Where the competitors heading

[Las Palmas]

8 hours ago, Dave Cryer said:

"Line in from good hardware is better than anything Apple has ever made". Line in from what? A record player? What portable high end device do you have John (Las Palms)? 

Right now I use a S8 with Neutron installed and feeding the MarkLevinson through the AUX input. My DAP is damaged and have not yet had the funds to buy a new one. Sony Walkman (no not the cassette player) Sony NW-A55L

has one in acceptable price level (according to my wife) and should be capable of reprodusing 24-bit lossless 96kHz in OK quality, but a real DAP usually will set you back with as much as one of the expensive iPhones, that can only reproduce sound in MP3 quality. In noisy cars that is OK, but in a hybrid that often is close to silent with ML audio in I think that is not good enough.

Unfortunately you have to download that quality of music or buy Blu-Ray music as a CD is 16-bit and 48kHz.

Better than that quality is only possible live or in master recordings.

[Mr Vlad]

Errrrrrrrr regarding sound quality. I've mentioned in other threads that I have a quite cheap Bluetooth adapter in my centre console compartment. My current 2007 is250 SE-L with ML. Especially when I listen to the BBC Radio 1 Drum & Bass show with Rene le Vice the sound reproduction is awesome. Now until the last few years I was an Audiophile with top notch home hifi from Quad etc. So I know music reproduction quality. Also I'm a former semi pro car hifi installer and I've build quite a few systems with one in particular a 3 series beemer with 14 speakers and roughly 2k Watts. No I'm not blowing my own trumpet but stating that a lexus with ML needs nothing added. To use a DAP in a ML system is pointless. I never used one in any of the car installs I did. Bluetooth via Aux in or direct line in to the Aux socket in a ML system will please everyone. I don't know about apple stuff, just don't like it for some reason. 

[Las Palmas]

2 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Errrrrrrrr regarding sound quality. I've mentioned in other threads that I have a quite cheap Bluetooth adapter in my centre console compartment.

Now until the last few years I was an Audiophile with top notch home hifi from Quad etc. So I know music reproduction quality.

No I'm not blowing my own trumpet but stating that a lexus with ML needs nothing added.

To use a DAP in a ML system is pointless.

Bluetooth via Aux in or direct line in to the Aux socket in a ML system will please everyone.

I don't know about Apple stuff, just don't like it for some reason. 

Agree with you on all except the Bluetooth. There is quite a quality difference between AUX line in and Bluetooth. Or something is wrong with the Bluietooth I have heard so far.

Quad electrostats deliver the best high- and midrange I have ever heard and the amp from Quad is at least as good as from ML.

A DAP is a DAP and no problems with not wanting one. A good quality phone with Neutron will give good quality music line out to AUX in. Maybe the new Bluetooth systems are getting better but so far I find that line is better. Bluetooth is more convenient of course.

[Las Palmas]

Where should Lexus be heading?

Wikipedia is a good place to find info:

Places with planned fossil-fuel vehicle bans

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Countries

Map of proposed bans.

  2020s

  2030s

  2040s

  2050s

Countries with proposed bans or implementing 100% sales of zero-emissions vehicles include China, Japan, the UK, South Korea, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Canada, the 12 U.S. states that adhered to California's Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program, Sri Lanka, Cabo Verde, and Costa Rica.^[1]

In 2018, Denmark proposed an EU-wide prohibition on petrol and diesel cars, but that turned out to be contrary to EU regulations. In October 2019, Denmark made a proposal for phasing out fossil fuel vehicles on the member state level by 2030 and was supported by 10 other EU member states.^[19]

 

Toyota has already shown the way in 1970 or something like that.

Hydrogen engines. Hydrogen combustion engines. Many or most combustion engines can be modified so they can drive on hydrogen and while spilled petrol stay on the ground and is easy to put fire to, spilled hydrogen is gone immediately and posing little or no danger at all.

No more Battery powered cars where half of the energy is wasted while charging and using the energy, where the planet is destroyed in search for rare earth to make the stupid batteries.

The reason we do not have filling stations and hydrogen combustion engine powered cars is that the leaders we have are lobbied by the petrol delivering companies/countries.

Yes we have a hybrid, but hope to get a hydrogen powered and would be happy if Lexus could provide.

[dutchie01]

On 3/11/2021 at 1:17 PM, royoftherovers said:

 

Such technology will appeal to Corporate Buyers who can afford it ,but by the time the vehicle filters down to the Private Individual, all Warranty will have disappeared and even 10% of one Bitcoin will not cover the costs of repair. 

https://www.classicandsportscar.com/features/inside-vauxhalls-space-age-srv-concept

John, many moons ago i did visist a motorshow with my father. I must have been 10 years old then. We stumbled into somehing that made a lasting impression on me, the Vauxhall SRV concept. We admired the car but when the door opened we were blown away! That Dash! all those switches, dials, and in the DOOR! Incredible if we would have the money we would have bought it. My dad spoke to a bearded long haired Vauxhall representative and asked what would happen when somebody hits the car and smashes the door? Reply was a bit sobering.. just get a new door of course.

My point is that in all those 50 years nothing changed really... Its all show and that sells.  The new Merc S class will sell on the digital dash alone. Most customers will never ever use all options but that is not the point as it impresses.

Strange if you think of it, you cannot use a mobile phone when driving but operating touch screens is no problem?

[Mr Vlad]

Actually you're Not supposed to use any buttons on the dash whilst driving. If an eagle eyed copper saw you and was in the mood he'd book you for it.

[royoftherovers]

42 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Actually you're Not supposed to use any buttons on the dash whilst driving. If an eagle eyed copper saw you and was in the mood he'd book you for it.

Ralph Nader would not have let it happen.

Having to adjust dials, enter menus and submenus, press buttons etc in my view constitutes driving without due car and attention and should lead to DVSA recalling all vehicles set up that way.

The screen set-up in the Tesla for example is an ergonomic disaster and constitutes  real danger for the driver and other road users.

[ColinBarber]

52 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Actually you're Not supposed to use any buttons on the dash whilst driving. If an eagle eyed copper saw you and was in the mood he'd book you for it.

That's not true, unless they can prove you were either driving dangerously or driving without due care and attention.

When operating vehicle controls you MUST exercise proper control of your vehicle at all times.

[LenT]

4 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

Having to adjust dials, enter menus and submenus, press buttons etc in my view constitutes driving without due car and attention and should lead to DVSA recalling all vehicles set up that way.

I agree entirely with the sentiment but is there ANY modern car that doesn’t offer its driver these potentially fatal distractions?

At the start of my Lexus Navigation Manual, a warning paragraph emphasises the danger of operating controls that distract from driving.  But if Lexus was serious about this, then surely - to take one example - what it refers to as the Touch Control Knob would be inoperable if the car was in motion and no passenger detected?  How it can be operated without it being a distraction I don’t know.

And yet if it’s capable of being used by the driver while on the move, I’m sure some drivers will!

But I also agree with you about buttons.  When I first sat in the car I thought the touch sensitive heating controls were…well, a nice touch.  But now I realise that I have to look down to locate and operate the correct position on the control strip.  A simple, physical slide that can be located by feel and physically moved in the appropriate direction would be lower in tech but greater in safety!

Button-wise, the steering wheel mounted controls are a better compromise. One piece of Patrol Car footage I particularly remember featured a small saloon being driven up a slight incline and slowly drifting into the path of an oncoming HGV.  The saloon driver, having survived, explained she’d only looked down for an instant to adjust the radio!

[LenT]

9 hours ago, ColinBarber said:

That's not true, unless they can prove you were either driving dangerously or driving without due care and attention.

When operating vehicle controls you MUST exercise proper control of your vehicle at all times.

And who could possibly disagree with that?  But as with the real life example I just gave in the post above, the lack of proper control is only demonstrated after the accident!

As I noted, steering wheel mounted controls at least provide a less distracting method of control. But my Lexus, in common with probably all modern cars, still provides many opportunities to look away from the road while searching for a particular button.

You could argue that, in that respect, automatics are safer than a manual change - although I doubt any of us can even remember the last time we had to look at the gear lever while  driving!

But where does one draw the line?

Does getting immersed in a piece of music, or involved in a radio drama, or infuriated by some news or a hands-free telephone call - or even talking to a passenger- count as a distraction?  Well probably only if you have an accident while engaged in doing it.

How many tv documentaries have you seen that involve the driver being filmed while talking to the camera?  I’ve often wondered how many out-takes there are of near misses as the driver turns to look back at the road?  There’s probably a good documentary to be made about that!

 

[royoftherovers]

Like I said, Ralph Nader would have not let this happen.

The Motor Industry once again is introducing dangerous and unnecessary practices and Governments are letting it happen.

If some of you have never heard of Ralph Nader, it is time you looked him up.

USA Motor Industry 0   Ralph Nader 1.

[LenT]

1 hour ago, royoftherovers said:

If some of you have never heard of Ralph Nader, it is time you looked him up.

USA Motor Industry 0   Ralph Nader 1.

Spot on, John.

’Unsafe at any speed’ - written in 1965, and still relevant, it was a best seller and an Industry game changer.

Probably best known for its criticism of the Corsair and the tendency of its swing axle suspension to tuck under in extreme driving conditions.  A characteristic, incidentally, that it shared with the similarly equipped Triumph Herald!

[royoftherovers]

1 hour ago, LenT said:

Spot on, John.

’Unsafe at any speed’ - written in 1965, and still relevant, it was a best seller and an Industry game changer.

Probably best known for its criticism of the Corsair and the tendency of its swing axle suspension to tuck under in extreme driving conditions.  A characteristic, incidentally, that it shared with the similarly equipped Triumph Herald!

Corvair ?

[LenT]

 

40 minutes ago, royoftherovers said:

Corvair ?

You’re right again, John.

Corvair and definitely not Corsair.  I’ve just looked it up to remind myself…which is probably what I should have done in the first place!  🤭

[royoftherovers]

12 minutes ago, LenT said:

 

You’re right again, John.

Corvair and definitely not Corsair.  I’ve just looked it up to remind myself…which is probably what I should have done in the first place!  🤭

Len, Corsair was a short lived British Ford saloon which was produced under the codename of "Buccaneer"

We should have been milk monitors in the same class ?

[Mr Vlad]

Corvair? Arguably the most dangerous car ever built eh?

[royoftherovers]

45 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Corvair? Arguably the most dangerous car ever built eh?

Arguably Vlad.

[LenT]

On 6/19/2021 at 10:19 PM, royoftherovers said:

Having to adjust dials, enter menus and submenus, press buttons etc in my view constitutes driving without due car and attention and should lead to DVSA recalling all vehicles set up that way.

The screen set-up in the Tesla for example is an ergonomic disaster and constitutes  real danger for the driver and other road users.

Interestingly (or possibly not, depending on your view of him) I see that this Sunday Jeremy Clarkson quoted a stat from a 2020 Institute of Advanced Motorists survey which found that a touchscreen can delay a motorist’s response by as much as 57 percent.

Presumably that’s a delayed response to a road emergency, for example.  ☹️