Linas.P

IS250C - everything that applies to normal IS250 applies to them as well. They are less practical thought, with non-existent rear seats and roof can and go wrong (although not too often)... as you would expect for convertible really. But you probably are experienced with that and you know the risks coming from SC. In short IS250C is more modern car than SC430, with much better gearbox, handling and fuel economy, but much worse engine sound and performance. The only issue I see with IS250C is the price - you can get mk3 IS for similar price as mk2 convertible and at this point value for money really doesn't work out. + you already have convertible... so...

"Bit better fuel economy" 😄 I am ex-owner of RC200t and I know that fuel economy is absolutely horrid - low 20s? RC-F with 5L V8 has better economy than my 2 litre rattle cannon. My biggest issue was not economy per say, but illogical gap between economy and actual performance - car performs like 2L, but consumes fuel like 5L. Swapping for IS300h - yes that is great idea as far as fuel economy is concerned, as well eCVTs to my surprise are very nice to drive on "fast" A-roads. I honestly think that is where they feel the best, yet 300h are not great on motorways (not great fuel economy either), they unacceptably slow from stand-still (so I hate driving them in the city), but they handle very well in "fast" A-roads and even eCVT can be used for instant shifting in the corners - not bad at all. When it comes to economy you should be able to hit high 30's easily. I would say 32-38MPG is the range where you can expect the car to be in most normal driving conditions. Getting it below 32MPG... you need to deliberately try, above 38MPG - again people get 55MPG etc. but that is not normal, if you coast for 50 miles at 50MPH without ever touching accelerator then it is possible, but that is not normal driving. So yes - if fuel consumption is important then IS300h is good choice.. you will go from what I assume is 22-26MPG, to 32-38MPG. But you will have to accept car which is awfully slow. Reliability - non-issue at all, if anything I suspect IS300h is far more reliable than 200t. CT200h... well try it for yourself and see, I consider this car to be "fun killer" - it is just so hopelessly boring and un-engaging that after 5 minutes driving it you will stop even trying. Terrible for A-road, definitely not the car you want if you at all interested in driving and by merely saying "fast" A-road I assume you are interested in driving, because it is you who make A-road fast or slow. In CT200h all roads will only be slow roads. Remapping - they are not remappable and nobody has done it because it does not work. This would require entire thread of it's own, but let's just have a crash course on engine tuning for 200t. There are snake-oil sellers saying you can get IS200t up-to 308-340HP - absolute non-sense. Here is basics of how internal combustion engine works - more air + more fuel = more power. 8AR-FTS engine is turbo engine with maximum turbo pressure of 1.2bar and this is what it delivers from factory. Because you have f-sport you can turn on context menu on the dash and see real-time turbo pressure... and what you will see is that under acceleration ~4k RPM it already blow 1.2bar. So to simplify it - this turbo can't deliver more air as it already delivers maximum pressure it could! And if we go back to our previous equation - no more air = no more power, no matter how much fuel you dump at the engine. This means you can't map car for much more power... sure custom map for the engine specifically tuned for your car on the dyno could give you maybe extra 10-15HP (260hp is about the range where similar engines are), but sad news Lexus ECU is locked and can't be tuned, so you don't have this option either. The interceptor type tuning like TDI Tuning is selling is literally a scam when it comes to IS200t, what they doing works for some German cars, because their engines are artificially tiered i.e. identical engine in Golf makes 200HP and in Audi A3 it makes 280HP. So they are able to intercept certain engine sensors to trick the ECU into delivering higher power the engine is genuinely capable of getting. This does not work on 8AR-FTS, because it is already running at maximum power limited by the turbo it has. Can they improve the economy then? Yes and no... basically the reason why turbo engines are so uneconomical is that as soon as you get turbo on boost it increase air temperature and pressure in the cylinders, this results in higher risk of knock (pre-detonation) and to combat it and to protect the engine the ECU just dumps the fuel (running "rich" with higher fuel to air ratio prevents knocking). Sure they can trim this fuel and actually reduce fuel consumption and even gain some power, but then this leaves your engine knocking under load/acceleration. 8AR-FTS obviously has knock sensor, so if ECU can't dump fuel it will reduce timing, that is the only other measure ECU can use to protect then engine, but it will make your car significantly less powerful. Now I assume they can intercept knock-sensor and let the engine destroy itself, but I hope they don't go that far as it will have obvious consequences (that is - rod going through the side of the block type). Just to review all the options again - 8AR-FTS would need to be individually mapped (meaning your exact car and even specific fuel) to gain power (10-15HP max) and to maybe reduce fuel consumption a little bit. It is possible to balance it out and trim fuel maps correctly so it doesn't dump fuel excessively, but does not detonate either. But this is only possible with new ECU fuel map. This can't be done on Lexus ECU, because it is locked, so this is not an option. Piggy-back ECUs or interceptors don't work on this engine, because they are generic maps and they can't set perfect maps for different cars/fuel etc. The last option which would work - completely new aftermarket ECU (like Haltech, Link and other brands...) + dedicated professional tuning on dyno - yes that would work... but only the ECU costs £1000+ without the tuning. So is it really worth it for 15hp and and 5MPG? At this point I would say if you go aftermarket ECU route, you may as well want to consider new turbo and then realistically you can get this engine to 300hp, but then your fuel economy will be significantly worse. I as well add - how ***** annoying is that we don't get IS350 in UK. Not only it would be far more fuel efficient, but it would be better driving, more powerful and better sounding car! Why Lexus?! 😁

Yeah... not my sort of deal. I do appreciate older cars and I will always choose older and higher class car over newer lower class one. So yes - old Lexus with all options and big V8 is cool, maybe some high trim level Volvo, that is good as well. But entry level econo-boxes have always been and will always stay the same - product for consumerism, buy-it, use-it and throw-it away... they are even designed in a way to be easy to recycle, rather than designed to be good cars and last. Trying to keep them running is futile, they never meant to run past their engineered life-span.

I would argue simply having stickers that you have cat-lock is all is needed 😄 If any thief going to bother looking at the stickers then this will be enough, if they not worried about the stickers then even cat-lock won't help, worse case scenario, if they could not pull the Cat they will smash your windows for trying to protect yourself, don't forget they are not normal people! I don't think watermarking or anything else will help, these are animals - if they actually want your cat they don't care. And watermarking is only important if police going to get involved, but they wont! Police will openly tell you to call your insurance and claim, I give 90% chance they will refuse to even attend the crime scene and collect evidence. In UK crime against cars is practically decriminalised now, forget about getting help from police. Again - don't be afraid to drive your car, nobody steals cats in the public place in the middle of the day when you go shopping. They steal cats on quiet streets at night/evening/early morning. Sure once in a while the make brazen opportunistic attack, but that is extremely rare - most of the time they try to avoid people wherever possible.

You will struggle to find 2012 IS250s... really rare unicorns, but if you look at 2010-2011 cars (still exactly the same face-lift models) you will have more choice. For Mk2 I prefer the looks of 2011+ F-sport, but on F-sport you don't get cooled seats which in my opinion is big deal when you have car with leather. SE-Ls are very rare, but you can find few 2010-2011 SE-Ls. If I were you I would definitely try to track down SE-L and I wouldn't worry about mileage too much. As you know Lexus are reliable and I sold my old IS250 SE-L with 192k miles without any major issues in it's lifetime. The only reason I sold it because it was written-off in the accident.

I have owned IS250 with both sat-nav and without sat-nav screen. I personally would happily buy without sat-nav as it is next to useless and non-satnav cars have much nicer access to all functions via buttons - much easier to use when driving. It is next to impossible to use touchscreen when driving, but to be fair it has "satellite" buttons for most commonly used functions. Yes you right - the only actual benefit of sat-nav screen is reverse camera, but even that is surprisingly poor quality. It is enough for it's purpose i.e. to see where to park, but don't expect crisp and clear view. Are they much risk to go wrong not really, but they sometimes goes wrong. Now yes - you can fit GROM to get Apple Car Play and Android auto, but again the original screen is fairly terrible quality, touchscreen sensitivity is very poor so your experience overall would be poor. And as far as price goes - you can fit entire replacement system with android and wide-screen which will have all these things out of the box. I guess the only benefit of having sat-nav in this case is that it will save you time on fitting reverse camera. Finally, I would say all depends on the cost - if there are two identical cars for identical price and one has sat-nav, sure go for that, for free it doesn't hurt, but I would not pay 1 extra penny for it.

Not much you can do about those cracks - I had my headlights polished few times as well, but there were some fine cracking inside the plastic. I assume this is what happens when car is left in sunlight without proper UV protection (e.g. when you have dull lights your headlight coating is likely failed by that point) - over time the plastic itself starts deteriorating. As above, ultimately replacement is only option, but I would avoid used lights - they are quite likely to have exactly the same issues.

As above - the likelihood is quite low, the annoying thing is that police does nothing about it and just pushes the responsibility on insurance. What I would say - car insurance won't increase just because of CAT theft, because then every single car is affected (even diesels have DPFs). What would significantly increase your insurance is if you make a claim on it, I would be inclined to even leave unreported (depending on how much you actually pay, but expect at least 30% jump next year) - just unfortunate nature of how UK insurance works. So does insurance get more expensive for all cars as result of CAT theft - No, but it definitely increases to individual owners who makes a claim for repair. I don't think there is any particular way to avoid it, but try not to leave your car in quiet places at night. Leaving it on public road during the day is not an issue, locked compound at night with some light and maybe CCTV would be ideal.

Premier obviously being the top trim, but sadly without digital dash which is kind of party piece of the car. I am not convinced ML is better on mk3 - it is good on both cars, what is important however is that mk2 came standard with 13 speakers and ML added only 1 speakers + better amplifier, so in mk2 it isn't really important if you get car with ML or without. In mk3 you must get at least Premium navigation (with 10 speakers) or ML (with 15 if I remember right)... because standard (6 speaker) system is absolutely unacceptable trash. Actually, same can be said about lower trims overall mk2 had better standard equipment in low and intermediate trims, whereas if you get mk3 SE or "non-trim" is is absolutely basic without anything at all, no electric seats, no memory, no auto-dimming mirrors, no cooled/heated seats, no keyless entry etc. Sat-nav was terrible in both mk2 and mk3, always used my phone for navigation as that could drive circles around built in stuff. Slow, clunky, inaccurate, outdated and difficult to use. Both IS250 and IS200t had spare wheels, whereas IS300h comes with bottle of glue. This is very good point, trust me - you don't want to end-up using it! Never had this issue in Lexus, but once happened to me in BMW which as well had run-tyre. With spare wheel it would have been minor issue, with glue I ended-up on flat bed truck... Sunroof indeed makes cabin much brighter, but for some reason it as well robs quite a bit headroom despite opening out... something to consider if you are taller.

I was about to say to the last comment - "it does not matter", it is not like 2 door car is much smaller. There was nothing wrong you your precious example - it is just fact that cars got bigger and there are many reasons for it. Standard model development is one - company just can't market the new car if it isn't some way better than old one. Having more room inside and in the boot is just one of many ways of how to justify the upgrade - so cars naturally get bigger. Safety regulations is another reason... competition is yet another one - if MB has bigger boot, then Audi/BMW has to follow. Power and speed competition is another one - faster car needs a bigger engine and results needs bigger everything.. wheels, brakes, gearbox, shafts, suspension components, wider tyres... and the cycle continues. What is important to understand - new mini is not replacement for original mini... it is just a name badge BMW wanted to utilise. If we look at like for like replacement currently for the segment Original mini occupied, then we need to look at cars like Smart or Renault Twingo. Mini is now proper hatchback competing with Golf. That is compact car segment and not super-mini. So comparing the two is a little bit pointless to be fair.

Having owned it for many years and covered 200k miles I see where you coming from, but you will be surprised how many people don't know these cars and think that they are far newer than they are. And as I said - yes when it comes to looks mk3 looks more modern, especially if you get F-Sport with digital dash it feels more modern inside as well... yet it is fundamentally same car as mk2... so as far as engine and all mechanical part is concerned you getting same car. Other thing to note - in my opinion mk2 is far better built quality. Yes mk3 looks more modern and Lexus made it so all the areas you touch feels nice and padded, mk2 was little bit more patchy, but where it matter the quality was far better. Leather on the steering wheel - holds 200k miles like nothing, leather on seats - still looks pristine. In mk3 I have seats torn in 30 k miles and overall it just doesn't feel as solid as mk2. In the end I am not saying that mk3 is bad car, is just that after experiencing both I just can't justify spending 3 times more for mk3, it just isn't worth it... especially IS250. You see at least in IS350 (which we don't have in UK) Lexus modernised the car, the gave it Atkinson-cycle engine, new 8-Speed auto (similar to IS-F) and LSD, so it got more power and became more fuel efficient for 3rd gen... well that justifies extra cost! IS250 engine and drivetrain basically has not changed a single bit between 2003 and 2016, they made no revisions and did nothing at all with that engine, making it borderline obsolete in 2013. As well , just noted you need car for winter - why specifically IS250 for winter? Not exactly the car I would considered "best suited". Or is it just timeframe by when you want to acquire the car? Finally, my advise would be - just try them. Try a many as you can, try IS300h and see what works for you. Everyone will have their own opinion and tell you what they think, but it is you who will have to live with that car so you will have to decide.

I have ran IS250 for 200k miles, I have ran it on 85% ethanol, 50% ethanol, 25% ethanol... no issues whatsoever. They indeed may be wrong or may be right as far as I am concerned engine is completely fine with ethanol, just don't leave it sitting in the tank for long periods of time. Still this in no way justifies having IS220d and removing emissions equipment. You could literally get any other car, it is not like there were only 2 choices IS250 with ethanol issues or IS220d which is just one big mistake. You already stated that you will remove EGR... so that isn't proper maintenance. You can't just remove thing you don't want to maintain for some reason. It is like saying "when my rear brake pads going to get worn out, I will cut and plug rear brake lines, but that does not mean I don't maintain the car". No... you said that you or people with your background would take the car which would run for 50 years with minimal maintenance. I just told you - that car is GS300... it is literally indestructible. But you want to take immediate saving in fuel economy over long term saving in reliability - that is what IS220d represents. The link you provided is not "professional" opinion - so by definition not a proven fact. 40k dying a year that is misunderstood example. It does not mean 40k people actually dies, it means that annual reduction of lifetime is equivalent to that of 40k people lives. By the way I don't agree with that either. In fact nobody have proven link between NOx and premature death or what effect it has to shorten the life, nor anyone have proved it doesn't. 40k is derived by comparing life expectancy in the city with high concentration of NOx compared to some other place with low NOx, but they failed to consider that maybe there is more than just NOx which reduces life expectantly I don't know maybe healthy diet or exercise.. So it is just speculation from both sides, but I rather believe 90% of scientist consensus on that, than some proclaimed physician who has worldpress blog page. I can make same page in 5 minutes and claim anything I like, but that doesn't make it fact.

Having no money is sadly no excuse for pollution, but I agree that the more you earn the more you appreciate the environmental problems - that is o various psychological theories like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If one can barely support their family, then they won't be overthinking about environmental problems - I appreciate that, but it is still poor excuse. If you really wanted car which will run 50 yeas then you shouldn't have gotten IS220d, just no the car. IS250 is far better choice, but the best choice would have been GS300. IS220d has fundamentally flawed and unreliable engine even as far as diesel engines go, it is not fault of just EGR, or just something else - it is unreliable engine. When it comes to diesel cars it is compromise as it always is... they are great for log journeys and they should never be run for short trips. If you stick with long journeys then maintenance will be acceptable. The next thing is that yes you will save money on fuel by having diesel, but you need to factor in that you will have to do more maintenance. What people tend to do - they are happy about the savings they made, but when they need to start spending money on maintenance they always trying to cut corners... that is how we end-up with every other diesel car leaving thick black soot behind them. EGR problem is exactly the same - you want to save money on fuel, sadly you will have to remove soot from EGR often, especially if you run your car locally (which you should never do with diesel). This engine simply can't run reliably without polluting. Would removing EGR make it more reliable... yes... at the cost of blowing NOx onto the streets. But most importantly it does not mean that car will be reliable. EGR is just one of many issues with IS220d. So good try, but that makes no difference - don't buy diesel car if you not planning to maintain it properly.

The size issue specifically relates to Hydrogen ICE, Hydrogen Cell is quite different technology. On Hydrogen cell car there is no engine, so you have entire engine bay to play with and that is why they can make relatively normal looking car with good range. Other thing is that Hydrogen Cell cars are actually extremely efficient as they use electric motor - so they can have both decent acceleration and amazing fuel economy, something you just can't do with ICE. And on top of that their tanks are still bigger then conventional car running on fossil fuel: The tanks of JCB machines may physically be the same size, but it does not mean they hold same amount of fuel. Again in the alienation their are used that is not the issue, so I am not saying it is bad technology. But simply said you can't fit same amount of liquified hydrogen in the same space as you could fit diesel.

When I sold my old IS250, new owner as well left it for over a year. Not exactly "abandoned" as it was sitting in his drive, but it was not driven and under the tree - so it looked absolutely filthy. In the end he asked my help to "re-commission" the car and all it needed was new battery and fresh fuel. It would not start on old fuel, but I kind of anticipated it an brought with me 5L of 98octane + bottle of Redex octane booster/engine cleaner - put that into the tank, pressed the accelerator pedal few times and as soon as fresh petrol hit the engine it was running like nothing happened. To get it through MOT he as well needed new brake disks and pads, but apart of that it was all good. Sadly, I didn't take picture before and after, but it looked like absolute wreck covered in leaves and crap, yet as soon as car was washed it looked great again!

Honestly, it looks amazing... can't wait to see it UK! Although, we need to agree this does not actually "improve the choice", if I wanted small two seat coupe I could just get Toyota GT86 today. It is same car after all. ( + have absolutely not hope it will happen!)

When it comes to passenger cars hydrogen tank would be 2-4 times bigger for given range. So yes hydrogen tanks are big in that sense. However when it comes to digger, the mileage is irrelevant - what is relevant is that with same size tank digger can still complete full shift and could be refuelled very quickly (which is not the case with batteries). So the size of the tanks on the digger may indeed be same size as diesel tanks, but with diesel it may be able to work 3 days straight, whereas with hydrogen it will be able to work for 1 day... but again that is simply not an issue for the application, because as long as it can complete the shift the refuelling process won't take more than 10 minutes before next shift can start.

IS250 mk3 is not a great choice, because it is basically same car as IS250 mk2... so effectively you would be paying 3 times more for fundamentally the same car. There is nothing wrong with them, same solid car as mk2, just more modern i.e. you have phone integration via Bluetooth which was rare and only available for late mk2 models. However, whereas in 2006 the engine was quite competitive, by 2013 it was really kind of obsolete - for that reason they are very rare (mk3 IS250s). There is nothing wrong with IS300h, the reason why they are cheaper is because they are simply far more common (I believe they outsold IS200t and IS250 something like 5:1). As such there is far more choice and you can find the car in right spec for you for less money. IS250 on the other hand are very rare, so the choice is limited. I personally tried 300h many times and I don't like it, not because it is hybrid, but because it is just slow and has no character, sounds rather bad as well - I just can enjoy driving it. I would not get mk3 IS250 either as apart of looks it is still fundamentally the same car as mk2, just little bit heavier and slower. If I were in your position I would definitely go for nicer example of mk2 as for half the price you could get low miles, well equipped example in great condition and it will be 95% same car. Sure if you want better phone integration mk3 is better at that and looks more modern, but that is the only two benefits I can think of. Mk2 actually came better equipped standard, than early mk3s.

Did I... I actually haven't watched the video past ~ 5min, but it seems I have covered same things: As well issue was not knocking/pre-detonation, but NOx emissions due to very high temperatures, this is cured by increasing air to fuel ratio making it very lean, but requiring turbocharger or supercharger. That I have as well mentioned in my previous post.

Exactly this. For some people who have ways to charge and who just need a car to go to shop or work for few miles a day it is fine, but not everyone are like that. I would argue majority are not. Battery technology feasibility is based on technologies which are yet to be invented making it huge gamble. Hydrogen technology is based on existing technology, but lacks infrastructure - so it is fairly clear what is needed to make it viable and it is just matter of political will and infrastructure build, costly, but not risky. This is why I support both technologies - BEVs for limited scale deployment taking out most polluting ICEs e.g. Taxis and CABs are good example, last-mile delivery trucks/vans... that makes sense and is achievable. But we need to look at hydrogen in long terms as it is applicable for much wider range of use and covers far more needs. Trying to focus on just one or another is not feasible if we want to achieve results by 2030-2040s. But if we apply both technologies where they are most applicable we can have good results and quickly. Sadly all this banks on politicians actually having brain and having comprehensive strategy, and political will to implement it... this last bit is the biggest risk as it is most difficult to achieve.

I would argue that politicians not jumped the gun... they are just indecisive and lazy bunch... So they were simply happy to flow don't the river where ever it takes. because of their indecision hydrogen network was not built, so companies started focusing on next best thing, because electrical networks at least exist and many people have electricity at home in some form. In the end decision which were made by our goverment are not proactive, well understood and strategic decisions. This is reactive decision, doing the least what is needed to get re-elected. Because climate is now public concern, they just needed literally anything to put in their agenda, so again they just did the thing which they need to do least about - "ohh there seems to be some BEVs being made now... let's just say we agree with it (despite not understanding it) and as well let's say we ban ICEs... that will do". So I really doubt there was "jump the gun" moment i.e. doing some analysis and coming up with premature or wrong solution. No... there were no analysis at all, they just accepted things as they are and left everyone to workout by themselves of how that actually suppose to look.

Clearly you were not paying attention - the argument was always about ever increasing choice of SUVs and every decreasing choice of every other type. You know if you need torx bit it isn't helpful to have a choice of million hex bits. Argument is not not about absolute number of choices, but about trend of decreasing choice of other cars compared to SUVs. If there we have 180 models of SUV, then I would argue it would be fair to have similar choice of other body types. Clearly being able to choose from 180 models SUV buyers have far greater choice than coupe buyers choosing from 30 models... As for not having rear doors being a pain - it is very personal perspective. Living together with my girlfriend and 90% of the time being in the car alone, this has never been an issue to me. And if somebody is unfortunate enough to have to climb in the back that is their issue not mine 😄 However, having tall car which would make me sick in the corners would be an issue. If there is one thing I don't understand about Lexus RC/LC... is why they didn't make it "hatchback" like Jaguar XK. this would not sacrifice anything of value, just make the car much more practical, as ten you basically get very usable boot.

Not really surprising, but for some reason ignored by goverment and BEV cult. Now to say it is the only way forward would be wrong, I think there applications where it works and where it doesn't. I would start from saying that claims in the video are not completely right and at least some of machinery could work fine as BEV. For example to smaller excavators where they claim 4-5 hours battery life are completely viable. Assuming it isn't Saudi Arabia and we follow basic human rights on construction site, then worker will need a break after 4 hours anyway. With existing technology we know we can charge BEV in ~60 min... so whilst the operator is having a break it could charge for another 4-5 hours of work. Secondly, when it comes contraction sites the charging is not an issue, because the builders themselves decide how they will set-up the site - if they think they need 8 charging points, then they are free to install them - so standard limitations of not having parking space or electricity is not an issue here. Where it starts making sense, that is those large 20-50 ton excavators which may be working in remote arrears and which are manned by multiple shifts, not only it would be impossible to keep it charged for 3 shifts in a row, but there are as well other valid points. Like you 20ton excavator suddenly becoming 35ton excavator and just by becoming bigger "class" it will probably go in price from £200k to £300k +70% because of the battery cost. As well these machines may be operated in the middle of nowhere without any source of electricity or charging possible. So here hydrogen is really the best option. Finally, the technology for hydrogen ICE isn't new. In fact first ever ICE was hydrogen, before technology to refine diesel and petrol was even invented. Other convenient thing is that diesel engines can pretty easily be converted to hydrogen and most of existing technology and production lines for diesel can be reused. However, it is much harder to do it with petrol. This is because hydrogen (like diesel) has much higher combustion temperature, much higher compression ratio, requires much leaner fuel to air ratio etc. Basically Hydrogen engine is like diesel engine just with the spark plug. So replacing diesel with hydrogen in most ICE applications is quite simple... the only remaining issue is refuelling and range. So what is missing is hydrogen refuelling stations and currently the range would be not great if used as ICE instead of Fuel-cell technology. But I guess range isn't an issue for tractors and excavators, just for passenger cars.

First of all I would like to question the number of 200+ car brands... How many of them are actually viable brands? Do we count Bugatti here, Zenos? 50 or so Chinese manufacturers which we never heard of, nor they sell cars outside of China? I think realistically in UK we have ~35 brands which could be considered when buying the car for 99% of population. Sure there will always be that 1% who can order customer Royce Royce from coach builder for £7.7million and could literally custom build anything they like. But is only relevant for dozen people at most. We are talking about trend here and this trend is common across the industry. So if we go back to Lexus example and we extrapolate that trend for ~30 manufacturers what we will see that for people who are looking to buy hatchbacks, saloons and coupes the choice has halved, and in the same time choice for SUVs has increased. Not only that SUV choice was double to begin with... So if previously there were ~150 models of SUV there are 180 now... and where there were 60 models of coupes it is 30 now. Argument is - those looking for SUVs already had massive choice to choose from, 30 coupes are actually not that many. First of all many of them will be supercar brands - Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche ( so not your practical everyday car), then there will be high number of performance cars like GT-R or AMG SLS, then we have cars in ~80k+ price range like LC, BMW 8-Series, Bentley Continental... so really if you boil it down to "practical coupes" for daily driving which are not weekend toys, or supercars, that choice suddenly is very limited. What do we have left? BMW 2 and 4 series, MB E and C-Class Coupe, Audi A5 Coupe, Toyota GT86 and Supra, Jaguar-F type and Ford Mustang. That is all - 9 models in total! Lexus will have 6 Models of SUVs alone. I am talking about new cars here, but in 10 years time this will be the choice on used market as well.

Not sure I follow... yes there were 70+ million cars made, what difference does it make if they majority SUVs? How does having choice from 6 SUV model Lexus offers helps me if I am looking for Coupe? As for Highway code change - sorry not sure what it is about.