2021 Lexus LS

2021 is a mid-cycle refresh year for the XF50 LS, but the refresh was chassis, cabin and calibration work — the V35A-FTS twin-turbo V6 carries over at 416 hp, the same output the generation launched with in 2018. That is the strongest standard engine among full-size luxury sedans' base cars and lands near the top quartile of the sedan horsepower band without asking a V8 premium.

442 lb-ft available on a plateau from 1,600 rpm sits at the very top of the sedan torque band and was the highest base-engine figure in the 2021 full-size luxury set — ahead of the S 500, 740i and A8. It is the number that explains the LS's effortless part-throttle character, which is how a car like this is actually driven.

Lexus publishes 4.6 seconds to 60 mph for the 2021 LS 500 in rear-drive form and 5.1 for the LS 500h, with no separate AWD claim; independent tests of AWD cars come in around 5.0–5.7 s, so the manufacturer figure is the optimistic end of the real range. Even at the slower end it is quicker than a 740i or an A8 and genuinely fast for a ~4,900-lb car whose brief is isolation rather than pace.

The 2021 refresh went after exactly this item: a new piston crown for quieter cold running, redesigned engine mounts to cut vibration, and added sound deadening, on top of a wastegate-control change — and reviewers duly describe the car as hushed at cruise with strong, effortless thrust off the low-rpm torque plateau. It stays out of the top band for two reasons the same reviews are blunt about: there is still real turbo lag when you ask suddenly, and the V6's voice is held against it in a car that used to have a V8.

Lexus recalibrated the Direct Shift-10AT's shift logic for 2021 specifically to keep the engine in a more responsive part of its band, and reviewers of the refreshed car call the shifts almost imperceptible — one describes it shifting "like it's cutting through warm butter". It sits below the top band because the recalibration did not cure the known fault: kickdown is still slow when you want a sudden highway pass, and with ten closely stacked ratios that hesitation is the main reason the LS can feel unwilling to a light throttle.

All-wheel drive was offered across the 2021 LS range — on both the LS 500 and the LS 500h, rather than reserved for the top of it — and the hardware is more than a token: a Torsen limited-slip center differential with a rear-biased 31/69 split that moves to 48/52 on slick surfaces. It falls short of the top band because AWD remains a cost option on a rear-drive baseline (unlike standard quattro or 4MATIC), and there is no torque vectoring, terrain mode or low range to add capability beyond wet- and snow-road traction.

The 2021 LS offers two genuinely distinct powertrains — the twin-turbo V6 LS 500 and the V6 Multi Stage Hybrid LS 500h, each in rear- or all-wheel drive — which covers the mainstream buyer and the efficiency-minded one but nothing beyond. There is no V8, no plug-in hybrid and no battery-electric LS, so against a 2021 S-Class spanning inline-six, V8 and PHEV, or a 7 Series still offering a V8 and a PHEV, the slate is thin for a flagship.

A 416-hp 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 hauling roughly 4,900 lb of heavily sound-deadened flagship returns 21 MPG combined on the EPA cycle in AWD form — near the bottom of the gas-sedan band and below most of the peers this vehicle is graded against. The 2021 refresh added sound deadening and recalibrated the transmission but left the EPA numbers exactly where 2020 had them.

City is the LS 500's weakest figure: a large turbocharged V6 moving a heavy car with no electrical assist, no cylinder deactivation and — unusually for 2021 — no stop-start lands at 17 MPG, at the very floor of the sedan band. This is precisely the duty cycle in which the LS 500h's Multi Stage Hybrid earns its premium, adding six to eight MPG in town.

Highway is where the LS is least compromised — slippery aerodynamics and tall top gears in the 10-speed give it 27 MPG in AWD form and 29 in rear-drive. It still sits in the lower fifth of the sedan highway band, because that band spans downsized-turbo and hybrid rivals the LS's displacement cannot follow.

A large 21.7-gallon tank offsets much of the thirst, giving the volume LS 500 AWD roughly 456 miles between fills — mid-band for sedans and genuinely adequate for the long-haul touring this car exists to do. Range is the one efficiency measure on which the LS is competitive rather than compromised.

EPA's own label puts the 2021 LS 500 AWD at $3,700 a year on required premium at 15,000 miles — above the $3,200 ceiling of the sedan band, so it scores zero — and EPA additionally estimates $7,250 more spent on fuel over five years than the average new vehicle. This is a real ownership cost, not a rounding detail: the RWD car saves $200 a year and the hybrid $700 to $950.

EPA lists the 2021 LS as a premium-fuel vehicle across every variant — the twin-turbo V6 and the Multi Stage Hybrid alike — so there is no way to configure an LS that runs on regular, and premium carries a persistent per-gallon surcharge over the car's life. There is no flex-fuel, diesel or plug-in variant to hedge with, which lands it in the low band, though it is no worse on this count than the 2021 S-Class, 7 Series and A8, which all require premium too.

NHTSA never crash-tested the fifth-generation (XF50) LS, and 2021 is no exception: both the RWD and AWD LS 500 records return "Not Rated" for overall, frontal, side and rollover. That is the normal outcome for a low-volume full-size luxury flagship rather than a poor result, so the value is inferred at 4.5 stars to match how this catalog treats the equally untested Audi A8, BMW 7 Series and Genesis G90, and how the 2023/2024 LS are handled here.

The 2021 LS holds no IIHS award and, more to the point, no IIHS results of any kind — the Institute publishes no ratings page for the LS 500 4-door sedan in any model year of this generation, so there is no small-overlap, moderate-overlap, side or roof result to read. This is a data void rather than a bad outcome: Lexus models that were tested for 2021 (ES, IS, RX, NX, UX) collected Top Safety Pick and TSP+ awards, and the XF50 rides on a stiff multi-material GA-L platform with ten airbags. It sits mid-band because a $76,000 flagship buyer gets zero verified crashworthiness data.

Every 2021 LS leaves the factory with Lexus Safety System+ 2.0 — radar-plus-camera Pre-Collision System with pedestrian detection in daylight and low light and daytime bicyclist detection, All-Speed Dynamic Radar Cruise Control, Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist, Lane Tracing Assist, Road Sign Assist and auto high beams — and Lexus additionally makes Blind Spot Monitor, Rear Cross-Traffic Alert and front/rear parking sensors with automatic braking standard rather than package-locked. All five features the framework asks about (AEB, ACC, LKA, BSM, RCTA) are standard on the base car, which is the top band. It sits below the 2022-and-later LS because this is the 2.0 suite: intersection turn assist, front cross-traffic alert, lane change assist and active steering assist all require the optional Lexus Safety System+ A, and the Panoramic View Monitor is a paid option.

The standard hardware is the strong end of the 2021 Toyota/Lexus line — millimetre-wave radar plus camera, with pedestrian detection that works in low light as well as daylight and daytime bicyclist detection. What the standard car does not get is the intersection layer: turning-assist braking for an oncoming vehicle on a left turn and the expanded PCS response range live in the optional Lexus Safety System+ A, a year before they became standard with LSS+ 2.5. And there is no published result of any kind — IIHS has never rated the LS for front crash prevention, vehicle-to-vehicle or pedestrian, day or night — so nighttime pedestrian performance is unverified.

Blind Spot Monitor and Rear Cross-Traffic Alert are standard on every 2021 LS — meaningfully better than the German rivals that charge for them — and standard rear parking sensors add automatic braking behind the car. The coverage is otherwise alert-only: no active intervention for approaching cross traffic, and the XF50's conventional door handles mean it cannot carry the e-Latch-based Safe Exit Assist Lexus fits to newer models. Front Cross-Traffic Alert and Lane Change Assist require the optional Lexus Safety System+ A, so the as-delivered car covers the basics well and the extras not at all.

Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist and Lane Tracing Assist are both standard, and on a well-marked highway LTA is calm and untiring, helped by the LS's slow, heavily damped steering. Two things hold it mid-band: this is the 2.0-generation LTA, which reads visible lane markings (falling back to following the preceding vehicle) rather than the enhanced 2.5 version that can take pavement edges and guard rails into account, and centering only functions with Dynamic Radar Cruise Control engaged. Active Steering Assist, which adds steering support to avoid an obstacle, is optional with LSS+ A.

All-Speed Dynamic Radar Cruise Control with stop-and-go is standard and pairs with Lane Tracing Assist into a proper hands-on highway assist. The rough edges are the reason it sits mid-band and slightly below the later LS: reviewers fault it as slow to react to traffic and overly conservative with following distances — the classic Toyota/Lexus radar-cruise complaint — and Edmunds treats the sharper version as something you buy, recommending the LSS+ A package for its enhanced adaptive cruise control.

No 2021 LS of any powertrain or trim can be ordered with hands-free highway driving. Lexus Teammate with Advanced Drive — the brand's hands-off-capable system for mapped limited-access roads — reached the US market one model year later, on the 2022 LS 500h AWD, and even then not on the gas LS 500 scored here. For a 2021 buyer the capability does not exist at any price, which is the bottom band.

Triple-projector LED headlamps in the vertically stacked layout are standard across the 2021 range with auto-leveling and automatic high beams, which is better base lighting content than the A8 gives you before you open the options book; the adaptive front-lighting version is an option. It stays mid-band because the auto high beams only toggle between high and low rather than shading individual vehicles, Lexus's BladeScan adaptive high-beam hardware was not sold on the US LS in this period (FMVSS 108 still prohibited adaptive driving beams), and IIHS has published no headlight rating for the LS in any year — so this is good-but-conventional lighting with nothing verified.

The XF50's coupe-like roofline, high beltline and heavy rear pillars buy the LS its styling at the cost of glass area, and rear three-quarter sightlines are the weak spot. The standard kit covers the near blind zones competently — backup camera, front and rear parking sensors with automatic braking, standard blind-spot monitoring, and a high-resolution digital rearview mirror that bypasses the rear pillars and headrests altogether — but the Panoramic View Monitor that would fully compensate is an option rather than standard equipment. Average sightlines, well but not comprehensively covered.

This is a genuine strength and the one place the LS beats its German rivals on family duty: the two outboard lower-anchor sets sit under a single large Velcro flap that pulls back for direct access, with no digging through seat-cushion leather, and the three top tethers on the rear shelf are clearly marked. Cars.com's Car Seat Check of this generation graded it A for LATCH, infant, rear-facing convertible and forward-facing convertible seats. It falls short of the ceiling because a booster only rates a B (the buckles sink into the cushion), three seats will not go across, and Executive Package cars trade the usable bench for a reclining ottoman seat and a fixed rear console.

The fifth-generation (XF50) LS seats five in its standard configuration, the top of the sedan band, and the 2021 mid-cycle refresh changed the cabin's trim, seats and multimedia rather than the body or the seating layout. The caveat is that the configuration Lexus markets the car on — the Executive Package with its 22-way reclining right-rear seat and ottoman — deletes the center position and makes it a four-seater.

37.3 inches is modest for a 206-inch flagship and is the direct cost of the XF50's coupe-like roofline — the LS trades headroom for silhouette in a way the boxier S-Class and 7 Series do not. The 2021 refresh left the body untouched, so the figure carries over unchanged from launch.

41.0 inches sits near the bottom of the sedan band and is genuinely surprising in a flagship — the 123-inch wheelbase is spent on the rear compartment and a low, laid-back seating position rather than on front-row stretch-out room. No 2021 reviewer calls the driver's seat cramped, but the number does not flatter it.

Rear headroom matches the front at 37.3 inches, above the sedan midpoint and better than the tapering roofline suggests from outside, because Lexus recessed the rear cushion specifically to protect the figure. It is not the unqualified win the number implies — AAA's tester found taller adults short of headroom back there, and the posture is lower and more reclined than in an S-Class.

38.9 inches is comfortably above the sedan band midpoint and is real chauffeur space, but it is the figure that most exposes Lexus's decision to offer only one length in the fifth generation. Against the long-wheelbase S-Class and 7 Series that dominate this segment's rear-seat comparisons, the LS fights one size down — Consumer Guide's verdict on the 2021 car was that occupant space "isn't outstanding for a flagship large car."

17.0 cubic feet is a genuinely large trunk and one of the LS's quiet advantages — it scores well up the sedan band, beats the German flagships it is cross-shopped against, and the aperture is tall and wide rather than letterboxed. The hybrid surrenders 1.8 cubic feet to its battery, but the gas car scored here keeps the full figure.

Storage is the conventional part of an otherwise elaborate cabin: a normal console bin, door pockets and a glovebox, no underfloor tricks and no onboard household power. Two 2021-specific facts hold it just below the later cars — the LS carried no factory wireless phone charger at all this year (owners of 2021–2023 cars report a solid panel where one would go; it became standard only for 2024), and there are four USB ports rather than the six Lexus fitted from 2023. The rear seatbacks are fixed, so nothing in this interior folds flat. The one genuine improvement for 2021 is ergonomic rather than volumetric: seat-heater and steering-wheel-heater controls moved to the center console.

This is the LS's core competence and 2021 is the year Lexus went at it directly — revised seat springs, thicker cushioning material underneath and new stitching patterns, on a base car that already came with 16-way power heated and ventilated front seats as standard rather than optional. Above that sit 28-way electric/pneumatic massage front seats and, in the Executive Package, a 22-way rear seat with massage, recline, sliding ottoman and power-retracting butterfly headrests that CarPro's reviewer singled out as exceptionally comfortable. Held just below the ceiling because the F SPORT's heavily bolstered seats draw firmness complaints and Consumer Guide graded room and comfort only a B-.

Ride was the explicit target of the 2021 refresh and reviewers report it landed: revised spring and damper rates, larger liquid-filled bushings front and rear, new control arms and reworked AVS solenoids with an enlarged internal flow path produce what testers described as a notably smoother, more stable ride that isolates the cabin from broken pavement. It stays out of the top band because the air suspension that delivers the best version of this is an option rather than standard on the gas car, and the softly sprung setup on run-flats still leans and floats over undulations where an air-sprung S-Class stays tied down.

Near the top of the class and consistently among the first things 2021 testers mention — acoustic glass, active noise cancellation and the added sound deadening that came with the refresh produce a cabin reviewers call supremely quiet at sustained highway speed. Only the twin-turbo V6 turning coarse under hard acceleration breaks the spell, and that is a powertrain-noise issue rather than an isolation failure.

Rich and, unusually for the segment, largely standard rather than bundled: 16-way heated and ventilated front seats, a heated steering wheel, a power rear sunshade and a moonroof all come on the base LS 500, and the refresh moved the seat- and wheel-heater controls to the console where they are actually reachable. What holds it a notch below the ceiling is that the base car's automatic climate control is only dual-zone, with quad-zone climate, heated and ventilated rear seats and rear massage all living in option packages, and that the ride-height access function that makes entry and exit easier requires the optional air suspension.

Lexus's own 2021 launch release puts the LS 500 at $76,000 before the $1,025 destination charge, so the entry price with freight is $77,025 — roughly $33,000 under the W223 S 500's US opening price and the single biggest argument the LS makes. It still sits far above the top of the sedan MSRP band (which tops out at $55,000), so the item scores 0 by construction; the cost that actually counts is priced in 5.1.5.

The volume configuration is the LS 500 AWD ($80,275 with destination) ordered with one of the mid-level comfort/tech packages rather than stripped — snow-belt buyers drive AWD take-rate on US luxury flagships, and almost no LS leaves a lot in base spec. CarEdge's tracked average new transaction price for the LS 500, $85,954, lands within $1,000 of that build and is the best independent check available.

Estimates bracket rather than agree: CarEdge projects $2,329 over five years for the LS 500 with a 15.6% chance of a major repair, while RepairPal's data on the previous-generation LS 460 shows $767 a year ($3,835 over five) against a luxury-full-size class average of $976 a year ($4,880). $4,200 blends them and reflects the real shape of the bill — Lexus's 4 yr / 50,000 mi bumper-to-bumper absorbs nearly all repair work, leaving scheduled services at 10,000-mile intervals, a set of low-profile tires and brakes as the genuine spend. Cheap for a flagship: an S-Class of the same era is estimated near $9,800.

The 2021 LS reaches its five-year mark now, so observed market data beats the 2021-vintage forecast — and the observed figures are strong: iSeeCars measures 40.3% depreciation and CarEdge 38.7%, against a luxury-large-car class average of 54–60%. Those percentages are computed against lower base-MSRP denominators, though; anchored to the ~$85,000 typically-equipped car and the ~$47,000 that a 2021 LS 500 actually fetches in 2026, retention reconciles to about 56%. Worth noting how far the whole class beat its own forecasts: KBB projected 33.0% and that still won the LS the segment's Best Resale Value award.

Lexus's New Vehicle Limited Warranty runs 48 months or 50,000 miles, matching Mercedes, BMW and Audi exactly — the luxury standard, and mid-band against the 3–5 year sedan normalization range. It is the term that does most of the work in keeping this car's five-year repair bill low.

Lexus extends powertrain coverage two years past the basic term, to 72 months or 70,000 miles — better than the German flagships, which simply end powertrain coverage with the basic warranty at 4 yr / 50,000 mi, but well short of the 10-year terms that anchor the top of the 5–10 year band. The mileage cap is the real limit: 70,000 miles arrives before 6 years for most drivers.

The included-maintenance period is short — Lexus covers only the first two scheduled visits, at 6 months / 5,000 miles and 12 months / 10,000 miles — which caps this below the 80+ band reserved for multi-year programs. What lifts it to the top of the middle band is everything around it: 48 months of roadside assistance with no mileage limit, a 10-year Safety Connect and Service Connect trial on MY2020-and-later Lexus vehicles, and a 3-year Dynamic Navigation trial with cloud map updates called out in the 2021 LS release. No charging credits apply to a gas car.

$85,000 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (56% retained, or about $47,600) leaves about $37,400 in depreciation. Add the projected $4,200 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $41,600 in total.

2021 is the fourth model year of the XF50 generation but it is a change year, not a carry-over: the mid-cycle update replaced the touchpad-only interface with a new 12.3-inch touchscreen, fitted revised linear solenoids and control valves in the Adaptive Variable Suspension with larger liquid-filled bushings, and recalibrated the engine's pistons, wastegate control and 10-speed shift logic. First-year-of-refresh hardware carries more field risk than a settled year, and the early-build cars produced a visible thread of assembly complaints. Against that, the dependability study covering exactly this cohort — 2021 model-year cars surveyed at three years — placed Lexus highest overall among all brands, and the gas LS 500 has accumulated only one recall in five years of field exposure. Scored three points below the settled 2023/2024/2025 LS years (85 each) purely on refresh-year exposure; still eleven points clear of the sedan peer median (71.5) and above every German full-size rival in this dataset.

2021 is Lexus's high-water mark on this item and one of the strongest brand-standing years available to any vehicle in this dataset: the brand finished outright first in both major dependability tables published while this car was on sale — J.D. Power's Vehicle Dependability Study by a 40-PP100 margin over the industry average, and Consumer Reports' annual brand reliability rankings, reclaiming the top spot from Mazda. It was additionally the highest-ranking premium brand in that year's Initial Quality Study, one of only two premium brands to beat the industry average. Scored level with the 2023 LS (93) and above 2024/2025 (90) and 2026 (88), which draw on years where the margin narrowed. Far above the German full-size peers in this dataset (BMW 7 Series cat6 80.2, Mercedes-Benz S-Class 71.5) and the segment median of 71.5.

The cleanest recall record of any LS model year in this dataset, and the judgement turns on a distinction that matters for this scorecard: of the two NHTSA campaigns reaching the 2021 LS, one covers the LS 500h hybrid only and therefore does not touch the gas volume trim being scored here. The gas 2021 LS 500 carries exactly one campaign after five years of field exposure — an occupant-classification sensor fault confined to cars ordered with the Executive Package, 509 units across four model years, remedied free of charge. This model year also sits clear of the Denso low-pressure fuel-pump campaigns that caught the 2018-2020 LS twice, and the two known LS air-suspension ride-height service bulletins (L-SB-0025-18, L-SB-0018-19) are written against early 2018 build cars, not this one. Scored well above the sibling years (2025 LS 79, 2023 LS 80, 2026 LS 84, 2024 LS 86) because more exposure time has produced fewer campaigns, which is the stronger evidence. Held at 88 rather than higher because the one campaign that does apply is an airbag-system defect rather than a nuisance item.

The volume gas trim pairs the 3.5-liter twin-turbo V35A-FTS V6 (416 hp / 442 lb-ft) with the Aisin Direct-Shift 10-speed torque-converter automatic, a gearbox shared with the LC 500 and LX and with no durability pattern against it. The engine family is the open question. The widely-reported V35A main-bearing failures — machining debris left in the block during assembly, which grew into recalls covering well over 100,000 vehicles — attach to the 3.4-liter variant in the Tundra, Sequoia, LX 600 and GX 550, and Toyota's own recall documentation states that other US-market Toyota and Lexus vehicles either do not use this engine or use a different V35A configuration with different main-bearing loading; the LS 500 has never been named in those campaigns. What remains is ordinary turbo-V6 exposure that is real but not exceptional: turbo wastegate actuator wear, valve-cover and timing-cover oil seepage, and ignition-coil degradation, with intake carbon buildup mitigated by the D-4ST port-plus-direct injection system. The 2021 refresh's revised piston crown and wastegate control are refinement changes, not durability fixes. Scored level with the 2023 and 2024 LS (80) — the same powertrain, with neither the extra maturity that lifts the 2026 car (83) nor any year-specific defect against it.

Material grade is the LS's strongest quality attribute and 2021 is the year the refresh specifically targeted it: Lexus added foam padding beneath the front seat surfaces and to the armrests, seat cushions and console touch points, revised the front seat springs and stitching patterns, and expanded the ornamentation catalogue with a new Palomino leather, Black Laser Special and Open Pore Black trims alongside the existing hand-folded pleated door panels and Kiriko cut-glass inserts — a production technique with no equivalent at any price. Reviewers of the 2021 car describe impeccable craftsmanship, quality switchgear and premium trims throughout. Scored level with the 2023, 2025 and 2026 LS (91) on the same cabin with the same ornamentation catalogue; the padding additions are what keep this refresh year from sitting below them. Class-leading for the price band, which is the top scoring band for this item.

Assembly is Japan-built to the standard the flagship exists to demonstrate, and contemporary road tests of the 2021 car report no perceivable panel gaps or trim inconsistencies. Two things hold it a point or two below the settled LS years (2023/2025/2026 at 93, 2024 at 92) rather than level with them. First, this is the first build year of the refresh, and the early-build owner thread documents exactly the class of defect this item measures — incorrectly fitted tires and a loose center armrest — even though those cars were put right. Second, the year's Initial Quality Study was industry-wide the weakest in recent memory, with wireless phone connectivity and infotainment the dominant complaint category, and 2021 is precisely the year the LS gained new 12.3-inch touchscreen hardware; the touchscreen's occasional unresponsiveness is a recurring note in reviews of this model year. Lexus was still the highest-ranking premium brand in that study, which is why the deduction is small.

Coverage is thinner than BMW's or Mercedes-Benz's at roughly 245 US stores, but the network is dense in the metropolitan markets where a $76,000 flagship actually sells, and service satisfaction sits at the very top of the luxury field with loaners and pickup-and-delivery standard practice. The year-specific result is a near-tie rather than a win: in the Customer Service Index study contemporary with this model year Lexus finished second among premium brands, four points behind Porsche and eight clear of third-place Infiniti. Scored a point below the 2023 and 2024 LS (90) on that second-place finish and a point above the 2025/2026 LS (88), where Lexus had slipped to third. This is a brand-wide attribute with no model-specific component beyond the study result.

The weak item on this scorecard, as it is on every LS year, and for structural reasons a good model year cannot fix: this is a low-volume Japanese-built flagship whose expensive systems are bespoke to it. The multi-link air suspension with its accumulator reservoir is the defining exposure — a known wear item on the XF50 with a dealer-priced replacement and no meaningful aftermarket — joined by the twin-turbo V6's turbo and wastegate hardware, the 12.3-inch infotainment assembly and flagship-specific glass, lighting and body panels. Routine maintenance is genuinely reasonable because the service schedule and wear parts are Toyota-grade, and the projected five-year maintenance-and-repair burden runs below the luxury-sedan average. Scored one to three points above the sibling years (2025 LS 66, 2023 LS 67, 2024/2026 LS 68) on the one real advantage a five-year-old car has here — used and salvage supply for the XF50 is now deep enough to be a genuine alternative to dealer pricing on body, trim and electronic parts — but the aging air suspension pulls in the other direction, which is why the gap is narrow. Far below the parts-cheap Lexus IS (86), which shares its hardware with high-volume Toyotas.

2021 is the year the LS's 12.3-inch display finally became a touchscreen: Lexus moved it into a new housing closer to the driver so it could be reached, where the 2018–2020 car forced every input through the console trackpad. The diagonal itself did not change, which lands it mid-band — respectable, but behind the German flagships' pillar-to-pillar arrangements.

A real improvement and still a real weakness. Making the screen touch-capable and moving it within reach fixed the single worst thing about the pre-2021 LS, and reviewers praise the graphics and the speed of the display itself. But Lexus kept the Remote Touch trackpad on the console as the primary controller rather than deleting it, the menu structure is unchanged, and testers of the 2021 car still called the arrangement clunky and distracting next to rival systems — the wholesale fix did not arrive until Lexus Interface replaced the software for 2023.

Both phone-projection platforms are standard on every 2021 LS — Android Auto is new for this model year, joining the Apple CarPlay that arrived a year earlier — but both are wired only, and the car has no wireless charging pad to soften that. That is squarely the middle band: nothing is trim-gated, nothing is missing, but a flagship asking $76,000 in 2021 made owners plug in, and wireless projection did not reach the LS until 2023.

Solidly mid-to-upper band for 2021. Embedded navigation is standard rather than a paid upgrade, Enform Dynamic Navigation adds cloud-sourced maps, routing and POI search on a three-year trial, and Dynamic Voice Command handles conversational destination and audio requests with Amazon Alexa layered on for smart-home and shopping tasks. It falls short of the class benchmarks because this is still the pre-Lexus Interface voice stack — no wake-word natural-language assistant of the "Hey Lexus" kind, which the LS did not receive until 2023 — and cloud features lapse with the subscription.

The optional 23-speaker, 2,400-watt Mark Levinson Reference Surround system is one of the best factory audio installations sold in any car, and at $1,940 it is cheap relative to the German flagships' equivalent upgrades. The 12-speaker standard system is competent rather than special, which is the only thing keeping this from the very top of the band.

The LS carries a full-digital 12.3-inch gauge display as standard across the range, with the movable meter ring Lexus derived from the LFA and layouts that reconfigure and change color with the selected drive mode. Crisp and cohesive with the rest of the cabin; short of the ceiling only because the graphics are the generation's launch set — untouched by the 2021 refresh, which concentrated on the center screen — and it is less freely configurable than the best German clusters.

Maps only, and only while you pay. Enform Dynamic Navigation keeps the LS's map data, routing and points of interest current over the air through the car's data communication module, which is genuine over-the-air updating and better than the dealer-visit-and-USB-stick arrangement it replaced. But nothing else in the car updates that way — head-unit software, ADAS calibrations and vehicle systems all still require a service visit — and the capability lapses when the three-year trial expires. Real whole-system OTA reached the LS only with the 2023 Lexus Interface head unit.

The core remote set is there and works from three places — phone, smartwatch and key fob — covering remote engine start and climate, lock/unlock, vehicle locator and guest-driver alerts, with Safety Connect adding automatic collision notification and roadside assistance. Two things keep it mid-band: Digital Key (phone-as-key) was not offered on the 2021 LS, arriving on this car only with the 2024 model year, and the remote functions are subscription-gated after a one-year Enform Remote trial — Lexus is among the brands that switched off even key-fob remote start when the subscription lapsed, which owners and the press treated as a genuine grievance.

Adequate and dated. Four USB ports are standard and reach both rows, but they are USB-A on a car that was being cross-shopped against rivals fitting USB-C, there is no household AC outlet anywhere, and — the thing 2021 reviewers actually complained about — no factory wireless charging pad at any price. Lexus addressed the count for 2023 (six ports) and the pad for 2024; the 2021 car has neither fix.

Proximity keyless entry and push-button start are standard on the base 2021 LS 500, the trunk opens and closes hands-free, and remote engine start works from the fob, the Lexus app or a smartwatch. It is short of the top band for two reasons: phone-as-key was not offered on the LS this year, and the remote functions sit behind an Enform Remote subscription that takes the key-fob remote start down with it when it lapses.

Good coverage, weak automation. A rearview camera and front and rear parking sensors with rear cross-traffic alert are standard, a Panoramic View Monitor surround-view system is a cheap $800 option, and the digital rearview mirror — given a larger, higher-resolution display for 2021 — is $200. What holds it out of the top band is that the 2021 LS has no automated parking at all: Lexus Teammate Advanced Park, which steers, brakes and shifts the car into a space by itself, reached the US LS only with the 2022 LS 500h. Reviewers also faulted the image quality of both the backup camera and the surround view.

When fitted, the LS's head-up display is among the largest and most informative in the industry — a 24-inch full-color projection carrying speed, gear, tachometer, navigation and safety alerts. The score is held at the top of the middle band because it is a paid stand-alone option rather than volume-trim equipment, albeit an affordable one at $1,220 and available across the range rather than locked to the top trim.

The fundamentals are sound — wide rear door openings, 38.9 inches of rear legroom, a flat and accessible rear bench in the standard five-seat car, and a 17 cubic-foot trunk with a tall, wide opening that swallows a stroller without argument. What pulls it to the middle of the band is body type and posture: a low, laid-back rear seat means lifting a child down into the car rather than across into it, the rear seatbacks do not fold so awkward baby gear has to fit through the trunk aperture, and the Executive Package many LS buyers choose deletes the center seat entirely.

Lexus Safety System+ 2.0 is standard on every 2021 LS — forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, full-speed adaptive cruise, lane tracing assist, road sign assist, intelligent high beams — with blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert also standard, so nothing essential is behind a paywall. It sits in the upper middle rather than the top band because the LS carries no NHTSA overall rating, its IIHS crashworthiness record is good rather than award-winning, and the expanded Lexus Safety System+ A that adds intersection turning assist, front cross-traffic alert, active steering assist and lane change assist is a $3,000 option.

For four occupants this is close to ideal — supremely quiet at speed, a ride the 2021 refresh made smoother still, seats revised for this model year with thicker cushioning, a standard power rear sunshade and a 17 cubic-foot trunk that holds a family's luggage with the seats occupied. The ceiling is set by what rear passengers get on the car families would actually buy: the base 2021 LS runs dual-zone climate, with quad-zone climate and heated, ventilated and massaging rear seats all in expensive option packages, there is no rear-seat entertainment screen in the US car, and nothing about the cargo arrangement flexes.

In traffic the LS is close to effortless: 442 lb-ft on a plateau from 1,600 rpm means it never has to work, the retuned 2021 suspension and minimal noise keep fatigue low over a commute, full-speed adaptive cruise is standard, and the new touchscreen finally lets the driver change a setting without fishing at the console trackpad. It stays out of the top band for a repeatedly reported calibration flaw — turbo lag off the throttle and a 10-speed automatic slow to drop a ratio at light throttle, exactly the situation a commuter lives in — and for a control interface testers still called distracting.

Expensive per mile by any measure. The representative LS 500 AWD returns 21 MPG combined on required premium fuel, giving an EPA annual fuel bill around $3,700, and the consumables match — 19- and 20-inch run-flat tires and luxury-flagship service pricing. Only the 27–29 MPG highway figure keeps this off the floor; a commuter who is mostly on the freeway fares far better than the city numbers suggest.

A 206-inch, 4,700-pound car is never going to be easy in a city. A 36.8-foot curb-to-curb turning circle is genuinely tidy for the length — CarPro's reviewer noted the car "maneuvers well, passing my U-turn test" — and a surround-view camera is a cheap $800 option, which is what keeps this off the bottom of the band. Against that, the 2021 LS has no automated parking of any kind (Lexus Teammate Advanced Park reached the US LS only with the 2022 hybrid), and reviewers faulted the resolution of both the backup camera and the panoramic view monitor, which is precisely where a car this size needs them to be good.

Not meaningfully work-capable and not intended to be. Lexus publishes no US tow rating for the LS, there is no bed or open load area, the rear seatbacks are fixed so nothing long fits, and the entire load volume is a 17 cubic-foot sealed trunk. The only credit is that the trunk is large for a sedan and the powertrain has torque to spare — neither of which is work capability.

The mechanical case is better than the score suggests — the V35A-FTS twin-turbo V6 and 10-speed automatic are shared with high-mileage Toyota and Lexus products, and Lexus's durability reputation is among the strongest in the industry. But the item measures fitness for abuse, and this car is the opposite: semi-aniline leather, wood and hand-pleated trim, adaptive or air suspension, low-profile run-flats and a $77,000-and-up replacement cost mean nothing about it tolerates a jobsite, and no fleet buys it.

Essentially nil. There is no onboard household power outlet anywhere in the car, no bed or tie-down system beyond trunk hooks, no factory roof rails or rack provision, no hitch, and no washable or wear-friendly interior option — the 2021 trim choices run to hand-pleated fabric and hand-cut Kiriko glass. The accessory catalog for this car is floor liners and door-edge guards. Nothing in the aftermarket upfits an LS.

This is what the LS is for, and the 2021 refresh sharpened exactly the qualities that matter here — revised springs, dampers and bushings made the ride smoother and more stable, the front seats were re-cushioned for this model year, noise is minimal at speed, and a 21.7-gallon tank against 27–29 MPG highway gives well over 450 miles between stops. It stops short of the ceiling because hands-free highway driving was not available on any 2021 LS — Lexus Teammate Advanced Drive arrived on the 2022 LS 500h — so the car tours on conventional adaptive cruise and lane tracing.

All-wheel drive is available with real hardware — a Torsen limited-slip center differential splitting 31/69 on dry roads and up to 48/52 on slick ones — which makes the LS credible on a snowy road to a lodge, and the optional air suspension will raise itself for easier entry. Everything else argues against it: sedan ground clearance, low-profile run-flat tires, no tow rating for a trailer or toys, no roof rails or factory rack for bikes or boxes, and no onboard power for camping. A well-surfaced gravel drive is about the limit.

Volume is not the problem — 17 cubic feet is a big trunk, larger than the German flagships', it opens hands-free, and the aperture is tall and wide enough that four people's suitcases go in easily. Flexibility is: the rear seatbacks are fixed with only a center armrest pass-through, so nothing bulky or long can be carried at all, and with no roof rails, no hitch and no underfloor storage there is no way to add capacity outside the trunk opening. Normal luggage fits; skis, flat-pack furniture and bikes do not.

Secure rather than engaging, which is exactly the brief. The 2021 refresh optimized front and rear anti-roll bar diameters specifically to keep body roll in check while the softer bushings and revised dampers improved the ride, and testers confirmed the comfort gains did not cost the LS its composure — handling is "decent for a large car." It sits mid-band because that is the ceiling of the ambition: grip is respectable for a 4,700-pound sedan on comfort-biased run-flats, but the car feels large and remote rather than eager the moment the pace rises.

Precise and consistently weighted, with Sport S+ sharpening the response usefully, but heavily isolated — reviewers of this LS describe steering the car as if from a distance, with little about the road surface reaching the driver's hands. The 2021 chassis work went to damping and roll control rather than to steering feedback, and the F SPORT's optional Variable Gear Ratio Steering and active rear steering quicken the responses without changing that character.

Adequate rather than reassuring. The pedal is easy to modulate and well suited to the car's smooth-cruising character, but instrumented stops of roughly 183 feet from 70 mph are on the long side for a luxury sedan with this much speed capability — a function of 4,696 pounds of curb weight on comfort-biased run-flat tires. The F SPORT's six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers on larger rotors materially improve fade resistance for buyers who want it.

2021 is a genuine improvement year here: Lexus recalibrated the 10-speed's shift logic to hold the engine in a more responsive part of its band, fitted a new piston crown for quieter cold running, redesigned the engine mounts to cut vibration and revised wastegate control — and reviewers of the refreshed car report smooth, powerful acceleration with smooth, responsive shifts. What costs it the top band is unchanged: a beat of turbo lag when you ask suddenly, and light-throttle sluggishness until the transmission commits to a downshift.

Inoffensive and largely absent in normal use — AAA's testers found engine, road and wind noise all minimal, and the 2021 refresh's redesigned engine mounts and added sound deadening attack vibration and noise at the source rather than masking them. It falls short of the top band on character rather than volume: pushed hard the twin-turbo V6 turns coarse, and none of it has the sonic authority of the V8 the fifth generation dropped.

36.8 feet is mid-band for the sedan class in absolute terms but is a genuinely good result given the LS is 206 inches long on a 123-inch wheelbase — most rivals of this length turn worse, and CarPro's reviewer specifically credited the car with passing his U-turn test. It does not make the car feel small in a parking structure, but it is not the limiting factor either.

Above average, and better for 2021 than for any prior year of this generation — the display became a touchscreen and moved within arm's reach, and the seat-heater and steering-wheel-heater controls migrated to the center console where the driver can find them. Sixteen-way power front seats and a power tilt-and-telescoping wheel accommodate almost any driver. It stays below the 2023 car because Lexus kept the Remote Touch trackpad as the primary controller rather than deleting it, and testers still called operating the system clunky and distracting on the move; the low, reclined seating position and thick rear pillars limit the over-the-shoulder view.

Effortlessly quick in a straight line — 4.6 seconds to 60 mph is genuinely fast — but nothing about the LS invites the long way home, and the 2021 changes pushed it further toward comfort rather than engagement. The size, the isolation and the remote steering make hurrying it feel like work rather than play, and the V6 offers no soundtrack worth chasing. Pleasant and competent but forgettable from the driver's seat, which is a deliberate design choice rather than a failure.

Every 2021 LS — including the $77,025 base car — ships with Lexus Safety System+ 2.0 (pre-collision with cyclist and daytime/low-light pedestrian detection, lane departure alert with Lane Tracing Assist, road sign assist), the new 12.3-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and Alexa, and a three-year Dynamic Navigation trial. Rivals charged thousands for equivalent driver-assist and connectivity packages on cars costing $10,000–$30,000 more. It falls short of the 80+ band only because the genuinely flagship items — Mark Levinson audio, head-up display, the 28-way massaging seats, rear-seat luxury — all live in packages, and reviewers noted the LS still lacked small S-Class touches like heated armrests.

This is the LS's defining argument: a full-size, 416-hp, twin-turbo flagship with standard advanced driver assistance for $77,025 when the W223 S-Class opened north of $110,000 and the 740i at $87,795 — and it is backed by the segment's strongest reliability outlook and best residual performance, which is value that keeps paying after the sale. Reviewers consistently framed it as the bargain flagship. It is not a perfect 90+ case, because what the discount buys is a car that several outlets judged not to feel as opulent or as resolved as the Germans, with a V6 where the class expects a V8 or twelve.

Six core configurations — LS 500 and LS 500 F SPORT each in RWD and AWD, plus LS 500h hybrid in RWD and AWD — spanning $77,025 to roughly $95,000 before options, with packages that stretch a loaded car past $120,000 with the Executive and Kiriko glass ornamentation. That is real spread and a genuine powertrain choice. What holds it under the top band is that the fifth generation dropped the alternatives the LS used to offer: one wheelbase only (no long-wheelbase variant for the US) and no V8 at any price.

3,739 US deliveries in 2021 — nominally up 2.4% on 2020, but that is a bounce off the pandemic floor in a nameplate that has shed 60% of its volume since the XF50's 9,301-unit launch year in 2018, and it fell another 28% in 2022. It trailed the S-Class nearly four to one. The LS is a slow seller on a declining trend, which is exactly the 0–49 band, though it is not a market failure: it still outsold the BMW 7 Series and the segment itself was contracting around it.

Lexus is one of the strongest brands in the US market on the measures that follow an owner home — dependability, service satisfaction and residual value, where it repeatedly takes J.D. Power ALG awards — and that halo is worth real money on this car. But brand desirability at the flagship tier is a different currency, and the LS has never had it: the S-Class is the reference point buyers in this price bracket aspire to, and reviewers say so directly. Strong brand, thin flagship cachet.

A flagship selling under 4,000 units a year is a negotiable car, and Lexus supported it openly: $3,000 in Lexus customer cash on the 2021 LS 500 as of August 2021, alongside subvented lease programs built on the segment's strongest residuals — which is what makes an LS lease land well below an equivalently priced German. The buyer benefit is real without tipping into desperation pricing, which is precisely the top band. Held just under 85 because incentives thinned late in 2021 as inventory dried up industry-wide.

2021 is the XF50's mid-cycle refresh, and a substantive one: the Remote Touch trackpad gave way to a 12.3-inch touchscreen, spring and damper rates and anti-roll bars were retuned with enlarged liquid-filled bushings, the twin-turbo V6 got a new piston and wastegate control, and the exterior picked up three-projector LED headlamps and a dark metallic spindle grille. A buyer in 2021 was getting a freshened car with three or four years of runway, not an end-of-cycle one. It does not reach the 80+ band because the platform itself dates to 2018 and the brand-new W223 S-Class arrived the same year with a generational advantage in cabin tech.

Solidly well-reviewed and never the class pick — the textbook 50–79 case. Scores cluster in the mid-to-high 7s (Edmunds 7.7/10, The Car Connection 7.4/10, KBB expert 4.3/5), with near-universal praise for ride, silence and the 2021 chassis retune, and near-universal reservations about the multimedia interface, the driver aids' reaction time and a powertrain reviewers did not consider flagship-grade. Its awards are ownership-economics awards — KBB Best Resale Value, J.D. Power ALG residual — rather than comparison-test or NACTOY wins.