Linas.P

I am not against tidal energy, but if you look around the world then you will see that very few of functional power plants exists. I think what you find being a reason is usually economic - it would make sense, but for it to work massive dam/dike system needs to be built and it just cost a lot of money... which mostly private developers find not feasible... and let's not forget that with our vegetable country they would never get permission to build, because you know "biodiversity and biofauna and there is one common crab species which may have to move to live 500m up the cost". Imagine protests if somebody in UK would try to built something reminiscent of Sihwa Lake: ...but that is how tidal power looks like. A massive dam/dike structure on the cost which fills-up with water on high tide. I have touched on that before, but energy production is business first, environment last affair... even when it comes to wind or solar. All of the calculation of how "green" they are are made with assumption that turbines and panels will be used for their entire lifetime. But they rarely are... why? Because economically it makes sense to replace wind turbine with bigger turbine every 5 years and make higher profits, rather than letting the old one run for 30-50 years and be most carbon "neutral". And there are other associated business costs... but in simple terms green energy is a myth. On top of that - I am not sure UK is even capable of building large tidal capacity in UK, because over last 40 years we have completely dismantled our industry. We don't make steel, we don't make concrete, we don't have enough skilled workers - so who is going to build it and from what materials? Cement and steel from china I guess and workers from Africa? Because UK managed to make itself unattractive even for Eastern Europeans... and by the way - what will be the carbon footprint of this structure? Cement is not amazing for environment. So I think we it seems we can solve all the problems with "simple" solutions, there are other angles to it. Again - if tidal energy can be done on scale, cheaply and cleanly... I am all for it, but I just don't think it is in UK.

Custom made - yes. stainless steel has both positives and negatives, so you need to consider both. Sure stainless will outlast the car, but stainless is not good at suppressing noise, it amplifies it. Now if you want extra noise - fine that is win-win, but if you rather want quiet and comfortable ride then it will be compromise. Besides... arguably even new aluminised steel exhaust will outlast the car by now, unless you planning to drive your car past 30 years old.

but your one has perfectly invisible colour, so what are the solutions? Although, I haven't seen your VLANDs... if memory serves DLRs on them are semi-decent. Not like Lexus MK2, but better than many cars from factory.

Looks good, but I am very pessimistic about sound it makes... Sorry... In that sense you can look at the video I have posted with RC200t, so RC300h will sound quite similar, but maybe not as loud and you can't rev it from stand still, so I am not sure how to even show how it actually sounds.

Yeah - that will do... Is that what you planning to do with yours? 😄 Interestingly, going back to same research, the most visible colour is yellow (I assume gold counts as well), then red, then black, then white, but all the brownish, greyish, blueish and greenish colours are much harder to spot. I don't remember where orange is, but I assume somewhere in between yellow and red.

I don't know if Norway can make more clean energy easily, maybe they could, but Norway is tiny country relatively speaking. I agree with you about combustion engines... I completely don't buy that they are the issue, definitely not when we consider that at least private cars are mere 2% of pollution... if anything we have just wrong priorities if we start "clean-up" from something that pollutes the least. Now when it comes to politics and democracy... yes the key in working democracy is educated voter, ideally politically educated as well... so idiot voters, elect idiot in the government... no surprise there... and I would be optimistic and say that 80% of people are stupid (actually I think we would find more that 80% are stupid), so democracy is kind of flawed... the best thing we came-up with, but still flawed. Sadly I don't have solution here - it is as it is.

I would assume Norway needs it's electricity for other things than just making hydrogen... and if we divert the electricity, or need to make more of it by using fossil fuel, then we may as well just use the said fossil fuel in the cars more efficiently. Look - hydrogen is great for storing EXCESS energy, we can as well make synthetic fuel for same purpose, but that is discussion for another time. The key problem is that around the world in general we have increasing SCARCITY of energy, not EXCESS. And in the situation where energy is already scarce wasting ~55% of it to store it in hydrogen makes no sense. What you saying is partially true - we do have opportunities to make more energy, so that is where we should start, not by hydrogen cars, but by simply making electricity cheap and abundant... and ideally clean. If we can achieve this and say we have excess capacity, then we can start allocating it to such things as hydrogen production, but before we have ways of making abundant, cheap and clean electricity... hydrogen is non-starter. At least not mainstream option. And it is not hydrogen problem, it is problem of how much of it we have and how it is made. Japan and Australia can export hydrogen not because they make a lot of it, but just because they don't use any of it domestically, so it is simply not useful for them, thus can be exported. And I am not saying that we should not develop the hydrogen engine, in fact I think hydrogen engine, or cell technology is good enough as it is. I would drive Mirai over Tesla any day, the problem is not the engine... but it is that we don't have fuel to power it, or the one we have is actually more dirty than what we replacing, and same by the way applies to BEVs. So I am not advocating for BEVs... I am actually saying that we should continue driving ICEVs because currently we don't have anything better to replace them with.

You do know that I am not big fan of BEVs right? As far as Hydrogen is concerned... I believe it simply needs scale, but the scale won't be achieved without long term centralised government coordination. Basically we need "Elon Musk of Hydrogen"... just maybe not lying cn*** like he is, somebody needs to popularise it to get the momentum going. Strangely Toyota despite inventing so much into the tech doesn't commit to taking stake in delivery of fuel for some reason. Again Mushk build it's own supercharger network to enable Tesla, something similar is required for hydrogen if we want to see it as alternative. But that is only the consumer side of equation. The biggest issue overall is that hydrogen currently is mostly just by-product of oil extraction, so if the goal is to stop extracting oil (which is not necessary right), then hydrogen doesn't make much sense. Sure it could be made by hydrolysis, but issue is more or less the same - more energy is needed to make it than it contains, so it is inefficient. In ideal world once we have nuclear fusion this will not be the problem, but it is now. Until we have solution of how to make clean hydrogen it isn't really viable... BUT the same applies to BEVs - until we find the way to make clean batteries it doesn't make sense, but our stupid government is jumping head first into BEVs and taking us together with them. There are some smaller issue, but this is the main one, without solving which there is simply no point of even trying. So it has very little with me liking or not liking it, the issue is simply that it is not clean and not efficient, same as BEVs, same as ICEVs... and what is the point of replacing vehicles if they are not cleaner than what we have now?

In nice sunny day they are rarely useful, but certainly doesn't hurt and as you said there are various situation where it does help even if just a little bit. However, all sorts of shifting conditions is where having lights ON really helps - cloudy overcast days, showers or rain, early mornings, light fog, dusk, especially in winter when the sun is low and even during the day it is not too bright. As well there are all sorts of obstacles, bushes, parked cars etc and sometimes I don't even see the car, but I can see headlight reflection of the other parked car and right away I know somebody is coming. In summary - anything that could make the car more visible is always better, especially if car is in greyish colour which doesn't stand out. Same could be said about putting on hazard lights when slowing down to stand still on motorway - strictly speaking unnecessary, because "if people were paying attention" they should have seen queue forming, but I rather put on my hazards than have somebody smashing into my car at 70MPH. I am sure people still smash anyways, but if there is way to reduce that risk then why not use it.

Wow... this thread keeps on giving... can we make it to page 10? 😄 I mean the hydrogen power pros. and cons. could be summarised in 3 sentences... I would be intrigued what is there to discuss for 10 pages, but even I don't have time to read trough all of it (although I skipped only trough 4 last pages)

Please clarify what exact point I have missed? No - having headlights ON is not absurd, in fact it is legal requirement in majority of NORMAL countries. Again you opinion that it dazzles somebody or confuses somebody... is just that - an opinion. As I said the decision to introduce this law was based on the studies and even if my percentages (from my memory) are off a little bit, the end result is still the same - there was significant improvement noticing the cars with lights ON for all road users. As I said - if headlights dazzles you, then it is not because they are ON, but because they are faulty in some way. As well, thinking about it - I have never ever been dazzled by other cars headlights in daytime, not even high-beam, in the evening or night time... sure every other car on UK roads illuminates the sky and it is honestly horrible. As well I agree that many new LED lights are so uber bright that even when aligned correctly they still dazzle at night. Well I guess it is incorrect to say they dazzle, but they are so bright that they illuminate too much, come at them in the slightly wrong angle and you have permanent hole in your retina. But that is completely different topic from driving with lights in the day time. Yes DLRs are great for daytime, but not all the cars have them, so the only solution is to drive with headlights ON and that is most responsible way to make yourself visible for other road users. It is just given that your lights should as well be correctly adjusted. So I think again you conflate separate things here - headlights ON is good, headlights not adjusted is bad.

Would buy hub centric spacers - standard Lexus size 60.1 BORE, 5x114.3 PCD. Ideally 10mm x2 + 25mm x2, but I know 10mm may not be possible for hubcentric spacers, so 15mm would work as well or 10mm shims + longer bolts. For rear again 15-25mm would work. Secondly, if somebody has a set of 60 degree bolts, I would grab that as well. I guess I could get set of new ones for not much money, but reusing something that was used is better for everyone. Please let me know if you have any laying around and I am sure we can agree something. Thanks

Not sure about this particular model (there is literally million different chinsese screens being sold). But the short summary - you can replace 7-8" screen with 10.25" screen in your mk3 IS for ~£250-800 (dependant on where you get it and spec). The very worst screens for £250 will be 10 times better than what Lexus came with from factory, sure it will be slow and will have outdated software relatively speaking, but it is a move from 2010 technology to 2020 technology and with android you have a lot of flexibility. If you get best of the best which may or may not cost more money (I think for ~£400-£550 you can get best spec. out there if you ordering directly from china), then it will blow Lexus system out of this universe... in most simple terms they give you apple car play and android auto and from there possibilities are limitless, but if you get well specced system, then even as standalone it can pretty much be used as an android tablet in your car which seamlessly integrates with all car functions. Installation wise - if you know exactly what your car needs and if you get it what it needs then it will be "plug & play", maximum 30 min job for somebody who knows what they are doing. Generally speaking most of places selling them will know exactly what you need and even insist you taking out your unit to confirm that they getting you the right stuff, so you really need to try deliberately to get wrong one. I think for IS realistically there are 6 different variants you can have - 2013-2016 models with either base, premium or ML spec. or 2016-2018 models again with standard, premium or ML. after 2018 Lexus came out with their own 10.25" screen and LSS+ and I don't believe unit replacement is worth it for them, nor I believe there are any for sale (yet.. although I might be wrong). So for those cars instead you get plug-in module (like GROM), just to add AA/CP.

SUVs are the same - basically same amount of material and parts just sold in different form for more money. And as long as we (as society) going to continue to buy their overpriced crap they will continue doing it. Hence I have long abandoned any plans to buy new car, not because I can't afford it, but just because I do not consider them worth the asking price. Used car prices are issue now, but I just accepted I will be stuck in ~2000-2010 period for foreseeable future. Or even better - maybe I get daily classic car which not only not going to lose money, but hopefully gain some.

I am sure that whatever impact it has... it is still much better than spacesaver. Obviously, it will not perform as well as it should, but not worse than 3 inches wide "bike" tyre. So as spare I believe it is completely adequate.

The VLANDs I had were worse than Xenons, but I know that Lexus Halogens are horrible and barely illuminates anything at night, where my VLANDs fake fake or just fake... I don't know 😄 I never said people who have DLRs should switch off the auto, but the OP guide is for people who don't have DLRs, so I still think it is useful thing to do. The no lights problem should be addressed somehow, and not just by expecting people to eventually upgrade to 2011+ cars.

No - that is more likely where it is going to start. Yaris Cross ends at basically £30k (£29,680) and if we apply same logic as CHR and UX, then starting LBX probably will be like £31-32k and fully loaded one will be like £38k, but I assume you can get decent mid-range trim (like F-Sport) with most of the stuff for £34-35k (which is way way too much). Honestly, Toyota/Lexus are way too expensive nowadays... There is absolutely no way how it can be justified that UX tops out at £46k, even £36k would be too much for what it is. Let's just be clear - LBX does not exit to provide "good value Lexus", it exists to provide justification to sell Toyota for more money.

VLANDs are more for style, they don't really improve visibility for neither party as they are quite dim as far as DLRs goes, but better than nothing I guess. As far as actual headlights they are better than Halogens, but worse than Xenons. Now just to be clear - I don't have issues with DLRs, especially for cars which came with DLRs from factory. I had RC and I only used DLRs during the day. I have issue with people who continue driving with DLRs at night, which is sadly common, I have even seen Police doing it. I assume they just forget to turn the lights on and perhaps in the front it is alright, but let's not forget that when you have only DLRs ON, the taillights are OFF. But for cars that don't have DLRs I believe having headlights on should be mandatory - in short, you either have DLRs or you have to have headlights ON. That is how it is implemented in countries where it is mandatory, whereas in UK it is weird - if you don't have DLRs then you don't need to do anything... just drive without anything. And also one correction on what I said. So basically in EU they have decided in 2005 to make headlights mandatory by 2008 and DLRs by 2011, so the cars from ~2008 started this "auto ON" feature (I believe Lexus IS250 had it from 2006 to 2010) and then from 2011 facelifted IS250 came with DLR + "auto" lights based on ambient light (same as UK). So not all European Lexus have "auto ON", but only those that came before 2011 and didn't have DLRs.

Having lived in the country where it is mandatory and in UK I disagree with you. Not only it isn't stupid, but it is the most responsive way to drive. The more visible you are on the road the better, don't confuse it with fake xenons that are not adjusted properly (or don't have right projectors) or simply misaligned lights that dazzles oncoming cars. Sure those are issues, but properly working lights shouldn't dazzle anyway, so your argument is just unfounded. Now it may be my issue, because I have lived and learned to drive elsewhere, but for me lights being ON makes HUGE difference. Simply said if car does not have lights on, then it isn't driving/moving. Apart of just convenience for all road users around you there are many occasions where they help in poor visibility (and we have plenty of that in UK even in day time). EU wouldn't have adopted this approach if it wouldn't be beneficial... if memory serves the time required to notice the car with headlights ON was 60% shorter in good conditions and 80% shorter in adverse conditions, as well the distance at which the car is notices increased by 30%. As well they found that other road users, particularly pedestrians were much more accurate predicting speed of oncoming vehicles when the lights were on. So this is not only for other drivers, and let's just face it - pedestrians do not pay attention anyway, so every little helps. I rather have lights ON than have to beep at idiots that steps right in front of the car. Now I personally consider myself "good driver" and I concentrate to driving when I am driving, but on many occasions on gloomy day, morning or dusk I just didn't see the oncoming car, because obviously they were driving without lights and it was like grey or muddy green colour car which just blends in with the surroundings. It wasn't anything dangerous as I have noticed them in the end, but it was "ohh ****, where did they came from?!" moment. Again it may be my driver training and experience where I expect ANY car on the road to always have lights ON, but it just goes to show that lights help for cars being more noticeable and it is nothing more but laziness not having them on. Most European countries did right thing and made them mandatory 24/7, but obviously retarded UK can't expect drivers to be able to turn on headlights, so instead they relied on DLRs to be introduced. Finally, having the law to always drive with the lights removes ambiguity and sets good habit of turning them on as soon as you turn the engine (in case your car doesn't have "auto" lights). Because in UK I see people driving at night without lights or just with DLR... simply because it is kind of ambiguous of when they need to be turned on and people simply forget. I know that in driver training they say "when the street lights come on", the HC says "when visibility is seriously reduced", but both are poor measures... street lights may not come on until it is way too dark on winter days, or generally in gloomy and rainy days and "seriously reduced visibility" again could be interpreted... they say that definition is "when visibility is less than 100m"... well OK... what exactly is visibility? If I can still shadows of cars an people is that still "visible", how clear the objects should be to be considered visible? What if they visible at 120m and not 100m? Could I still drive without lights? And again even when visibility is clearly bad, people still drive without lights. I have seen people driving on motorway at 2AM without lights! So again - much simpler and safer is to have them always ON, so nobody needs to interpret anything. Needless to say I will continue driving with my headlights always ON and if it would be down to me I would make it mandatory for everyone.

Still better than being invisible in traffic... and secondly Xenons wear from on and off cycles, not from how long they are on (there is no filament, it is electric arc). So I reckon with always on option your Xenons would last longer. That said new Osram/Philips D4S always lasted my like 8 years (after that they kind of go pink and start flickering) and I always drive with lights on. So for £60-80 per pair and 8 years, that isn't really an issue in my view.

I doubt much was spent... as it is kind of the point of badge engineering. If Lexus really wanted to spend loads of money developing a car then they wouldn't have picked Yaris Cross, they would have made one from grounds up and wouldn't need to talk around lacking sound insulation. Or "electric car like" acceleration when it simply isn't. I know it is not quite fair comparison but BMW i8 managers 4.4s with 1.5L engine and battery from 10 years ago. I am not expecting 4s from shopping cart, but I just don't understand what was the point of statement, why pretend it is sporty when it clearly isn't and to be fair doesn't need to be. So yes I am sure they spent maybe a $50 million on developing it, but in terms of car development that isn't that much, the car is still basically Yaris Cross with different styling. I am no expert, but I red somewhere that stamping die manufacturing costs ~ $500k-2milliom. If we estimate that car has say 9 unique pan panels and average a little bit... then we talking ~$20 million for the body panels. Interiors and electrical part are subcontracted anyway, so it does not cost Lexus anything to develop it, they just have to commit to order certain number of units. Now assuming LBX will cost at least £5,000 more that Yaris Cross (~£34k) then they need to sell just around 10,000 cars to break even and after that is pure profit. As I said before... the reason LBX exist is basically because Toyota are way too expensive nowadays. Damn shaitbox Yaris Cross costs £24-29k... and they did realise that any more than that and they are in BMW territory, nobody would buy Toyota supermini for £35k, but now that it has Lexus badge on it... perhaps it is okey?!

Sound proofing in CT was mainstream, same as equivalent Golf, Corolla, Mazda3 etc. The Auris (on which CT was based) was maybe slightly better than Corolla, but just barely. The economy cars which are step down from more mainstream models like Yaris are the type of cars where you hear everything, every panel rattling, every stone hitting the underside of the car etc. That is what Yaris is - bare bones shaite box on the wheel, made to be cheap and comfort or anything else apart of cheap price are last priorities. Different people may have different wishes, but I hope all reasonable people want to get best car for their money and ideally "A GOOD CAR" generally. LBX is neither, it is not good car and it is horrible value for money. I completely agree with you that some people may want smaller car for city and that is fine, but again I hope they want "good little car" and not just any car where they are overpaying for the badge despite it not being "improved" over the car it is based on. What was the price of new CT? I thought at launch it was something like £23k? This will be model whole class below it for over £30k. And yes I do agree that for the car it is - a city car, basically a shopping car with the engine... the performance figures are not important and as you said it seems they should have talked more about practicality and maybe fuel economy... but in typical Lexus fashion they trying to sell this as some sort of "sports car". Not going to repeat my charade about IS300h, but the issue was the same - as a car IS300h is fine car, it just isn't sporty or fast, if Lexus wouldn't have marketed it as such and claimed that "300 stands for equivalent performance to 3L engine" it would have been fine. As well - look how hard they are trying to portray it as "premium". This is literally the cheapest and worst car Toyota currently makes (Aygo = Citroen C1, build by joint venture in CZ using Daihatsu engine, not even sure it is right to call it Toyota)... there is nothing premium about it. BUT in all press picture they chosen this "Rose Gold" colour to make it look more premium - sorry Toyota you fooling nothing. Pig with lipstick is still a pig.

Unpopular opinion, but I find pre-face lift car nicer... both front and rear. perhaps mirrors on facelift are nicer, but they would not fit the style of pre-facelift and has overall styling of LC and other next-gen cars. Facelift got many useful things - like independently adjustable driving modes and electric boot close and LSS+, but looks vice I never liked it. Am I the only one?

So as all details have been revealed now I am still sticking to my verdict. It is wrong car for wrong brand and despite price not being revealed yet it is certainly going to be over £30k and knowing how UK prices work I reckon over £35k. Now on positive note I think it looks good, it does mostly look like hatchback which is lifted, so perhaps for people who wanted to replace CT it will be an option. I mean that is what crossover suppose to be - something between SUV and hatchback. So looks wise - it is actually alright, although considering how utterly ugly is Yaris Cross it isn't much of achievement to improve upon it. Now looking at the details revealed... there are plenty of red-flags talking exactly about what is wrong with Lexus. I don't know if they are ignorant or they are preaching to ignorant, probably both... the problem is that real car enthusiasts are dying breed and most of the people nowadays are just clueless. Here are few examples: They talking about the car which does 0-60 in 9.2s... what electric car?! A milk van from 1980s? "Electric car like" - I would say should be well under 6s. The slowest Tesla is 6.5s if I am not mistaken and from there on everything else is much faster. Even the horrible UX300e is 7.3s which really doesn't even count as electric car. Then there are other statements like: They literally preaching to morons! One of the differences between premium, mainstream and economy cars are the amount of sound deadening. This is why when driving premium car it is difficult to feel speed and sometimes I am speeding without realising it, just because car is so well insulated... yet in economy car it lacks all that and even doing 60 on motorway feels like you are about to fly off the road because of all noises. Remember LBX is based on most basic economy shaite-box and it seems Lexus kept it as it was... So in short - don't expect any luxury or premium feeling when driving it. But Lexus tries to turn this into some sort of positive. Then there was a claim about supposed "Eco friendliness of it" - apparently it is under 120g/co2... which is TRASH! IS300h from 2013 was rated at 99-108g/co2... so how comes this trash box with 1.5L engines isn't beating it. Anything over 50g would be unacceptable and they boasting about 120g! Well sure they said "under" so it may as well be 50g, but just weird they pick 120g as starting point then. I guess what I am trying to say - engine in LBX is not sophisticated, but rather cheap engine designed for the cheapest of economy cars. All in all - the car that does no need to exist and that Lexus does not need in their line-up... instead of giving us something interesting they are feeding some fashion trash to people who are even more ignorant then they are themselves. I guess I am just disappointed that once great brand is now turning into complete failure. Basically if we take that picture with ape evolution where apes turned into humans and then at some point evolution reversed, then I think same could be done with cars. Cars have been improving for over 100 years and Lexus LS400 was probably the pinnacle of car evolution, build quality, engineering etc. and since then Lexus made great cars for maybe decade or two... and now we clearly going backwards with each coming year.

Good guide, I probably will do it myself one day, because I find Auto lights annoying... I just want them to be on all the time when the engine is running. As well EU cars have that by default e.g. if you have Lexus IS250 in EU (not sure if it was from beginning, but I had 2012 and 2010 cars and both had it), then "Auto" lights work completely differently. In UK "Auto" works by detecting light, so they come on in the dark or in tunnel, in EU "Auto" simply turns on the lights when yous turn the car and when you switch the engine off the lights automatically go off and you don't get annoying beeping that you get in UK cars. I guess this is because in most EU countries it is mandatory to drive with the lights 24/7 (which is amazing and much better for everyone), whereas in UK people still drive without lights on, or drive with day running lights at night.