2022 Lexus LS

The 2022 LS 500 carries the V35A-FTS twin-turbo V6 at 416 hp, unchanged within the XF50 generation — 2022 was a features year (Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 standardized, Teammate added to the hybrid), not a powertrain change year. That is the strongest standard engine among full-size luxury sedan base cars and sits in the upper third of the sedan horsepower band without a V8 premium.

442 lb-ft on a plateau from 1,600 rpm sits at the very top of the sedan torque band and is the highest base-engine figure in the 2022 full-size luxury set, ahead of the S 500, 740i and A8 55. It is the number that explains the LS's effortless part-throttle character, which is how a car of this brief is actually driven.

Lexus publishes 4.6 seconds for the rear-drive LS 500 but quotes no separate AWD figure; independent estimates and instrumented runs for the heavier all-wheel-drive car cluster at 4.9–5.3 seconds, so 5.0 is used for the volume configuration. Either way it is quicker than a 740i or an A8 55 and genuinely fast for a 4,700-lb car whose brief is isolation rather than pace.

Reviewers of the 2022 car describe strong, immediate thrust from the broad low-rpm torque plateau with "next-to-zero turbo lag," inside a cabin the XF50 refresh specifically quieted with added under-hood noise isolation — the hush is this car's headline virtue. It stays out of the top band because light-throttle response is still reported as sluggish until the transmission commits to a downshift, and the V6 lacks the sonic character of the segment's V8 and inline-six benchmarks.

The Direct Shift-10AT is praised on the 2022 car for shifts that are "almost imperceptible" under normal driving and smooth under hard acceleration, with a short first gear for launch and tall top ratios for quiet cruising — the right behavior for this car most of the time. It sits mid-band because the shift logic draws consistent criticism: ten closely stacked ratios give it more chances to hesitate, and it is slow to drop a gear for a highway pass or at low city speeds.

All-wheel drive is offered across the LS 500 range 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, and AWD is the only way the 2022 hybrid is sold. It falls short of the top band because AWD remains a cost option on a rear-drive baseline (unlike standard quattro or 4MATIC), with no torque vectoring, terrain mode or low range beyond wet- and snow-road traction.

The 2022 LS offers two distinct powertrains — the twin-turbo V6 LS 500 in rear- or all-wheel drive, and the V6 Multi Stage Hybrid — which covers the mainstream buyer and the efficiency-minded one and nothing else; the hybrid is further narrowed to AWD only this year, unlike 2023 when a rear-drive LS 500h was again listed. There is no V8, no plug-in and no battery-electric LS, so against an S-Class spanning inline-six, V8 and PHEV or a 7 Series with an i7 beside it, the slate is thin for a flagship.

A 416-hp 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 hauling a 4,700-lb, heavily sound-deadened flagship returns 21 MPG combined on the EPA cycle in AWD form — near the floor of the gas-sedan band and below the gas full-size luxury peers it is graded against. The LS 500h AWD lifts combined economy about 19 percent, but at a $36,000 price premium it is not the representative configuration.

City is the LS 500's weakest figure: a large turbocharged V6 moving a heavy car with no electrical assist at low speed and no cylinder deactivation lands at 17 MPG, at the very floor of the sedan band. This is precisely the duty cycle in which the Multi Stage Hybrid earns its premium, adding five MPG in town.

Highway is where the LS is least compromised — slippery aerodynamics and tall top ratios in the 10-speed give it 27 MPG in AWD form, and the rear-drive car matches the hybrid at 29. 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 and mass 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 2022 LS 500 AWD at $3,700 a year on required premium — above the $3,200 ceiling of the sedan band, so it scores zero — and estimates $7,250 more spent on fuel over five years than the average new vehicle. This is a real ownership cost rather than a rounding detail: the rear-drive car saves $200 a year and the hybrid $600.

EPA lists every 2022 LS variant as a premium-fuel vehicle — 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 across 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 S-Class, 7 Series and A8, which all require premium too.

NHTSA carries both 2022 LS 500 drivelines in its database but has never crash-tested either: overall, frontal, side barrier, side pole and rollover all return "Not Rated". Per this framework's definition of the item, 0 is the value for a vehicle never rated by NHTSA — a sentinel for absent data, not a zero-star crash result. Low-volume full-size luxury flagships are routinely skipped by NCAP.

The IIHS has published no crashworthiness result of any kind for the fifth-generation (XF50, 2018–) LS — no small overlap, moderate overlap, side, roof strength or head restraint rating — so the 2022 LS holds no Top Safety Pick and no award is possible. This is an evidence gap rather than a bad result: the LS shares its GA-L platform with the LC and sits on a structure with no recorded crash-performance concerns, and Lexus as a brand took eight 2022 Top Safety Pick+ awards on the models IIHS did test. Scored mid-band — credit withheld for the absent award, not deducted for a poor showing.

This is the LS's strongest safety argument and the 2022 model year's headline change: Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 became standard on every LS, and the base LS 500 already carried Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Cross-Traffic Alert and Intuitive Parking Assist with Auto Braking as standard equipment. All five rubric essentials — AEB, all-speed adaptive cruise, lane keeping/centering, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert — are on the volume car at no cost, which is structurally better than the German rivals that package BSM and adaptive cruise. Held below the 90s because the most capable tier (Lexus Safety System+ A, adding Front Cross-Traffic Alert, Lane Change Assist, Pedestrian Alert and PCS with Intersection Support) is a paid package on the gas car, and the Panoramic View Monitor is optional rather than standard.

There is no IIHS front crash prevention result for the LS itself, so this is scored on the system generation plus corroborating results from the same hardware in a tested sibling. The 2022 Lexus ES 350 runs the same Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 and earned Superior for vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention and Advanced for daytime pedestrian detection — strong, but short of the top band because no nighttime pedestrian result exists for the system in this model year, and IIHS noted the ES's pre-collision system did not meet its forward-collision-warning requirement. New for 2022, the LS's camera and millimeter-wave radar gained expanded response range and the ability to recognize an oncoming vehicle during a left turn, which is real added coverage over 2021.

Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Cross-Traffic Alert is standard on every 2022 LS rather than package-gated — meaningfully better than the A8, which reserves side assist for a paid package — but the coverage is alert-only: there is no autonomous rear cross-traffic braking and no safe-exit function that would hold a rear door against approaching traffic. Front Cross-Traffic Alert and Lane Change Assist exist only inside the Lexus Safety System+ A package on the gas car, so the volume LS 500 gets the warning half of the rubric and none of the intervention half.

Both halves of the equipment are standard — Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist working above 32 mph, and Lane Tracing Assist for genuine lane centering rather than warning-only — and the LS's slow, heavily damped steering tune makes the centering feel unhurried rather than nervous on a well-marked highway. The structural limitation is that Lane Tracing Assist is operational only while Dynamic Radar Cruise Control is engaged, so there is no standalone centering the way newer Lexus software offers with Proactive Driving Assist; on unmarked or faded lanes the system hands back quickly.

All-Speed Dynamic Radar Cruise Control is standard on every trim and is a full-range system — it holds a set gap down to a complete stop in traffic and resumes — with curve-speed management that sheds speed into a bend before the driver has to. Paired with Lane Tracing Assist it makes a complete hands-on highway assist out of the box, which is the right answer for a flagship tourer. It sits mid-to-upper band rather than top because the refined version (Enhanced DRCC with driver-triggered Lane Change Assist) is inside the paid Lexus Safety System+ A package on the gas LS, leaving the standard system capable but unexceptional next to the best German and Korean highway assists.

2022 is the model year Lexus launched hands-free driving in the US — and the gas LS 500 scored here cannot be ordered with it. Lexus Teammate with Advanced Drive, which permits hands-off operation on supported controlled-access highways, is exclusive to the LS 500h AWD with Lexus Teammate, a separate hybrid model above this configuration; Advanced Park is bundled with it on the same car. What the LS 500 buyer gets is a hands-on system only. Scored just above the floor rather than at it, because the capability demonstrably exists within the nameplate and is a same-showroom upgrade away.

Content is good and evenly distributed: Premium Triple-Beam LED headlamps with the Adaptive Front Lighting System are standard on every 2022 LS, and Intelligent High Beams come with LSS+ 2.5, so there is no cheap-headlight volume trim the way there is on several German rivals. What holds the score mid-band is the absence of any measured result — IIHS has never rated an XF50 LS headlamp — combined with reviewer complaints that the tightly focused low beams throw little light above hood height, leaving the driver reaching for the high beams on dark roads. BladeScan adaptive high beam, which Lexus offers elsewhere, does not appear in the US 2022 LS brochure.

The XF50's coupe-like roofline is bought at the cost of glass: a high beltline, heavily raked rear screen, thick C-pillars and a 206-inch body make over-the-shoulder and rearward sightlines merely adequate in a car this large. Camera compensation exists but is not standard on the configuration scored — the Panoramic View Monitor is an option or a Luxury Package item, and the Digital Rearview Mirror is a separate extra — so the volume LS 500 leaves the dealer with a backup camera and Intuitive Parking Assist with Auto Braking and nothing more. Parking sensors with automatic braking are a genuine mitigation and keep this out of the bottom band.

Provision is complete and the space is the LS's advantage: two full LATCH sets at the rear outboard positions plus a top-tether anchor for the centre seat, with a 123-inch wheelbase giving wide-opening rear doors and enough legroom to load a rear-facing seat without pushing the front passenger forward. Points come off for the top tethers, which sit well back on the rear parcel shelf with little clearance to the roofline, making the strap awkward to route — and for the fact that the most comfortable rear-seat configurations (reclining, ottoman-equipped Executive Package chairs) actively work against child-seat installation.

The standard-wheelbase fifth-generation (XF50) LS seats five, the top of the sedan band, and 2022 is a carry-over year for the body — the model year's changes were safety (Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 standardized), Lexus Teammate on the hybrid, and suspension/steering retuning, not structure. The caveat is that the configuration Lexus markets the LS on, the Executive Package with 22-way power rear seats and the sliding ottoman, deletes the middle position and makes it a four-seater.

37.3 inches is modest for a 206-inch car 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. Adequate for most drivers, unremarkable against the sedan band, and unchanged for 2022.

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 2022 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 — Lexus recessed the rear cushion specifically to protect this figure. Tall rear passengers fit; the tradeoff is a lower, more reclined posture 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 — and the longer-wheelbase Genesis G90 — the LS fights one size down.

17.0 cubic feet is a genuinely large trunk and one of the LS's quiet advantages — it scores well up the sedan band and beats the German flagships it is cross-shopped against. The hybrid surrenders roughly 1.8 cubic feet to its battery, but the gas car scored here keeps the full figure, and a hands-free power open/close trunk is standard equipment.

Storage is the conventional part of an otherwise elaborate cabin: a large centre-console armrest bin that opens from both sides, normal door pockets and a glovebox, with no underfloor tricks and no onboard household power. Two facts specific to 2022 hold it just below the following model years — wireless phone charging appears nowhere in the 2022 LS brochure, not even as a paid option (it arrived later and became standard only for 2024), and the rear seatbacks are fixed with only a centre pass-through, so nothing in this interior folds flat. The Luxury Package's 7.0-inch rear-armrest touchscreen controller is clever furniture but is package equipment, not volume-trim content.

This is the LS's core competence and the reason the car exists. Sixteen-way power heated and ventilated front seats with power-adjustable headrests are standard on the $77,075 base car rather than optional, and the range climbs to 28-way power front seats with multifunction massage and cushion extenders in the Interior Upgrade, Luxury and F SPORT packages, plus 18-way power-reclining outboard rear seats in the Luxury Package and 22-way heated massaging rear seats in the Executive. Contemporary testers of the 2022 car describe the seats as comfortable front and rear over long stints. Held just below the ceiling because the F SPORT's enhanced bolsters draw firmness complaints on long trips.

Ride comfort is the specific thing Lexus worked on for 2022 — revised spring and damper rates, optimized front and rear anti-roll bar diameters, and new linear solenoids with enlarged flow paths in the Adaptive Variable Suspension — and the result is the pillowy, supple ride the car was designed for, absorbing broken pavement without transmitting a sharp impact. Two things keep it out of the top band: the air suspension that delivers the best version of this ride is an option on the gas car rather than standard, so the volume LS 500 runs AVS on coil springs; and the softly sprung setup on 19- and 20-inch run-flats leans and floats over undulations where an air-sprung S-Class stays tied down.

Near the top of the class and consistently the first thing 2022 testers mention — Active Noise Cancellation and Active Sound Control are standard, every wheel in the range is a noise-reduction design, and 2022 added under-hood noise isolation as part of the model year's refinement work. Reviewers call the cabin extremely quiet at sustained highway speed. Only the twin-turbo V6 turning coarse under hard acceleration breaks the spell, and that is a powertrain-character 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 leather-trimmed steering wheel, a power rear sunshade, a power moonroof, an auto door closer and electrochromic mirrors all come on the base LS 500, and every AWD car gets the Cold-Weather Package (wiper de-icer, headlamp washers, enhanced heater) as standard. What holds it below the top band is that the base car's automatic climate control is only dual-zone — the four-zone Climate Concierge with its 16 infrared sensors, climate-comfort rear seats and air purifier is a paid option tied to the Luxury or Executive Package, heated rear seats live in the Interior Upgrade Package, and remote climate pre-conditioning runs through Lexus Enform Remote on a three-year trial rather than outright.

Lexus's own 2022 LS pricing opens the range at $76,000 for the rear-drive LS 500, $77,075 with the $1,075 destination charge; retail sources list a $76,100 base after a small mid-year adjustment. That is far above the sedan normalization ceiling of $55,000, so the item lands at the floor — but it remains the cheapest way into the full-size luxury flagship class, undercutting a 740i by more than $10,000 and an S 500 by roughly $34,000.

The representative configuration is the LS 500 with all-wheel drive — a $3,250 option that puts the car at $80,425 delivered before a single package — and LS buyers rarely take one bare, with the Interior Upgrade and comfort/tech packages the common adds. CarEdge's transaction data for the LS 500 puts the average original price at roughly $86,000 across recent years, and 2022's above-sticker market pushed the other way, so ≈$84,000 is the defensible as-sold figure; an F SPORT test car ran $98,255 as equipped.

The LS is genuinely cheaper to keep than its German rivals — Lexus ranked second among premium brands in the J.D. Power 2022 Vehicle Dependability Study at 159 PP100 against a 192 industry average, and the 6 yr / 70,000 mi powertrain warranty still covers the driveline through most of year five — but a flagship's running costs are not an ES's: standard adaptive variable air suspension, 19–20-inch tires, twin-turbo V6 service and flagship-dealer labour rates push it well above the mainstream Lexus line. Placed near the middle of the sedan band, below this catalog's 2022 G90 (~$8,200) and A6 (~$8,300) and far below the 7 Series (~$13,000).

The LS depreciates hard in absolute dollars, as every six-figure-capable flagship does, but it is the best of a bad segment: iSeeCars measures 48.7% five-year depreciation for the LS 500 against 60.1% for the luxury large car class. That is roughly a dozen points better than the 2022 7 Series (~37% retained) and ahead of the A6 (~45%) and outgoing G90 (~47%), and it is the single biggest reason the LS costs less to own than its rivals despite a comparable service bill.

Lexus's New Vehicle Limited Warranty runs 48 months or 50,000 miles on the 2022 LS, matching Mercedes, BMW and Audi exactly and trailing the Genesis G90's 5 yr / 60,000 mi. Mid-band, and mid-pack for the segment.

Six years or 70,000 miles of powertrain coverage is a full two years longer than what Mercedes, BMW and Audi gave a 2022 flagship buyer — none of them separate powertrain from basic coverage at all — though it still sits near the bottom of a normalization band that runs to the 10-year terms the Korean brands publish, and the G90's 10 yr / 100,000 mi is the segment benchmark. The gas LS 500 scored here does not draw on the 10 yr / 150,000 mi hybrid battery coverage that applies to the LS 500h.

The included-maintenance period is short — one year or 10,000 miles, the first two scheduled services only, which Toyota's own ToyotaCare (2 yr / 25,000 mi) beats and BMW's and Jaguar's multi-year plans beat outright — and the 2022 LS specifically missed the connected-services windfall of its model year: when Lexus extended Safety Connect and Service Connect trials to ten years in September 2022 it named the Lexus Interface cars, the 2022 NX and LX and the 2023 line including the LS, leaving the 2022 LS on the older system and its shorter standard trials. What holds it at a mid-band score is 48 months of unlimited-mileage roadside assistance and the flagship dealer experience — loaner vehicles and pickup-and-delivery at most stores.

$84,000 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (49% retained, or about $41,160) leaves about $42,840 in depreciation. Add the projected $7,200 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $50,040 in total.

2022 is the fifth model year of the fifth-generation XF50 LS and the second year after the 2021 refresh — a settled carry-over year whose changes are feature-level (Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 standardized, Teammate added to the hybrid) with the 416-hp twin-turbo V6 and 10-speed automatic untouched. That makes it a cleaner bet than the 2023 car, which introduced a first-year Lexus Interface head unit (infotainment is the highest-complaint subsystem in modern luxury cars), so this scores a point above the 2023 LS (85). Held below the 90s because Consumer Reports publishes no predicted-reliability figure for this model year at all — the LS's US volume is too low to populate its survey — so the strong prior rests on generation maturity and brand standing rather than on an LS-specific rating.

Lexus is comfortably top-tier in 2022 but this is the one year in the window where it leads neither study outright: Genesis edged it in the J.D. Power VDS premium ranking and Toyota edged it in Consumer Reports' brand rankings, and Kia — not Lexus — took the VDS overall crown. Scored six points below the 2023 LS (93), where Lexus won both studies outright, and below the 2025 LS (90). It stays high because second place in both of the studies this item names is still a top-tier multi-year record, and it remains far clear of the German flagship field in this dataset (BMW 7 Series 80.2, Mercedes-Benz S-Class 71.5).

Exactly one NHTSA campaign reaches model-year 2022 LS, and it does not reach the configuration being scored: 22V239000 lists the LS HYBRID only, so the volume gas LS 500 carries no campaign on record for this model year. The action itself is a software flash for a stability-control activation defect — no powertrain, fire, airbag or structural recall, and no do-not-drive or park-outside advisory. That is cleaner than the 2023 car (two camera campaigns, 80) and cleaner than the 2025 car (79). Held out of the 90s because a secondhand report describes the 2025 fleet-wide rearview-camera action as covering 2022-2026 vehicles including the LS 500, which the flat-file per-model years do not bear out, and because TSB volume was assessed at generation level rather than from a fetched 2022-specific bulletin list.

The volume LS 500 pairs the V35A-FTS twin-turbo V6 with Aisin's 10-speed automatic. The gearbox is a conventional torque-converter unit shared with the LC and LX with an excellent field record; the engine is the weaker half of the case, and 2022 falls squarely inside the production window in which machining debris left in V35A crankshaft main bearings triggered full engine-replacement recalls on the Tundra, Sequoia and LX 600. The LS was never named in any of those campaigns — different assembly source and a much smaller, more slowly built flagship run — so this is family-level exposure rather than a defect reaching this car, but it is a real caveat a 2019 LS would not carry, which is why this sits level with the 2023 LS (80) and below the 2025 (82) and 2026 (83) cars on otherwise identical hardware. Scored MEDIUM: the LS's exclusion is verified from the campaign texts, the absence of a latent debris population in LS engines is an inference.

The LS cabin is the most craft-forward interior Lexus builds and is unchanged for 2022 — hand-pleated Nishijin-inspired door trim, Kiriko cut-glass and shimamoku wood options, semi-aniline leather and the brand's characteristically damped switchgear, with every primary contact point soft and generously padded. It is scored as class-leading for the money rather than perfect because the S-Class sets the absolute benchmark for material theatre, and because the lower console and some shared Toyota-group switchgear do not rise to the level of the showpiece surfaces above them. Identical to the 2023, 2025 and 2026 LS (91): same cabin, same evidence.

Assembly is the LS's single strongest quality attribute: built at Toyota's Tahara plant under the takumi inspection regime, on a body and line with five model years to converge by 2022 — tight repeatable panel gaps, deep paint and essentially no squeak-and-rattle thread in owner reports or long-term tests. Scored two points below the 2023, 2025 and 2026 cars (93) because 2022's supporting brand evidence is a strong second place rather than the outright J.D. Power win those years rest on, and because 2022 was the industry's worst initial-quality year on record — problems rose 11% fleet-wide, driven by infotainment. The ceiling is the S-Class's door-shut and glass-fit standard rather than anything the LS does wrong.

Coverage is thinner than BMW's or Mercedes-Benz's at roughly 240 US stores, but what coverage exists is the best in the premium field: Lexus ranked highest in dealer-service satisfaction among premium brands in 2022, reclaiming the crown by a 17-point margin over Cadillac. Scored one point below the 2023 LS (90), where Lexus led not just the premium field but every brand in the industry, and one above the 2025/2026 cars (88), which rest on general brand standing rather than a retrieved year-specific result. The remaining gap to 100 is store density — which matters for a nationwide flagship — plus the service-capacity crunch the 2022 study itself documents.

The weak spot in an otherwise strong Lexus ownership case. The LS is a low-volume flagship whose adaptive dampers, air suspension, multi-way heated/ventilated/massaging seats, 24-inch head-up display and model-unique glass, lighting and body panels are dealer-dependent, expensive and supported by essentially no aftermarket — nothing like the parts ecosystem behind a Camry or even an RX, and 2022 was a year in which auto parts supply chains were themselves disrupted. What keeps it mid-band rather than low is that the mechanical hard parts underneath are Toyota-group components with normal supply, and that Lexus labour rates and parts pricing run below the German flagships this car competes with. Held at the 66-68 recorded on the 2023, 2025 and 2026 cars.

A 12.3-inch color LCD multimedia display is standard across the 2022 LS range, and there is no larger option. The diagonal is mid-band for the sedan class — respectable, but behind the 14-inch and larger panels the German flagships were fitting by 2022, and the 2021 facelift that moved this screen forward and made it touch-capable did not enlarge it.

2022 sits in the awkward middle of this generation's software story. The 2021 facelift had already moved the display roughly three inches closer to the driver and made it touch-capable, which reviewers called a big improvement and which is why this is not a bottom-band score — but the widely disliked console Remote Touchpad is still fitted and still the fallback for some interactions, the underlying Lexus Enform software remains, and testers of the 2022 car fault complex menus, slow responses and dated graphics. The whole-system replacement (Lexus Interface, trackpad deleted) arrived for 2023, one model year later.

Phone projection is present and, to Lexus's credit, standard on every trim including the base LS 500 — but it is wired only. The 2022 brochure's own footnotes specify a compatible phone "connected with an approved data cable into the USB media port" for both platforms, and there is no wireless projection option anywhere in the lineup. That is squarely the rubric's middle band: the capability exists without trim gating, but the convenience half is missing, and wireless CarPlay and Android Auto both arrived on the LS only for 2023.

Functional and reasonably well equipped but a generation behind. The 2022 LS carries Lexus Enform Dynamic Navigation with cloud-based map updates, alternate routing and POI search plus Destination Assist, and Dynamic Voice Command with a ten-year inclusion period, and Alexa compatibility is standard for information and smart-home commands. What keeps it mid-band is that this is the pre-Lexus-Interface system: there is no "Hey Lexus" natural-language assistant with occupant-location awareness — that came for 2023 — and contemporary reviewers of this software generation describe command-driven voice control most owners bypass in favour of phone projection.

The available Mark Levinson 23-speaker, 2,400-watt Reference Surround system with Quantum Logic Immersion is one of the best factory audio installations sold in any car and is standard content in the Executive Package, and the standard 12-speaker Lexus Premium system is competent for a base flagship fitment. Held just below the ceiling because the base system is unremarkable and the Mark Levinson upgrade requires either the option box or the top package.

The LS carries a large full-digital gauge display as standard across the 2022 range, reconfigurable and colour-shifting with the drive mode, and the F SPORT and Dynamic Handling cars add the LFA-derived sliding meter bezel that physically slides aside to expose additional information. Crisp and cohesive with the rest of the cabin; short of the ceiling because the graphics predate the Lexus Interface refresh and look dated beside the twin-screen clusters the German rivals were fitting in 2022.

Over-the-air capability in 2022 extends to map and navigation data and nothing else. The embedded data communication module delivers Dynamic Navigation's cloud map updates, alternate routes and POI data, and Safety Connect / Service Connect push vehicle health reports — but there is no over-the-air updating of the head-unit software or any other vehicle module. Genuine head-unit OTA updating arrived with Lexus Interface for 2023, so 2022 lands at the bottom of the maps-only band: the function is real, its scope is one subsystem.

The Lexus app covers the core remote set through Enform Remote — remote engine start and climate, lock and unlock, vehicle locator, service scheduling and vehicle health reports — with Safety Connect adding collision notification and roadside assistance. It sits below the middle of the band for two reasons specific to this model year: every one of those functions is a three-year trial that then converts to a paid subscription, and there is no phone-as-key at all, Digital Key having arrived on the LS only with the 2024 car.

This is the weakest technology item on the 2022 car. USB ports and 12-volt outlets are distributed front and rear and are adequate in number for a five-seat cabin, but they are USB-A rather than USB-C, there is no household AC outlet, and — the decisive gap — wireless phone charging appears nowhere in the 2022 LS brochure, not as standard equipment and not as a paid option on any trim. The expanded six-port USB provision was a 2023 change, which confirms 2022 was the short year.

Complete on the conveniences that matter daily and standard on the volume car: SmartAccess proximity entry with push-button start, a hands-free power open/close trunk, an auto door closer that draws each door shut from ajar, and remote engine start from both the key fob and the Lexus app. Short of the top band because phone-as-key was not offered on the 2022 LS in any form, and the app half of the remote set is subscription-gated after a three-year trial.

Standard provision is better than most rivals' — a backup camera plus Intuitive Parking Assist with Auto Braking, which will intervene on the brakes rather than merely beep, comes on the base LS 500 — and the 360-degree Panoramic View Monitor gives a high-resolution bird's-eye image when fitted. Two gaps hold it out of the top band on the configuration scored: the Panoramic View Monitor is a paid option (or Luxury Package content) rather than standard, and automated parking is unavailable on the gas car entirely — Lexus Teammate Advanced Park is exclusive to the LS 500h AWD with Lexus Teammate in 2022.

When fitted, the LS's head-up display is among the largest and most informative in the industry — a 24-inch full-colour projection carrying speed, gear, navigation and safety alerts, with Road Sign Assist and (via Lexus Safety System+ A) Pre-Collision System information projected into it, and testers describe it as massive. The score is held at the top of the middle band because on the volume gas LS 500 it is a standalone paid option, standard only on the LS 500h AWD.

The fundamentals are sound — wide rear door openings on a 123-inch wheelbase, 38.9 inches of rear legroom so a rear-facing seat does not force the front passenger forward, two complete LATCH sets outboard plus a centre top-tether anchor, and a 17 cubic-foot trunk 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, the top tethers sit far back on the rear parcel shelf with little clearance to the roofline, and the reclining rear seats in the Luxury and Executive Packages actively work against child-seat installation.

2022 is the model year the safety proposition got good: Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 became standard on every LS, and Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Cross-Traffic Alert and Intuitive Parking Assist with Auto Braking are standard too, so nothing essential sits behind a paywall on the trim a family would actually buy. It is capped in the upper-middle band by a genuine evidence gap rather than a failure: NHTSA has never crash-tested any fifth-generation LS and IIHS has published no crashworthiness rating for it, so a family gets no third-party crash credential at all, the Panoramic View Monitor is a paid option, and there is no rear-seat occupant reminder in the 2022 brochure.

For four occupants this is close to ideal — extremely quiet at speed, a supple ride, 16-way heated and ventilated front seats, a standard power rear sunshade and a 17 cubic-foot trunk that holds a family's luggage with all seats occupied. The ceiling is set by what rear passengers get on the car families would actually buy: dual-zone rather than four-zone climate, no rear-seat heating unless a package is ticked, no rear entertainment screens, and no wireless charging anywhere in the 2022 lineup with USB provision that Lexus itself expanded a year later — so devices in the back row are on cables and in short supply.

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 isolation and 16-way seats keep fatigue low over a commute, All-Speed Dynamic Radar Cruise Control holds a gap to a full stop and resumes, and 2022 specifically brought subtler steering and brake-control tuning plus revised damping. It stays out of the top band for a repeatedly reported calibration flaw — roughly half a second of hesitation before the turbos and the 10-speed answer a sudden request, with the drivetrain fumbling a little at city speeds.

Expensive per mile by any measure. The representative LS 500 AWD returns 21 MPG combined on required premium fuel with an EPA annual fuel bill of $3,700, and the consumables match — 19- and 20-inch noise-reduction wheels on run-flat tires and luxury-flagship service pricing. Only the 27–29 MPG highway figure keeps this off the floor; a commuter whose miles are mostly urban is paying 17 MPG for the privilege, and the Multi Stage Hybrid that fixes it costs $36,000 more.

A 206-inch, 4,700-pound car is never going to be easy in a city, and reviewers of this generation describe steering it as if from a distance. Two things keep it off the floor: a 36.8-foot curb-to-curb turning diameter is genuinely tidy for the length, and Intuitive Parking Assist with Auto Braking is standard and will brake for an obstacle rather than only beep. It sits below the middle of the band because the camera help that would really mitigate the size is not on the volume car — the Panoramic View Monitor is a paid option, and automated parking is not available on the gas LS 500 at all in 2022, Advanced Park being exclusive to the hybrid Teammate model.

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, which makes it a credible way to move a sample case or a few boxes of documents — the kind of work this car actually does.

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 its opposite: semi-aniline leather, Ultrasuede headliners, optional hand-cut Kiriko glass and pleated door trim, low-profile run-flat tires on 19- and 20-inch wheels, 5.9 inches of ground clearance, and no wear-friendly or washable interior option anywhere in the brochure. It will last; it will not tolerate being treated as a tool.

Essentially nil. There is no onboard household AC 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 published accessory catalogue for the 2022 LS is cosmetic and protective — trunk trays, carpet mats, door-edge film, wheel locks, key gloves — with nothing that upfits the car for work. No aftermarket upfit ecosystem exists for a Lexus flagship sedan.

This is what the LS is for, and it is near the top of the segment. Testers of the 2022 car call the cabin extremely quiet, the revised-for-2022 damping floats over broken pavement, the standard 16-way heated and ventilated seats are built for all-day stints, and a 21.7-gallon tank against 27–29 MPG highway gives well over 450 miles between stops. Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 became standard this year, so full-speed adaptive cruise and Lane Tracing Assist come on the base car and do real fatigue work. Held marginally below the following model years because navigation and phone projection are the pre-Lexus-Interface, cable-only generation — a long drive means a wired phone and dated maps.

All-wheel drive is available with real hardware — a Torsen limited-slip centre differential splitting 31/69 front/rear on dry roads and up to 48/52 on slick ones — and every AWD car gets the Cold-Weather Package with a wiper de-icer and enhanced heater as standard, which makes the LS genuinely credible on a snowy road to a lodge. Everything else argues against it: 5.9 inches of ground clearance, low-profile run-flat tires on 19- and 20-inch wheels, no tow rating for a trailer or toy hauler, no roof rails for bikes or a box, no AC power for camping, and a trunk that cannot be opened up into the cabin.

Volume is not the problem — 17 cubic feet is a big trunk, larger than the German flagships', it opens hands-free, and it takes four people's suitcases easily. Flexibility is: the rear seatbacks are fixed with only a centre 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 car either. Skis will go through the armrest; a bicycle, a kayak or flat-packed furniture will not go anywhere.

Secure rather than engaging, which is exactly the brief. 2022 is the model year Lexus specifically attacked body control — optimized front and rear anti-roll bar diameters and revised AVS linear solenoids with enlarged flow paths — and grip is respectable for a 4,700-pound car, with instrumented skidpad results for this generation landing around 0.79–0.85 g depending on tire. It sits mid-band because the moment the pace rises the mass shows: testers report noticeable lean and sway through corners and a car that feels large and remote rather than eager.

Precise and consistently weighted — 2022 received subtle retuning of the steering and brake controls — but heavily isolated, with reviewers describing steering the car as if from a distance and calling the rack light and feedback-free at times. The Dynamic Handling Package's Variable Gear-Ratio Steering and Active Rear Steering sharpen the responses on the rear-drive F SPORT without adding feedback, so the character does not change, and neither is available on the volume AWD car.

Adequate rather than reassuring. The pedal is easy to modulate and 2022's control retuning helped — reviewers say the brakes slow the car confidently — but instrumented stops of roughly 183 feet from 70 mph are on the long side for a luxury sedan carrying this much speed capability, a function of curb weight and 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, but they are not on the volume car.

Smooth and effortlessly strong at the part-throttle openings this car lives at, with 442 lb-ft on a plateau from 1,600 rpm meaning the V6 rarely has to strain and the 10-speed shifting almost imperceptibly when left alone. The calibration is what costs it the top band: Edmunds' 2022 test reports the drivetrain fumbling a little at city speeds and being slow to drop a gear for a highway pass, so light-throttle response stays sluggish until the transmission commits.

Inoffensive and largely absent in normal use — Active Noise Cancellation and Active Sound Control are standard, 2022 added under-hood noise isolation, every wheel in the range is a noise-reduction design, and testers of the 2022 car describe the cabin as extremely quiet with no vibration through the controls. It falls short of the top band on character rather than volume: pushed hard the V6 turns coarse, Active Sound Control pipes in a synthesized note to compensate, and none of it has the sonic authority of the V8 the first four LS generations used.

36.8 feet is mid-band for the sedan class in absolute terms but is a genuinely good result given the LS is 206.1 inches long on a 123.0-inch wheelbase — most rivals of this length turn worse. It does not make the car feel small in a parking structure, but it is not the limiting factor either.

Good on the physical side and compromised on the interface. Sixteen-way power front seats with power headrests and a heated leather wheel with paddle shifters accommodate almost any driver, and the 2021 facelift had already moved the display roughly three inches closer so the touchscreen is within reach on the move. Below the 2023 car because the console Remote Touchpad is still fitted and still the route to some functions, which reviewers of the 2022 car single out as maddening — and because 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 in rear-drive form is genuinely fast — but nothing about the LS invites the long way home. 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; only the rear-drive F SPORT with the Dynamic Handling Package moves the needle, and it is not the volume car.

For $77,075 the LS 500 arrives with a 12.3-inch touchscreen running Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and Alexa, a 12-speaker audio system, 16-way heated and ventilated power front seats in leather, adaptive variable suspension, adaptive LED headlights, moonroof, power soft-close doors — and, new for 2022, Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 standard across the range rather than reserved for upper cars. That is a strong slate against rivals whose entry models start $10K–$34K higher. It stops short of the top band because the flagship experience proper is optional: the 28-way massaging seats, rear-cabin luxury and Mark Levinson audio live in the Interior Upgrade and Executive packages, where the Genesis G90 simply includes most of it.

The LS undercuts a 2022 740i by roughly $10,700 and an S-Class by roughly $34,000 while matching both on isolation and material quality, then compounds the advantage with the segment's best residuals and lowest projected service costs — a buyer keeping the car five years is simply out less money. It falls short of the top band on two counts: the outgoing G90 3.3T delivers comparable content and a far longer warranty for $2,100 less, and an LS optioned the way its rivals come equipped climbs near $110,000, so the value case rests on the modestly-specified car.

Within the LS 500 the choice is real — rear- or all-wheel drive, standard or F SPORT across four combinations from $76,100 to $82,950 before options, plus a deep package ladder (Interior Upgrade, Premium, Luxury, Handling, Executive) that stretches one car past $110,000. What breaks the range is the top of it: the LS 500h is offered only as a single loaded AWD car with Lexus Teammate at $113,075, leaving a roughly $30,000 hole above the F SPORT AWD, and there is no V8, no plug-in hybrid and no EV where an S-Class or 7 Series buyer had all three.

The LS sold 2,727 units in the US in 2022, down 27% from 3,739 in 2021 and down about 71% from the 9,301 it moved in 2018, the first year of this generation — a sustained slide with no inflection, in a segment that is itself shrinking. It is dwarfed by the S-Class and was outsold by every German rival; the nameplate that once led US flagship sales for 15 of its first 17 years is now a rounding error in Lexus's own volume. It scores marginally above the 2023 car only because the absolute number was still higher.

Lexus carried strong credentials into 2022 — Kelley Blue Book's Best Resale Value luxury brand for a third time, edging Porsche, and the J.D. Power ALG premium brand winner for continuity of residual value across the lineup — and that reputation for build quality and value retention is exactly what an LS buyer is buying. Two things keep it off the top band: the badge is respected rather than aspirational at flagship money, where the three-pointed star still carries executive-car cachet the LS never recovered; and 2022 was the year Lexus lost its dependability crown, finishing second among premium brands behind Genesis in the J.D. Power VDS while Kia took the outright win.

2022 was the worst buyer's market in a decade and the LS sat squarely in it: Edmunds and Lexus dealer incentive listings show no manufacturer rebates or subvented finance offers on the 2022 LS 500, Lexus aimed what lease support it had at the RX and other volume models, and industry-wide discounts hit an all-time low of about 2.3% of transaction price in March 2022 while average transaction prices ran above MSRP for sixteen straight months. The LS was built and stocked in such small numbers that dealers had no reason to discount; it avoids the bottom band only because it was not one of the nameplates carrying open market adjustments above sticker.

2022 is the fifth model year of the XF50 generation launched for 2018, but only the second since the 2021 mid-cycle refresh that retuned the suspension, revised the interior materials and — most consequentially — moved the 12.3-inch display forward and made it a touchscreen, defusing the generation's most-criticized feature. The 2022 changes themselves are worthwhile rather than structural: Lexus Safety System+ 2.5 standard on every model and Lexus Teammate hands-free highway driving on the hybrid. The platform, the 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 and the 10-speed automatic are all launch-spec, but with no replacement announced the redesign risk for a 2022 buyer was low — a materially better position than the 2022 7 Series and G90, both in their final year before an all-new car.

Reviewers respect the 2022 LS without ever picking it — KBB rates it 4.3 out of 5 and owners rate it 4.5 with 88% recommending it, but U.S. News scores it 6.6 out of 10 and ranks it seventh among 2022 luxury large cars, concluding it "simply doesn't excel in any particular area and is outdone by rivals in both luxury and performance". The recurring criticisms are that it is less engaging to drive than its German rivals, that the hybrid's complexity buys little economy, and that the touchpad still shadows the touchscreen. Its 2022 honors are financial and brand-level rather than model-level: Lexus took the ALG premium brand award, but the LS lost the Premium Executive segment title it had long held to the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door, and there was no 10Best, NACTOY or comparison-test win.