Luxury cars need to do almost everything well. The best of them can be sport sedans when the road gets curvy, lavish cocoons when traffic bunches up, and, if not solid investments, at least hold some of their value over a long life. And the best of them? For 2023, it’s the Lexus ES.
The ES is the unassuming utility player of the luxury car league, and for the fifth year in a row, it’s our Best Buy Award winner in the luxury car class.
We Test 300-Plus Cars for Our Awards
We test nearly every car on the market in the United States when we set out to determine our Best Buy Award winners. Nearly? We exclude a few exotic cars so expensive that “best buy” is a silly concept. All the rest of them pass through our editors’ hands.
We study the financial aspects of ownership, considering pricing, 5-Year Cost to Own data — including depreciation, insurance, maintenance, financing, fuel, fees, and taxes for new cars — consumer reviews and ratings, and vehicle sales information. Finally, we bring the best contenders in for head-to-head testing.
The winners offer a strong value proposition to consumers based on pricing, innovation, and available standard technology and safety features.
The ES Is a Sumptuous Goldilocks Car
With luxury cars, that value proposition is a hard trick to pull off. They tend to depreciate faster than almost any other category of vehicle, making long-term bargains rare.
The ES, though, boasts excellent resale value thanks to a rock-solid reliability reputation decades long. It’s also surprisingly affordable in the first place – its $41,340 starting price is more than $7,000 lower than the average new car last month.
And it’s a pure joy to drive. Buyers can choose from a 4-cylinder engine powerful enough for your commute, a butter-smooth V6 in the ES 350 with 302 horsepower, or a fuel-conscious hybrid ES 300h that returns 44 mpg combined.
F Sport editions add driving zest, if that’s important to you. And every ES at every price point offers a smooth, tranquil ride even other luxury automakers struggle to match.
Add in a full suite of modern safety aids and one of the better voice command systems on the market, and you get a safe, pleasant car that you can push when you feel like it.
It sits at the top of our list of the best midsize luxury cars and takes home the Best Buy Award once again.
