Lexus has released a crop of new images providing a closer look at the design of a new electric supercar due to launch in the coming years.
Originally seen as part of the unveiling of 15 new Toyota and Lexus EV models last December, the as-yet unnamed successor to the Lexus LFA will represent an electrified halo model as the company moves to solely sell electric cars in Europe, the United States and China by 2030 and to phase-out internal combustion cars altogether by 2035.
Lightning-quick acceleration
Given that it's still some way off, there aren't many details about what may lie beneath the stunning body of the low-slung, long bonneted, cab-rear coupé, although Lexus says that it could use solid-state batteries which are lighter and more energy-dense than the current generation of lithium-ion units. Toyota has said that it believes it will begin launching cars equipped with solid-state batteries by the middle of the decade.
Those solid-state batteries should, according to Lexus, provide around 700km between charges and a 0-100km/h time "in the low two-second range" in the sports coupé.
Amid a host of new electrified SUVs and saloons, the sports car design stood out during the media reveal in December. Toyota's President, Akio Toyoda, said at the time that the new sports model would inherit the "driving taste, or the secret sauce, of the performance cultivated via the development of the LFA."
"We will extend the driving taste refined this way to other models as we evolve Lexus into a brand centred on battery EVs," he said, possibly hinting that the LFA successor would act as a testbed for the technologies underpinning Lexus's cars going forward. The new model may also eventually succeed the Lexus LC, currently, the company's flagship model.
Lexus's short-term electric plans
Although Lexus already builds a fully-electric model in the UX300e, it plans to begin its major push towards full electrification this year with the launch of its first purpose-built EV, the RZ, which will share its platform with the Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra, also due to launch later in 2022. Using a 71.4kWh battery pack, the RZ should develop around 200hp and come with a range of 470km or so as well as all-wheel drive and four-wheel steering-by-wire.