- The 2025 Lexus ES is an especially roomy midsize luxury sedan.
- Pricing starts at $43,435, including the destination charge | Price it your way
- On sale now | See Lexus ES models for sale near you
Yes, we’ll look all around the interior of the 2025 Lexus ES in a moment. Just let us stay here in this spacious and comfortable back seat for a while longer. Because once you’re in here, you don’t really want to get out.
Before we get to the metaphorical meat and potatoes, it’s worth taking a broader look at the 2025 ES. Firstly, this is the most affordable new midsize luxury sedan. And we wouldn’t be Kelley Blue Book if we didn’t have an eye on resale values. The ES leads its class in this respect. These attributes are part of the reason why the company instills such loyalty among its customers, and why we’re always happy to recommend Lexus vehicles.
The ES offers a choice of drivetrains, including a hybrid and all-wheel drive (AWD), although this latter feature comes only with the base engine. Comfort and refinement are areas where the ES excels. Its smooth suspension and tranquil cabin add to the overall enjoyment, bringing us nicely to a closer look at the interior, as promised.
Passenger Room and Comfort
We can take for granted the plentiful space up front in the 2025 ES. This is a midsize sedan, after all. It’s in the rear quarters where not all class members are created equal. Not that there’s much difference in headroom — most contenders have about 38 inches. Rear legroom is a different matter. At 39.2 inches, the ES comes second only to the Volvo S90 (with 40.4 inches).
Incidentally, Volvo seats are known for their comfort and support, yet the ES can be just as accommodating. We would gladly take this Lexus sedan for an extended road trip, confident in the knowledge that we’d still feel relatively fresh when we reached our destination.
Features and Tech
This generation of ES has been around since the 2019 model year, so the tech is more mainstream than cutting-edge. That said, we’re glad to see wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto as standard. Everyone benefits from the high level of standard safety features in the 2025 ES, such as forward collision warning with pedestrian detection, active lane-keeping assistance, and blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert.
The standard infotainment touchscreen measures eight inches on the diagonal. A 12.3-inch touchscreen is available, so is a head-up display, and wireless charging. Whenever we see a Lexus vehicle, we always hope there’s a Mark Levinson audio system inside, because it has such power and clarity. The ES offers a 17-speaker, 1,800-watt surround-sound setup. A justifiable indulgence, we’d say.
Materials and Design
At its entry level, the 2025 ES comes with seating surfaces of simulated leather. They’re better in real life than that sentence might suggest. It’s pretty convincing stuff. We find the rest of the cabin materials just as acceptable, while the build quality is of the usual exemplary Lexus standard. The dashboard’s design is a little quirky, perhaps, but hardly a deal-breaker.
Cargo Room and Flexibility
Now we come to the first and possibly only real downside to the ES. Its rear seats don’t split and fold, and the trunk area is 13.9 cubic feet. The BMW 5 Series does much better, with a massive 18.4 cubic feet. We are impressed, though, that trunk space hasn’t been compromised in the hybrid Lexus ES. The company stores that bigger battery under the rear seats.
Build and price your version of the 2025 Lexus ES to see this week’s Kelley Blue Book Fair Purchase Price, or check out the Lexus ES models for sale near you.
