LEXUS launched the new ES model through Lexus dealers nationwide on June 11, 2026. Since its founding in 1989, LEXUS has consistently maintained a spirit of innovation, continuing to challenge itself to provide customers with new technologies and value.
At Japan Mobility Show 2025, the brand presented the message “DISCOVER—imitating no one” alongside several concept models, declaring further transformation into a brand that can provide unique experiential value to each individual customer. Going forward, LEXUS will assign each product a unique theme following the word “DISCOVER” to define experiential value.
The ES began sales in 1989 alongside the flagship sedan LS, earning praise from many customers worldwide for its quietness, ride comfort, and spacious interior, and has been sold in more than 80 countries and regions as a core LEXUS model. Since the launch of the RX400h in 2005, LEXUS has been a pioneer of electrification in the luxury market, consistently pursuing both excellent driving performance and environmental performance. The eighth-generation new ES has been fully renewed as the leading model in LEXUS’s next-generation electrified lineup.
“DISCOVER CONFIDENCE” Theme Defines Development
The new ES carries the theme “DISCOVER CONFIDENCE,” refining the long-distance comfort that successive ES generations have inherited while achieving performance that allows drivers to drive with greater confidence at a higher level. Through a relaxed travel experience, it provides rich time in which all occupants’ minds are settled. Toward achieving carbon neutrality through a multi-pathway approach, LEXUS will offer HEV and BEV powertrains.
Lexus International Chief Engineer Kohei Sentoku stated that with the new ES, they aimed to redefine the sedan for a new era to protect its traditional value. A sedan consists of three independent spaces—engine room/motor room, cabin space, and trunk—providing engineering rationality that achieves high body rigidity and low center of gravity. He finds great appeal in the excellent ride comfort, handling stability, and quietness this enables. With the new ES, they aimed to achieve both a function-rooted flowing form and spacious cabin through design and packaging innovations. The newly developed TNGA platform (GA-K) provides customers with diverse electrified vehicle choices of HEV and BEV.
Design Inspired by “Provocative Simplicity”
For design, the new ES challenges expression inspired by the next-generation BEV design theme “Provocative Simplicity,” embodying LEXUS’s new design beginning with the new ES. While further deepening elegant design, it creates a clean, comfortable, and unique worldview. The exterior, pursuing both the new ES packaging and the most beautiful proportions for a sedan, achieves a flowing design that suggests a heart-stirring driving experience.
World-First Interior Technologies
The interior adopts the world-first “Responsive Hidden Switch,” which assimilates physical switches into the interior to achieve both functionality and high-quality design.
The “Interior Illumination Package” creates a more comfortable cabin space with six worldview lighting settings. LEXUS adopts for the first time “Bamboo Layering (Surface-Emitting)” ornamentation, which shows a richly textured bamboo expression during the day and uses surface-emitting technology to bring warmth and depth to the space with soft light at night.
The new ES adds a new “Rr Comfort package” with enhanced rear-seat equipment to the lineup, in addition to standard specification and “version L.” It provides special experiential value through reclining, ottoman, and front passenger seat forward-folding functions.
Refined Driving Performance and Safety Technology
By thoroughly honing the car’s fundamental qualities and electrification technology, LEXUS aimed to achieve both handling that makes drivers and the car feel as one—making them want to keep driving forever—and ride comfort and comfort that naturally brings smiles to all occupants, at a high level. The new ES also actively adopts next-generation multimedia with enhanced advancement and convenience, as well as advanced safety technologies including the evolved Lexus Safety System +.
Sentoku stated that in developing this car, they repeatedly drove, broke, and rebuilt it at the “Toyota Technical Center Shimoyama (TTC-S)” site, where planning, design, engineering, and evaluation functions gather together. They faced many difficulties in the process but worked on development united in their desire to deliver a good product. The new ES, as the culmination of this work, also symbolizes the dawn of next-generation LEXUS.
Key Specifications and Pricing
The new ES is offered in HEV (ES350h FWD/AWD) and BEV (ES350e FWD, ES500e AWD) variants. Overall length is 5,140mm (+165mm), width 1,920mm (+55mm), and wheelbase 2,950mm (+80mm).
The ES350h features a 2.5L inline four-cylinder engine with system maximum output of 182 kW (248 PS), 0-100 km/h acceleration of 7.7 seconds (FWD) or 7.5 seconds (AWD), and fuel consumption of 25.4 km/L (FWD) or 24.8 km/L (AWD).
The ES350e BEV delivers 165 kW (224 PS), 0-100 km/h in 8.0 seconds, and 670km range. The ES500e BEV delivers 252 kW (342 PS), 0-100 km/h in 5.5 seconds, and 636km range. BEV charging time from 10-80% at 150kW takes approximately 28 minutes at 25°C ambient temperature.
Manufacturer suggested retail prices (10% consumption tax included) start at 7,900,000 yen for the ES350h FWD and 8,100,000 yen for AWD. The ES350e is priced from 7,900,000 yen, with “version L” at 8,800,000 yen and “Rr Comfort package” at 9,200,000 yen. The ES500e “version L” AWD is priced at 9,200,000 yen, with the base AWD at 8,300,000 yen. Recycling fees are not included.