Lexus effectively created the mold for the modern car-like luxury SUV a couple decades ago with the RX, which took home our inaugural SUV of the Year award in 1999. The rest is simple, yes? Carve angular Lexus bodywork onto the RAV4 platform, pack it with as much luxury and tech as the desired price point affords you, collect sales.

When the then-new NX competed in SUVOTY 2015, we named it a finalist, praising the gutsy turbo-four and cleverly tuned automatic transmission. But five years later, riding on what is now last-gen RAV4 architecture, does the hybridized NX still make sense?

H Is for Hybrid

We'll start with powertrain. In place of the NX 300's 235-hp turbo-four sits a 154-hp 2.5-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder. It's supplemented by three electric motors—one on each axle—plus a starter-generator mounted to the engine, and total system horsepower sums to 194 hp. All-wheel drive is standard.

The electric motors do allow for an EV drive mode, but like other Lexus hybrids we've driven, it's unlikely you'll make it out of the parking lot or driveway without the engine kicking on. As far as fuel economy benefits for the hybrid, results are stout. Non-hybrid AWD examples are rated at 22/28 mpg city/highway, and the 300h returns 33/30 mpg. Those are impressive numbers, until you realize the more affordable 2020 RAV4 Hybrid achieves 41/38 mpgandproduces an additional 25 hp.

Whereas the turbocharged NX sends power through a six-speed conventional automatic, the NX 300h utilizes an electronic CVT auto. The implementation of a CVT in the RX 450h I was driving a couple weeks ago finally convinced me that a transmission of the continuously variable sortcanbe a better choice than an old-school auto, but it just doesn't work for me in the NX.

On-Pavement Impressions

Because the meager four-cylinder and modest electric assistance are tasked with the motivation of the hefty 4,200-pound NX, I found myself using full throttle what felt like constantly. In a car with a CVT, full throttle means your engine will be groaning away at consistent high rpms. That's an unpleasant and far too frequent occurrence in the 300h.

Full throttle and high revs can be fun in a slow-car-fast way—think Mazda Miata—but in a luxury car it just made the powertrain feel underwhelming and inadequate. This is the slowest car from a luxury nameplate I've driven. Lexus' numbers have it wheezing to 60 in 9.1 seconds, over 2 seconds behind the standard NX.

Another issue I take with the NX driving experience is that this is a difficult car to drive smoothly. The RX hybrid had me feeling like a chauffeur school alum within minutes, but the NX has an overly eager throttle pedal and brakes that are harder to modulate. I noticed myself apologizing to passengers and making excuses like "I'm still getting used to it."

Lexus includes a generous collection of active safety features on every NX and adds lane centering and road sign assist for 2020. The adaptive cruise control system is passable, but the lane keep assist and lane centering had me consistently bouncing between lane lines or crossing over them all together.