Range Rover Velar vs Lexus LX

What's the difference?

The Range Rover Velar P400e looks damn sexy and is large enough to house your family comfortably while still being easy to manoeuvre around town.

But I’m not a fan of these luxury brands forcing you to pay extra for what should be standard features when you’re at this grade level and price point. This is a model I’d pay close attention to in terms of the optional trims required to maintain a high-end feel.

But the powertrain works quite well here and it has pleasant on-road manners.

Huge specification in terms of convenience and safety gear are matched by an equally huge range of abilities in this vehicle. As well as rock hopping with the best of them, this is also a phenomenal touring rig and a more-than-capable off-roader. Of course, whether you can see yourself clambering up the side of a muddy creek crossing in $202,000 worth of vehicle is a personal matter, but rest assured, the Lexus will do it if you ask it to.

In the case of the hybrid LX, however, the vehicle now has an extra dimension to cover off, and from what we can see, it does take the efficiency and running costs of the big wagon to a new, better place. Mind you, that may only be the case if diesel continues to cost a dollar-a-litre more than petrol at the bowser.

The shift to petrol power also brings with it a level of mechanical background noise that we’re not entirely sure fits the Lexus legend, while additions such as the camera-based rear-view mirror system seems to be a conversation starter rather than an actual improvement.

Land Rover hasn’t updated the exterior looks of the Velar and for good reason. It is almost flawless in how sleek and sexy it looks. It hovers between its larger Ranger Rover siblings and the more nimble-looking Discovery Sport.

There is still a distinctly ‘Range Rover’ vibe but it looks more agile and fun than its bigger siblings. But while its external looks are beautiful, the cabin loses me.

It’s even more pared back now than the pre-facelifted model and while the minimalistic style will appeal to some it doesn’t tick the luxury factor box for me.

There are too many plain and empty spaces in the dashboard and doors. The multimedia system has been updated to the cool 11.4-inch floating-effect screen but all the buttons and dials are gone. So, there’s even less going on and it makes you 100 per cent reliant on the screen.

And funnily enough, the grey knit fabric and synthetic material that’s used in the upholstery and trims is an optional extra and replaces Windsor leather. The knit-fabric adds some warmth but the black synthetic stuff is awful to touch or clean and reminds me too much of neoprene-style wetsuit material.

The large panoramic sunroof keeps the cabin feeling bright and cheery when it's open, though.

In a styling sense, that big, bold, deep grille at the front won’t be to everybody’s liking, but we reckon it’s pretty well matched with the otherwise taut skin of the LX’s body.

Inside, the plush look and feel is the dominant factor, but if you look really closely, there’s a fair bit of generic Lexus stuff on show. Is that a criticism? Hardly. The leather looks and feels luxe and only some hard plastics (such as on the door cappings) belie the car’s LandCruiser origins.

Practicality on a whole is pretty good in the Velar and that comes down mostly to the space provided for each occupant and the high-end tech.

Up front, there is a lot of head- and legroom for my 168cm height and even when you have a co-pilot you’re not jockeying for elbow room.

The seats are very comfortable as they’re well-cushioned and feature excellent lumbar support. I miss a seat heat function on colder days but you can easily do a long trip in the Velar and not feel too fatigued.

The 214mm ground clearance has made it an easy SUV to get in and out of, for me and my seven-year old. Annoyingly, though, some of the doors don't close properly unless you slam them.

The individual storage is a bit less than you might expect as there's not a lot of centre console storage for little items but you still get a small glove box and middle console, two cupholders, two drink bottle holders and a phone cubby up front.

The back seat offers enough space for me to be comfortable but I did have a comment from my dad, who is 183cm, that it was a smidge squishy for him.

The seats are comfortable and amenities are good with two USB-C ports, a 12-volt socket, directional air vents, map pockets and a fold-down armrest with two cupholders. There are storage bins but they're very shallow.

Because of the sleek rear shaping, the boot space is smaller than most of its rivals at 625L when all seats are in use. It’s large enough for my gear and you should still be able to stack luggage easily for a road trip.

The technology on offer is pretty darn good. The multimedia system takes a while to get used to but once you do, it's an easy enough system to get around but not having any buttons/dials means you tend to look at it more than I like while on the go.

Unlike the Disco Sport I was just in, which features the same system, there have been no issues with connectivity with my iPhone with the Bluetooth or wireless Apple CarPlay. There’s also Android Auto and the built-in satellite navigation is top-notch.

I've already mentioned the rear charging options but up front you're spoiled for choice with a USB-A port, three USB-C ports and a wireless charging pad.

Like many hybrids, cargo capacity takes a bit of a blow. In this case, placement of the battery under the cargo floor means a reduction in luggage capacity from 1109 litres to 899 litres. In the seven-seat variant, capacity is 883 litres with the rearmost row folded flat. The rear seat folds 60:40 and there are good, solid tie-down points in the rear. There’s no under-floor storage, however, apart from a small compartment just behind the rear seat which locates the tools and safety triangle.

The tailgate is powered (if a bit slow in its action) and there are cup-holders atop each suspension tower, clearly a hang-over from the seven-seat variant which is not available in F Sport trim. The cargo blind is a good addition, as is the 1500-Watt power socket in the cargo bay.

In the cabin, there are plenty of grab handles and the side steps give shorter folk a leg up when entering or leaving. Once you’re in, the front seats are terrifically comfortable as well as featuring a massage function on top of the heating and cooling functions. The steering wheel is also heated.

Paddle shifts might seem odd in a vehicle like this, but they are brilliant in off-road situations, although you need to first select manual mode on the shifter to have the paddles hold each gear for more than a few seconds in most of the on-road driving modes.

Speaking of the shifter, Lexus has seen fit to once again reinvent this simple control. You now need to pull the handle towards you and up for Reverse, across and down for Drive while Park remains a separate button even though it looks like just another icon on the lever.

A pair of cup holders live over to the passenger’s side of the centre console, and there are a pair of USB charge ports as well as an HDMI port in the dashboard. But the switches for the power windows are located almost directly under the driver’s interior door pull, forcing some unorthodox wrist geometry.

At least the buttons for the climate control and off-road functions such as diff locks and ride height are, indeed, buttons and not menu items. The simple knob to control the stereo on-off and volume is a great touch, too. So is the cooled centre console under a cover that opens from either side.

The rear seat is big and wide but the high floor dictated by the body-on-frame construction means those with long legs will have their knees bent while ever they’re in the back seat. The seat cushion itself is pretty flat, too, but the backrest does recline through a wide range of angles.

Reading lights, lots of air vents and a full set of climate controls ease the pain of riding in the back, but if you want cup holders, you need to keep the centre rear seat free so the armrest that houses the holders can be lowered and snapped open. Adding to the impression that plenty of thought has gone into the rear seat environment are the pull-up sun blinds on each window. Why don’t all cars have these?

While the LX line-up incorporates off-road oriented versions dubbed Overtrail, that specification is not available in the hybrid variety LX700h. Instead, the LX hybridised line-up kicks off with the Sport Luxury grades in either five or seven-seat layouts and a list price of $196,000 and $199,800 respectively. The F Sport is the new LX flagship model with its $202,000 price-tag (all prices are plus on-road costs) and is only available in five-seat configuration.

As you might imagine for a flagship badge for a maker like Lexus, there’s really nothing missing from the specification. In the case of the hybrid variants, that includes 22-inch alloy wheels, power sunroof, full leather trim and a hands-free tailgate. Those feature are part of the Enhancement Pack on lesser versions, but have been added to all hybrid LXs.

You also get four-zone climate-control, heated, cooled and massaging front seats, keyless entry and start, steering wheel-mounted controls, paddle shifters, automatic headlights and wipers, heated mirrors, soft-close doors, 12.3-inch touchscreen, digital radio, embedded sat-nav, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, head-up display, premium audio system and pretty much everything else you’ve ever seen fitted to a car.

The F Sport variant we’ve tested here is the big daddy and adds four-way adjustable head rests in the front, a heated steering wheel, specific aluminium trim, aluminium pedals, F Sport-specific gear knob, ventilated and heated rear seats, and a digital rear-view mirror.

The Range Rover Velar P400e's plug-in hybrid powertrain combines a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine with an electric motor to deliver 297kW of power and 640Nm of torque.

The Velar features an eight-speed auto transmission and is an AWD. With that optioned Terrain Response feature, it can do some mild off-road adventuring or tackle a trip to the ski-fields with relative ease.

The hybrid driveline of the vehicle we’re looking at here marks a further expansion of buyer choice when it comes to how their Lexus LX is powered. The twin-turbocharged petrol and diesel variants will continue alongside the newcomer, although you can bet Lexus (and Toyota) will be watching the sales charts closely to see where consumer tastes fall.

The hybrid set-up here starts with the twin-turbocharged 3.4-litre petrol V6 (a lot of people - Toyota included - are calling it a 3.5, but at 3445cc, it’s not) from the Lexus LX600.

But instead of bolting directly to the 10-speed transmission, in this case, there’s a single electric motor and clutch unit sandwiched between the engine and transmission. That means the Lexus retains mechanical four-wheel drive, while the electric motor can provide extra urge for acceleration or towing as well as offering EV-only operation when it’s required (mainly in stop-start traffic).

Crucially, it also means the vehicle retains those traditional off-road qualities of low-range gearing and permanent four-wheel drive. The electric motor also contributes torque to the equation when the driver selects either Rock, Dirt or Deep Snow modes to maintain a steady flow of Newton metres.

The petrol V6 contributes a healthy 305kW and 650Nm to the picture, while the electric motor adds a further 36kW and 250Nm. When all that’s harnessed up, there’s a total of 341kW of power and 790Nm of torque on tap, allowing for a braked towing capacity of 3500kg. It also makes this variant the torquiest Lexus LX ever.

Interestingly, Lexus says the conventional 12-volt starting system and alternator for the petrol engine, means that unit could continue to operate if any part of the EV system failed.

One of the big questions over hybrid drivelines in off-road conditions is what happens if the vehicle suddenly finds itself partly under water. In this case, says Lexus, there are additional waterproofing measures which should prevent any problems mid-creek.

The F Sport grade gets a Torsen (torque-sensing) rear differential and firmer dampers for an overall sportier feel.

At 2780kg, the LX hybrid is heavy, and is at least 100kg more than the LX600 due to the batteries and other hybrid gear.

The official combined fuel-cycle consumption figure is 2.2L/100km and my real-world usage came out at 6.0L/100km after doing mostly open-road trips with some urban stuff thrown in.

I have charged it to full twice with a few (small) charging moments scattered in between as that’s been realistic for life this week. 

Claimed pure electric driving range is 69km but expect closer to 50km in the real-world. 

Based on my real-world consumption and the 69L fuel tank, expect a theoretical driving range of 1150km.

The only draw back with a PHEV is the charging element as you get the best economy if you charge it to full every time you drive, and that's not always realistic!

The P400e has a Type 2 CCS charging port, so you can hook it up to a fast charger. On a 50kW system you can go from 0-80 per cent in 30 minutes and on a 7.0kW system, you can go from 0-100 per cent in two-hours and 12-minutes.

On a standard domestic socket, expect to leave on overnight for a 0-100 per cent fill.

Land Rover recommends a minimum 95 RON premium unleaded petrol for the Velar.

Here’s where the hybrid driveline really comes into its own. On paper, at least.

Despite the added kiloWatts and Newton metres, the 700h manages an official fuel consumption figure of 10 litres per 100km. That compares with 11.9/100km for the 305kW LX600, although it’s still more than the 8.9L of the 227kW diesel-powered LX500d.

But the hybrid’s big advantage will come in city and suburban traffic where the stop-start nature of things will enable the driveline to harvest braking energy and turn that back into electricity for the battery.

Our testing showed an average of 11.2 litres per 100km in mixed conditions which blew out to 13.0 litres with more urban running. That’s pretty handy in the context of a vehicle like this and won’t be far from the real-world numbers of the diesel LX.

The Lexus carries 98 litres of petrol, split between one 68-litre tank and a 30-litre sub tank. That should give it a theoretical range of almost 800km, but again, that will depend largely on where and how it’s used.

The P400e has a deep well of power to dip into and fantastic pick up when you need to overtake or get up to speed.

Like other plug-in hybrids I’ve sampled from Land Rover there's a little lag sometimes when you accelerate from a full stop but it’s not as pronounced in this model as others. 

The back brakes seem to hold a couple seconds longer than they should and if you accelerate as you would in any other car, there is a ker-clunk sound and you shift forward in your seat until they release.

This was most noticeable in stop-start city traffic and to be fair might just be a quirk on our test car and not on the model as a whole.

The switch between the electric and petrol components is mostly smooth and the cabin is refined because it’s so quiet. Pretty much no external noise makes its way inside.

I did a trip with my father-in-law this week and he said riding in the back seat was smooth, comfortable and very quiet. In fact, he fell asleep not long after we left! A high compliment, indeed.

The wide windows and higher ride have ensure excellent visibility but you only get a reversing camera. Yes, it’s great quality and clear but a 360-degree view system should come standard on a large SUV like this, especially considering its price tag. That being said, the P400e is still pretty easy to park.

At low speeds, threading your way through traffic or parking, the LX feels like it needs a lot of real estate. Which makes sense given the 5.1-metre overall length that puts it on par with a lot of dual-cab utes. The width of almost two metres plays into things, too, and reversing down the average driveway will often have the sensors chirping at you constantly.

What’s interesting, though, is the way the Lexus seems to shrink once you’re up and running in a more open setting. Even a winding road reveals a car that is easy to place in corners and seems to feed back lots of the right sort of information in terms of what the wheels are doing and where they’re placed. The result is that you can actually hustle the LX along quite smartly if you need to.

The ride remains composed yet there’s a level of control that helps keep the big, high LX relatively flat through corners and responding sharply to the helm. Even those huge wheels and tyres and their corresponding unsprung mass don’t intrude. It’s a great trick.

Less easy to appreciate, however, is the driveline, specifically the twin-turbo petrol V6. Frankly, it’s just not as refined as we were expecting. I wouldn’t mind betting Lexus has tuned the exhaust system to make the LX sound like there’s a petrol V8 under that heavily sculpted bonnet. And at low revs, it kind of works with a rhythmic, muted, yet guttural sort of bass coming through.

But rev it harder and the engine soon reveals itself to be a V6 with all the secondary vibration and resonance that implies. Simply, this vehicle is neither as smooth nor as quiet as the Lexus brand would suggest and the harder you rev it, the more it descends into NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) territory. The issue is made worse by the fact that the rest of the package is so darn quiet.

Even the stop-start - a technology that is now well understood - doesn’t seem quite as slick as it should be. Taking off from a green light with the petrol engine stopped, the Lexus often produces a small `sonic bump’ from the driveline as the V6 fires into life. It’s felt more than heard. But it’s still puzzling in the context of this make and model.

The transmission, meantime, is as silky as you’d imagine with upshifts and even downshifts that are barely perceptible. It would be nice, though, if the transmission obeyed the paddles a bit more faithfully. As it is, the chosen gear is only held for a few seconds unless you also pull the shift lever into manual mode.

I’ll also take issue with the rear-view mirror that includes a camera view as well as a conventional mirror option. I can see the point of having a camera-view mirror (when the cargo area is piled high, for instance) but I’ve never yet met one that works properly. The problem is that the camera view that pops up on the mirror’s screen is never as faithful as it should be. Also, if you wear glasses to read, you’ll also need them to focus on the image properly. While a conventional mirror has the same depth of field as looking through the windscreen, the camera-generated view does not. Also, when used through a wet rear window in low light, the camera view is borderline useless. This tech clearly has a ways to go.

It will come as no surprise to learn that the expensive LX range is well equipped safety wise, nor that the flagship version of that range features every driver aid ever dreamed up by engineers.

That includes autonomous emergency braking that incorporates pedestrian and cyclist recognition, intersection turn assist, lane-keeping assistance, lane-departure warning, blind-spot monitoring, road-sign recognition, hill-start assist, front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera with 360-degree views, rear cross-traffic alert and braking and tyre-pressure monitoring.

On top of that, the LX gains the safety additions revealed at the 2025 facelift of the LX line-up, including emergency driving stop, safe-exit monitoring and a forward-facing camera.

There are no less than 10 airbags in the LX, including rear-seat cushion airbags and side-curtain airbags for every outboard seating position.

What’s perhaps even more impressive is that the driver aids are beautifully calibrated to the point where other carmakers should pay close attention when calibrating their own. Where some cars physically fight the driver for control of the wheel in the name of lane-keeping assistance, the Lexus instead offers a polite suggestion of a better course than the one the driver is currently on.

The Lexus LX series hasn’t been crash tested by ANCAP, but the 300-Series LandCruiser on which it’s based scored the full five safety stars when it was tested in 2022.

The Range Rover Velar comes with a five-year/unlimited km warranty and the battery is covered by an eight-year/ 160,000km warranty, which is a usual term for the class now.

There is a five-year capped-price servicing program which costs a flat $2100, or $420 per service, and is more affordable than a pay-as-you-go option.

Servicing intervals are very reasonable at every 12 months or 20,400km, whichever occurs first.

You also get five years roadside assistance through Assist Australia as a part of your servicing plan.

Lexus offers a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty on its vehicles and throws in three years’ worth of subscription to the Lexus Encore owner privileges and benefits program. Those extras include Lexus on Demand, valet parking, roadside assistance and even complimentary access to Qantas airport lounges.

There’s also five years of capped-price servicing available.

As well as the overall five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, there’s eight years and 160,000km of cover for the hybrid battery. That can be extended to up to 10 years provided the battery is checked for degradation every year after the fifth year.

Servicing for the LX is every six months or 10,000km which is much more frequent than much of the competition, but reflects the heavy-duty nature of the vehicle.

Lexus has about 30 dealerships in Australia, primarily in urban locations, but for many servicing and repair jobs, a Toyota dealership or service centre should be able to handle things on the LandCruiser 300-Series-based LX.