2026 Lexus ES350e First Look

Hey everyone! Today we are out here in Houston, Texas to see the 2026 Lexus ES350E for the first time in person. So let's go ahead and check out this car and all the features we can learn about it today. They're displaying two different models here at the dealership here in Houston. This is Westside Lexus. These are both demo models so of course these aren't full production vehicles but they'll be very close to these kinds of vehicles once we do get them at the stores. The black one in front of us is going to be a luxury model and then this one right here is going to be a premium model. So if you notice right away the luxury will have the 21-inch alloy wheels and then the premium will have the 19-inch alloy wheels. So obviously there's a few differences you can notice on the exterior but they'll be very similar on both exteriors regardless depending on which trim levels you go. So let's go ahead and get a closer look at these vehicles today. Now this one right here is going to be the 2026 ES350E premium and this is going have the 19-inch alloy wheels. This one's in the clobber square exterior and a palomino interior. Now the premium package will still have a lot of standard equipment. Of course on the inside you're still going to have a lot of the new features. This one's going to have the new digital gauge cluster. Of course you have the standard portrait display touch screen, the new gear shifter, and of course a lot of other standard features as well. This one's about six inches longer than the previous model so there's still a lot of new features on this vehicle and notice on the door handles if you want to pull them you actually put your hand inside the handle and then open it but there's also a manual latch on the outside as well if you need to use that. It's a pretty cool way of getting in the car. Obviously a back seat of the ES, no fancy seat controls back here. That would be on your luxury trim level but you do get two USB-C charging ports right here and all the ES's will have a fixed sunroof. As far as I know none of the new ES's will have a pano glass roof as of now so that may change later but as of now all the ES's will just have a single roof. Of course the rear end of the ES is going to have the new Lexus body language. It's going to have the LED rear taillight with the Lexus spelled out inside the taillight. You also get your return signals in the lower bumper so that's new as well. Inside the cargo area you do have plenty of room in here as well. Now I believe this model of course these do not have a spare so I think these are all run flats but you do get your charging cables for NACS charging on all Lexus BEV models as well so those are all included and you also get a center pass through like the previous model. This is the new 2026 Lexus ES 350e luxury in the caviar exterior and a black leather interior. So let's go ahead and check out this car. Of course you got the new LED rear taillight spelling out Lexus on the back. The 350e is going to be the electric version of the car should get about 300 miles of range. So on the exterior notice how the integrated turn signals are also with the daytime running lights and you also have the actual headlamps right below that. Looks like this is a cornering light down here I'm pretty sure but of course this is the new Lexus metal bodied grille. This is the grille on the electric model the 350e and of course this is going to be the luxury trim level with the upgraded 21 inch alloy wheels. These are kind of like in a machine finish with a two-tone look. Now of course you do have the NACS charger of course. These are going to be standard on all the electric ESs so of course that does support charging at a Tesla station as well. I guess the car is locked so it's not opening. So this has the new door latch system so if I put my hand inside of course then I can open it through there. This is the black leather interior with bamboo trim actually illuminates at night wish I could see that better but this is the inside of this vehicle. This is a luxury trim level just from the wheels. Of course we got the new gauge cluster this looks like it's all digital. We got three-person memory seating and notice that this is all like haptic feedback so of course it's all like touch sensitive which is a little bit different. We got all our touch sensitive or controls that are on the steering wheel so of course you can see all your information that's on your gauge cluster right here. So if I scroll down a little bit I can see all your general information on the vehicle and of course we got the new Lexus steering wheel design right here. I think this is a standard four-change display on this one as well has the new Lexus interface of course you got all your familiar items on here you got some charging information your settings and of course you have all your safety systems equipped on the vehicle so all that will show up like it did as before. You got all that same stuff there and of course everything else drive recorder interesting wi-fi hotspot display and cameras navigation settings so it looks like you still have the integrated Lexus navigation as well. You also have the haptic feedback controls right here for your AC controls you also have radio controls along with your 360 camera right here and then right below that we have the air vents and then two USB-C charging ports two wireless phone chargers right here and then this is our new shifter so I'm assuming you move it down for drive up for reverse okay up for neutral and then up again for reverse and then P for park you also have two cupholders these are pretty big in this car of course you got your parking brake brake hold feature traction control off switch inside the center console you do have storage uh you look looks like you have another USB-C charging port down there as well and right above that we do have our upgraded digital rearview mirror we have our safety connect and our sunroof now this one actually has a sunshade that goes all the way back so it's all electronic so it is not manual so kind of cool to see that there's a lot of new technology on this vehicle so of course this is kind of just a brief overview of this one and this is the luxury trim level I wish I got to see this car at night because I know this bamboo wood trim lights up so but I'm sure I'll see that at a later time but overall I'm actually kind of impressed the ES actually looks a lot better in person the pictures really don't do it justice and the luxury package comes with the option for an executive package I'm pretty sure but it has the massaging receipts reclining receipts and it comes with that ottoman as well and the rear sunshade screen so overall there's a lot of new features that are on this model we've never had an executive level ES available in the states so this is kind of cool to see in person so in the back seat you do have massaging receipts but you also have reclining receipts so I can move the seat forward or back but I also have a ottoman that comes out see if I can get this to come out there we go so that way you can have someone reclining there if you want look at that of course you got your heated and ventilated receipts back here rear sunshade screen inside you have storage and two USB-C charging ports and you have two more charging ports right here it looks like it moved the passenger seat forward as well here we are at Northside Lexus in Houston Texas we got Melissa O'Connell inside the new ES she's already doing her deep dive this car looks so good though I'm really excited to see it once we get these in the stores so with this new eighth generation it's been reborn right this is our first multi-pathway approach Lexus vehicle so you might be asking what does that mean multi-pathway so it's one platform that provides two that support for two different powertrains namely hybrid and battery electric so let's start with the hybrid the hybrid is the ES 350h it's going to be basically what you're seeing here now it can be operated front wheel and all wheel drive and there's two different grades we have premium and premium plus now with the BEVs we have two different models we have a 350e and we have the 500e the difference there by a 350e is front wheel drive and the 500e is all wheel drive that's a direct four torque vectoring system so again it's you know very dynamic it goes zero to 100 100 to zero based on driver input very very cool system now with the grade the packages on the BEV we have premium and luxury so the ones you're seeing here on the floor today this is a premium discover and the one behind us here this is the luxury grade in the cabrio you can see the spindle shape kind of carved out here into the grille as it kind of cascades down into the front end design we've got that new Lexus logo right here at the edge of the hood and then of course it flows down into this lower grille design here now with the headlights we have these dual front led lamps where they're really neat for a Lexus first so the upper L here this is your daytime running light and the lower L the inverse one that's your turn signal your headlight cluster is right here below this is a bi-led projection unit and then of course on some models you will have corner lights namely the luxury and they'll be right here as we move over to the side of the vehicle we have 19-inch wheels these are the standard wheels on all grades of ES it's got a black finish with this arrow cover design and as we move over to the side of the vehicle you'll notice it has this fast back almost trunkless silhouette again more of a sporty appearance we have these new door handles also Lexus first so a semi-flush you just simply grab underneath and pull to open the door nice and easy now you might notice the vehicle is a little bit taller but that's not all it's longer and it's lighter so namely it's about six and a half inches longer it's about 75 inches wide and that wheelbase is about three inches longer as well so what is that going to give us it's going to give us more interior volume and a larger trunk as well and that sitting position is now about three inches higher than the outgoing model so again nice and easy ingress and egress now moving to the back of the vehicle we've got some really cool for the first time at Lexus we have this light bar that goes across the back which you're familiar with on a lot of our other new Lexus products but what's different is we have the L-E-X-U-S the logo now it lights up at nighttime so really cool design feature there and then we have the L shapes here in the rear bumper that's going to serve as our turn signals and our reverse lamps now all ES's will come equipped with a power operated trunk nice and easy it'll power right on up and inside the trunk you're going to notice we have these dual voltage charging cables so giving you flexibility for charging at home or in public as well now the vehicle does come with the N-A-C-S charging port standard on the vehicle just like our 2026 RZ but then these are the adapters in the event that you're in a place where it's not N-A-C-S first time on a Lexus product we have a power charge port door so with the introduction of this Lexus ES electric vehicle for the press of a button it powers down there's your N-A-C-S port right there here's your charging indicator light and whenever you're complete press this button here now remind me the range on the 350e what does it get up to 307 miles range and then on the 500 up to 276 276 okay there's no run flats all season tires and then uh i want to say on the front wheel drive 350e summer tires okay with 19 and 20 percent but i'll show you underneath here so no run flats or spare right huh okay interesting so it stayed on the apple map even though i went to lexus lexus maps cool can you switch it can you switch your view your map view on here uh like as in like right now this is an apple maps okay but i opened lexus i don't think you can use the the native map here this is carplay the carplay okay so once you connect to carplay you're gonna see carplay wow all right good to know good to know so you set the home screen for map and audio right yes okay lexus map lexus map and then carplay audio yes yes you can save your home and work from the lexus map oh you don't there you go it's the little things that makes a difference really makes life better how did we get to the drive modes again is it in settings we actually changed so you can oh right and go to oh wow come back to the left and then oh okay so they're normal eco sport range custom you can switch it your way there it's much faster wow these animations are really cool notice when you turn on range all our climate control shut off that's right yeah miles like the rz exactly that's cool yeah wow so this is the ambient illumination on the car and this looks so good like it goes all the way on the door panel inside the speaker on the dash i mean this is so cool you guys i would change the color but i don't have the key right now but i'll look at this another time but oh my gosh that looks so cool when it's in the bamboo like that so the main trim levels that you'll see on the new 2026 lexus es 350e are the premium premium plus and luxury obviously this is a premium and then luxury we don't have a premium plus but it'll look very similar to a premium package of course it's going to have the 19 inch alley wheels and then the luxury will have the 21 inch wheels the main differences between the premium and premium plus will be the options on the inside so of course it may have a few more options like 360 camera maybe it has a display uh and a couple other options as well but versus luxury of course your luxury is going to have your semi-aniline leather interior uh your upgraded mark loans and audio system the bamboo would trim that lights up at night so those are some of the few differences i know there's a couple more but the luxuries will also have the executive seating option that also has the ottoman reclining rear seats and massaging rear seats along with heated and ventilated rear seats as well but overall the only other way you can really tell the difference is the wheels and actually on the front the premium does not have corning lights and the luxury will have the corning lights down here so that's one subtle difference that you may notice on these models all right guys this officially wraps up our first look at the new 2026 lexus es 350e all new electric vehicle and overall all i can say is that i'm super excited about this car and if you haven't seen this vehicle in person i will have to say you need to because the pictures don't really do it justice you really have to appreciate it once you see it in its full body to really understand the design that lexus is going for on this vehicle and believe me i was skeptical but after seeing it in person i can say that honestly i would even consider this car in the future if i were in the market for a sedan but the body is actually very beautiful and i think because lexus was promoting the car in some lighter colors like the copper crest and the wavelength i actually think it looks a lot better in these darker colors like the cloudburst and caviar so these are some nicer colors in my opinion that i like on this but obviously i think the other ones are cool but these are definitely a little bit more subtle and classic compared to the other ones that they were advertising in some of their recent ads but all i can say is that i'm very excited where lexus is going with this and hopefully we'll be getting a few of these in the near future i'll be going to the official lexus launch training in march so you'll see another es video where i kind of go more in depth this is kind of just a brief introduction on the car but of course as always i'm glad that i was able to get some content and show it to you guys out there so thank you guys again for watching today i really appreciate you and if you have any other questions please let me know in the comments below but other than that hope you guys have an amazing day and thanks for watching