Lexus RZ 550e F-Sport has 402bhp and totally virtual steering
A first for Europe as a car that uses steer-by-wire tech, with no physical connection between the steering wheel and front wheels
This is the new 402bhp Lexus RZ 550e F-Sport and no, a slightly anonymous crossover wouldn’t have been our first car of choice, or likely yours, with which to debut a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N-style ‘gearbox’, but here we are. Revealed as the first of three new EVs Lexus will launch over the next 12 months, the RZ 550e is a heavily-revised, higher-performance tech fest version of its RZ crossover EV, that also features Lexus’ long-in-development steer-by-wire tech in production form for the first time. From the power, to the steering, to the gears, there’s interesting stuff here, so let’s dive in.
The RZ, Lexus’s large-ish electric SUV, debuted in 2023 as Lexus’s first dedicated electric car. This potent RZ 550e F-Sport flagship will lead an updated range when it goes on sale at the end of 2025. If you’re thinking it was a bit soon for an update, consider that the RZ shares its e-TNGA underpinning with the famously underdone Toyota bZ4x, that’s also being revised. Significant powertrain updates include a battery size increase to 77kWh and a new, more potent and efficient, eAxle. Though not yet homologated, range is said to be up by as much as 62 miles, which would in theory make the new entry-level car, the RZ350e, a 359-mile capable car.
Lexus ‘Interactive Manual Drive’ – another EV with simulated gears
The RZ 550e has two electric motors combining to produce that heady 402bhp figure, not far from the kind we saw from Lexus’s earliest M-car rivaling V8-engined F cars. That power is continuously modulated front to rear via a revised Direct4 all-wheel-drive system, which varies the motive distribution front to rear, between 60:40 and 0:100 in acceleration, and between 80:20 and 0:100 in cornering. But what about those ‘gears’?
The ‘yoke’ steering wheel might have fallen to your eyes like rainfall on a beautiful summer’s day but look closer, and you’ll see ‘shift paddles’ but unlike some EVs that do feature these, they’re not for controlling regen. They’re for the RZ 550e’s ‘gears’, which when used will generate the same bell curve of fluctuations in accelerative force as an ICE car going through its revs and gears, only using software.
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It’s been calibrated to simulate an eight-speed, with vehicle speed and accelerator position used to calculate virtual power source torque, which is then multiplied by the virtual ‘gear ratio’. Yes, there’s a limiter that you’ll hit if you don’t time your ‘shifts’ right, so there’s a shift indicator in the instrument cluster.
Yes, it also has ‘engine sounds’, if you want to time your gearchanges the old-fashioned way. The result ought to be similar to the Ioniq 5 N, which is to say, it’ll be a weirdly useful gimmick. You don’t realise how much you missed the speed reference of gears, and the power and torque curves you manipulate them to access, until you get them back.
Lexus steer-by-wire – the future we wanted?
What the regrettable yoke is connected to is mighty significant, too. We’ve tried prototype versions of Toyota’s steer-by-wire system before. Since then, Lexus’ engineers have agonised over the ratio and turn and return forces through the wheel. It’ll go 200 degrees in either direction from the straight ahead, which was decided upon as the best compromise between modulation, wheel contact (important with a yoke) and manoeuvrability.
The ratio also adjusts according to speed, supposedly improving stability at higher velocities in a straight line and agility on a winding road. In terms of what comes through, Lexus has taken care to minimise the unpleasantries that come with mechanically linked steering systems, while still maintaining the sensations that are important to intuitive steering.
When we first drove a prototype of this system, we found it to be no more or less feelsome and crucially, not less intuitive and with no more latency, than a physically linked system. As above, however, it wasn’t quite representative of the production system, given the detail changes that have been made. In terms of feel and sensation, the calibrational possibilities are huge so while this is a significant first, the best, as evo contributor Antony Ingram also highlighted in his piece, is surely yet to come:
Lexus steer-by-wire – driving the prototype
‘In this Lexus RZ, using the second generation of Lexus and Toyota’s steer-by-wire technology, the maximum I can turn the wheel in either direction is 100 degrees. I’ll save you the world’s simplest mental arithmetic: that’s 200 degrees total. Less than two thirds of a turn.
‘Armed with this knowledge, I’m ready for the first corner: a 90-degree right-hander around the corner of a building at Lexus’s new Shimoyama mountain test track near Nagoya in Japan, taken at little more than walking pace. And using less than a quarter of a turn of lock, I still steer quicker than I need to. Laughing at my mistake, I judge the next few corners better, and by the time we leave the car park and head out onto the undulating test course, it already feels much more natural.
‘That’s despite this RZ prototype using a ‘yoke’ rather than a wheel. Tesla was rightly ridiculed for equipping a similar device in its Model S a few years back with an otherwise unchanged steering ratio, and while it learned its lesson with the Cybertruck, which is fully steer-by-wire and has an oblong wheel, Lexus has done the right thing and is actually testing and refining its system before unleashing it on the public. Hence this being the second generation despite no production car to show for it, and the reason it’s gone to 200 degrees from an earlier even quicker, but less intuitive 150-degree prototype.
‘The ratio means you need never remove your hands from the yoke, even on the track’s tightest downhill curve, so you never find yourself awkwardly grabbing for bits of wheel that aren’t there. The yoke is compact, similar to Peugeot’s tiny ‘i‑Cockpit’ wheel designs, but unlike those, no part gets in the way of your view of the instruments. There are no column stalks, so controls for lights and wipers are on the wheel itself. Like Ferrari’s wheel-mounted indicators there’s a brief adaptation period, but nothing that would baffle an owner for too long.
‘Perhaps just as important as the system’s low-speed ease of use and relatively uncomplicated control layout is how it behaves at speed. And it’s… fine. Which I don’t mean as a slight – it just works with no issues. We drive the by-wire car back to back with a conventional one, and it’s pretty similar once you’re at anything above city speeds, the steering gear ratio relaxing to more familiar levels. It’s not twitchy, and not notably shorter on feel than the deliberately calm helm of the standard RZ either.
‘Lexus has tuned the system to isolate the driver from bumps and deflections, but the effect is subtle, and unlike the semi steer-by-wire system used by Infiniti about a decade ago, it doesn’t manifest as weird counter-movements or wandering (or worse with that car, the occasional feeling like it had forgotten to steer on your initial input). Whether it can filter out the mid-corner potholes and severe road damage we’re all too familiar with in the UK remains to be seen, but the varying surfaces of the test track pass by largely unnoticed.
‘These are just the daily benefits though. According to Takenari Yamaguchi, group manager from the Chassis Development division, and Yasuyuki Terada, group manager for Lexus Electrified Development, there are numerous other reasons for considering by-wire steering. Not having a physical steering column for one, which doesn’t just benefit packaging in individual cars, but means you can literally implement the same system in any vehicle, regardless of its size, or which side the steering wheel is on, what suspension type you’re using, or where the powertrain sits. It also expands the possibility for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, from driver feedback to fully autonomous functions.
‘If all this sounds a bit too worthy, then I run another idea past Yamaguchi and Terada. Given a system with no mechanical connection to the wheels is in theory infinitely tuneable, could a steer-by-wire Lexus be engineered to deliver the steering feedback of iconic Toyotas such as the 2000GT or AE86 Corolla? Could they engineer-in real road feel, or even undesirable traits such as torque steer and kickback for those who want it? Could you have a Lexus SUV that steers like an Elise?
‘A guarded ‘yes’ to all of those is the answer, provided they know the characteristics they’re working towards. Likewise, there’s potential in motorsports, from reducing the exhausting vibration that drivers face on events like Dakar, to having a system that can change its ratio according to particular corners on particular tracks. That hairpin at Monaco, for instance. Steer-by-wire might sound like the antithesis of what we look for in an interactive and engaging driver’s car, but Lexus is only just scratching the surface of its potential.’ – Antony Ingram, evo 331 February 2025.
Both the simulated gears and the steer-by-wire are a first for Lexus and for now, only available on the flagship RZ 550e F-Sport, which also has a few visual upgrades and even nominal downforce-generating aero. The range will also feature the RZ350e and RZ500e which are also updated with the bigger battery, better range, more performance and improved tech.
Will we see an LFA successor before too long, with steer-by-wire? Will we see a next-generation IS-F with a simulated eight-speed? Not to sound like the tagline in an advert for an anonymous electric crossover, but the possibilities are endless… For now, deliveries of the RZ 550e, along with the rest of the revised range, are set to begin in Europe this Autumn.
