2023 Lexus LM review: The suite life
The Luxury Mover applies out-of-the-box thinking to a boxy car, to offer an exquisite taste of the suite life
FORGET luxury limousines such as the Mercedes S-Class, or super sport utility vehicles (SUVs) like the Range Rover. Lexus has its own take on how the wealthy should get around, and it’s more like a hotel room on wheels.
The brand is thinking out of the box, ironically by turning a boxy multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) into a luxury vehicle called the LM.
The letters stand for “Luxury Mover”, and when the flagship MPV arrives in early October, you can have it with either seven seats or just four.
But when it comes to comfort, less is very much more – think how few people sit in the front section of the plane versus the number of souls crammed like sardines into Economy.
Prices have yet to be finalised, but in line with the promise of a First Class experience, the four-seat version of the LM 500h could cost around S$800,000 (with certificate of entitlement), making it the most expensive Lexus in Singapore.
Yet, the car is like nothing else on the road inside. “We wanted to create kind of a small hotel room,” Koichi Suga, the general manager of Lexus Design Division, told me about the LM’s interior.
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To achieve that effect, he filled the interior with clean, straight vertical and horizontal lines, and made the main windows squarish.
“Most car interiors are very curvy or not a clean space – therefore if we could make it a very square space in the LM, it’s very unusual.”
Sure enough, climbing aboard the LM was like entering a small suite. The car’s boxy body creates room for a vast interior, but Lexus has given the LM a touch of opulence too, not to mention privacy.
Window shades whirr into place electrically to keep prying eyes out.
A vertical wall separates the passenger space from the driver’s cabin. It has a small window, but that can be turned opaque with the touch of a button.
The isolation is probably just as well, because the LM is a mobile movie theatre. It has a gargantuan 48-inch screen, along with an impressive 23-speaker sound system from Mark Levinson, an American high-end audio specialist.
There’s also a small refrigerator, because what’s a cinema outing without snacks?
Naturally, the LM’s individual chairs recline fully to facilitate a comfortable snooze, with flip-up ottomans to support the calves.
They offer a gentle massage as well as built-in ventilation, and each has a flip-up tray table large enough to support a laptop.
Controlling the various luxury amenities are two detachable digital touchpads, but thankfully you don’t have to do quite everything yourself. The LM has infrared sensors to measure the temperature at four different zones of your body, and can adjust the climate system automatically to suit.
Its air purifier not only zaps bacteria, viruses and allergens, it also gently moisturises the skin.
In the front of the car, the LM brings new ideas to the luxury game, too.
I found the petrol-electric hybrid drivetrain in the LM 500h surprisingly urgent yet admirably quiet during gentle acceleration, but also discovered that the other controls all have a pleasant heft to them.
The car’s chief engineer Takami Yokoo told me that having a car that is predictable and faithful in its responses can help bring about a smoother drive.
Another unusual feature: The LM also has a special mode for the adaptive suspension that prioritises rear passenger comfort.
But according to Yokoo, the one area owners of the previous LM wanted improved more than any other was the cabin’s soundproofing. The driver, they complained, could still hear what they were up to in the back.
Yokoo says Lexus has gone heavy with the sound insulation this time to seal off the driver’s area, sonically speaking. Proper soundproofing is just the sort of thing you would demand of a hotel room, after all.
Lexus LM 500h
Engine 2,393 cc, turbo in-line four
Power 272 hp at 6,000 rpm
Torque 460 Nm at 4,300 to 4,500 rpm
Gearbox 8-speed automatic
Electric motors 83 hp/292 Nm (front), 79 hp/169 Nm (rear)
System power 354 hp
0-100 kmh 6.3 seconds (estimated)
Top speed 180 kmh (estimated)
Fuel efficiency 6 L/100 km (estimated)
Agent Borneo Motors
Price To be announced
Available October 2023
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