Bye bye V10, hello solid state: the Lexus LFA will return as a cutting edge BEV

And so to the third part of what Toyota is calling ‘The Trinity’: after the GR GT and the GT GT3 comes this Lexus LFA Concept. The car previously known as the Lexus Sports Concept in what was probably the worst kept secret in... well, ever. There’s also been confirmation that the car is a fully battery powered vehicle, again confirming the pretty obvious lines of speculation and inflaming the V10 enthusiast portion of the internet. 

This will become the car that actually carries the LFA badge, while the GR GT feels like the more immediate physical manifestation. Toyota’s basically been heavily pregnant with various secrets, and we’ve got non-identical twins. Or triplets if you count the GT3.

So how has the endless ‘concept’ of the LFA actually changed? Well, let’s say it’s evolved. We now know that it’ll be a BEV, despite sharing the GR GT’s basic structure and core competencies. And no, it’s unlikely to get a hybrid V10 even if technically you could probably get an engine in there.

Photography: Toby Thyer

Given Toyota’s research and development programmes, it’ll get solid state batteries with triple the energy density of traditional lithium ion, have all wheel drive and lots and lots of horsepower. Probably. But that’s not the entirety of the point. This is a more sophisticated, mature and exclusive kind of car – and not one you’ll be overly tempted to thrash around a track.

The profile has become more fully realised than previous iterations, and some of the detail has started to emerge – a smoother, more resolved front with very strong headlight and DRL graphics, some sculptural vents in the bonnet. Again, a cab-rear stance, but beefed up with proper flying buttresses on the C-pillar (very OG LFA), bleeding back into a modern representation of the original LFA’s triangular rear bumper corner treatment.

OK, so it’s also got a quadcopter drone frenched into the rear windscreen, but it’s safe to say that probably won’t make production. All in all though, it’s a slick looking thing – even if it doesn’t massively embrace the packaging possibilities of a full EV drivetrain.

Of more interest here is the stunning interior thinking. The concept is bi-colour side to side, the driver almost walled off from the passenger by a cockpit that literally wraps around the driving seat. The driver’s display butterflies across the dash like a wave, different sections displaying vital functions. And the yoke wheel is festooned with delicate, almost surgical spars and switches, supplemented by Lexus-ish rotaries. Weirdly, it still feels like a Lexus – has some of those design cues – but angles upwards in terms of design, quality and space-age weirdness.

Even the colour palette feels considered and deliberate, and though you probably wouldn’t mistake it for a production car, you can see where the designers might be leading us: Lexus as a forward thinking, cutting edge brand with a more liberal dose of creativity than we’ve seen so far. It’s not finished and will likely see yet more iterations, but we like the direction the actual LFA replacement is going – the same bones as the GR product, but sent to a very specific finishing school.