you bury down into it…which we’ll do in an upcoming update.

How much is it?

The topic of similarities nagged at me given the underpinning notion that ‘my’ new midsize Lexus SUV was, at $96,000 before on roads and options. Our Sonic Copper (adds $1750) example costs $107,088 on road in NSW. Yikes!

What’s the spec of our car?

Here’s the oversimplified breakdown of the full-blown 450h+ F Sport specification and features.

As a baseline, the cheapest (hybrid 350h FWD, $79,200 list) F Sport variants fits:

• 20-inch alloys
• F Sport exterior styling
• Three-projector bi-beam LED headlights
• 14-inch media touchscreen 
• F Sport 10-way driver, eight-way passenger electric seats
• Leather accented trim, seat heating and ventilation
• Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
• Eco/Normal/Sport/Sport+ drive mode selection
• 10-speaker ‘premium’ sound
• 360-degree camera and front and rear parking sensors
• Dual-zone climate control
• Handsfree power tailgate with kick sensor 

That version fits a 2.5L natural aspirated-based self-charging hybrid totaling 179kW in either front or all-wheel drive (for a $5800 upcharge) though, typical for Toyota/Lexus, there are no peak combined torque claims for either.

The ‘premium’ powertrain of our long termer is the plug-in hybrid 450h+, available only in all-wheel-drive guise. This PHEV’s naturally aspirated 2.5L petrol four (136kW/227Nm) is in a lower state of tune than the self-charging 350h unit (140kW/239Nm).

And, interestingly, the electric motors – 134kW/270Nm front and 40kW/121Nm rear – have the same outputs across both hybrid formats.

But the 450h+ PHEV is positioned as the ‘alpha’ powertrain, with peak combined power at 227kW against the 350h’s 179kW. Lexus claims a 0-400m time of 6.3 seconds for the plug-in NXs.

The PHEV has the best ‘efficiency’ claim, too. With its large 18.1kWh lithium ion battery and 87km peak electric only driving range claim, the 450h+ variants are advertised at a scant 1.3L/100km, far more miserly than the self-charging hybrids’ 5.0L/100km (FWD or AWD) let alone the far thirstier 8.4L/100km claim of the 2.4L turbo petrol versions.

As a self-proclaimed skeptic of claimed versus real-world PHEV fuel economy stats, we’ll deep dive in a future report once we have a couple of thousand scientific kilometres under our plug-in’s shiny 20-inch wheels and crunched the numbers.

However, to dissect the wealth of features on our priciest 450h+ F Sport guise, it’s worth checking out what the cheaper ($84,500 list) 450h+ Luxury gets given the $11,500-pricier F Sport shares an identical powertrain with identical performance and efficiency claims.

The 450h+ Luxury essentially fits much of the above-mentioned 350 F Sport except:

• 18-inch wheels
• Sunroof
• Comfort seats with four-way passenger electric adjustment, four-way driver’s lumbar 
• Single-colour mood lighting
• Rear outboard seat heating
• Steering wheel eating
• Dual-zone climate with humidity sensor

The 450h+ F Sport, for its $11K-ish upcharge, adds or replaces:

• 20-inch wheels
• Auto-levelling LED headlights
• Adaptive variable suspension with performance dampers
• Intelligent parking assist 
• F Sport interior
• Head-up display
• Smart key card
• Digital rearview mirror
• Mulit-colour mood lighting
• Privacy glass

The whole Enhancement Pack 1 and 2 thing adds another layer of feature complexity and, formally, the flagship 450h+ F Sport gets the ‘2’ pack as standard. But not all of it. Not offered is the 17-speaker Mark Levinson sound sound auto system as standard on Luxury Sport grades, nor can you get the panoramic glass roof offered elsewhere in the line-up even as a cost option.

How long is it sticking around for?

The 450h+ F Sport lobbed into the Chasing Cars garage at the beginning of December 2025 and will head home, all going to plan, around mid-2026.

It arrived with 3514km on the odometer and was sidelined for two weeks over the Christmas and New Year period at the office in trade for a stint in a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon and, thus, we only went through three-quarters of a tank of fuel (and a single full battery charge): hence the lean $81.33 monthly running cost if sobering six-litre fuel consumption (against its glowing 1.3L claim).

Again, we’re going to have a very close look at that combined efficiency claim in the coming months…given there’s a $11,000 premium for our long termer over the ($85,000 list) 350h AWD F Sport self-charging hybrid that ought to return, again, somewhat similar (5.0L/100km claimed) fuel consumption.

What are we going to do with it?

Easy. Mostly urban testing around Sydney, plus at least a couple of long interstate trips where we’ll not only assess its grand touring suitability but be able to get a fair read on proper average consumption on a single trip where both the battery and fuel tank are run as dry as we dare.

We’ll also check out its family friendliness, its performance and dynamic capabilities give the F Sport schtick, delve into safety and, as a key component of any long term testing, shake out the gremlins and discover if the pricey Lexus presents anything in the way of real deal-breakers to the ownership experience.

And, as always, we’ll try to get a read on if our spec is the sweet spot of its range, or whether you’re better off spending your hard-earned somewhere further down the ladder. Or, perhaps, might it be smarter to plonk the folding stuff down elsewhere, like maybe on a larger RX stablemate in a grade costing similar outlay…?