Linas.P

This is talking cross purpose - the good sports car should set your trousers on fire (not from heated seats obviously), as well it has nothing to do with baseball cap (i.e. lack of maturity). It is not like for more "mature" or older people "sports" cars definition somehow changes and suddenly hybrid which barely reaches 60MPH in 9s becomes "sporty". There are simply basic expectations that "sports" car should meet and RC300h is absolutely unacceptable. Good "sports" car should be fast and they should accelerate quickly, and they should sound good, and they should corner and handle well. RC300h simply don't have what to takes to be "sports" car and should have never been marketed as such and it is simply not. Is that really bad thing? No it isn't - if you want economical and comfortable car for commuting which just looks sporty then great! It fits the bill perfectly... in the end of the day RC-F would not be any faster, nor more exciting in traffic jam moving at 4MPH. But sports car it is NOT. It is two door tourer... and probably not even "grand" tourer... because to get that "grand" the car should probably have V12 - for effortless high-speed cruising without noise piercing your ears. RC300h max speed is like 102MPH you not "grand touring" anywhere at that speed. But in other hand "sports" cars makes horrible grand tourers - the last thing you want when doing 1000 miles across Europe is to have loud exhaust, engine and hard suspension. So each car has it's own strengths - RC300h is more like "city tourer", comfortable car to drive somewhere slowly, because you not going anywhere fast in modern traffic. It is not sports car and it is not a grand tourer either.

In general... we are forced to separate "recyclable" materials, which are then collected by councils and collection is paid for by ourselves in a form of council tax (sort of tax on property owners), then "recycling companies" charge the fee for accepting "recycling" materials and doing final sorting on it and even claim subsidies from government, then instead of recycling they instead sell now roughly separated valuable materials to some poor Asian/African countries where kids pull the valuable components/materials apart and all the toxic waste is the left in the open pit. So basically we have to put a lot of effort removing lids and washing our trash, to then be able to pay for somebody to collect actual material from us for free, so that they can then sell it to developing country and use child-labour to process it. I have literally seen documentary where kids in Bangladesh crush computer PCBs with stones into fine dust and then wash the metal in plates (I think they called mining pans, like in old days they used to mine gold from river mudbanks). Sorry to be very pessimistic, but recycling is mostly "myth"... it could be done, but for most part if it is "ethical" then it is uneconomical, and if is economical then it is unethical, but most time it is as well worse for environment than landfills. Could battery recycling be done right? maybe... sustainability pyramid comes to mind here... but it is rarely actually followed. So in theory we should reduce the use, but it is kind of exactly opposite what "long range" BEVs are doing, now seems that everyone are competing on who can put largest battery pack in their vehicle. Reuse is kind of niche as realistically there are very few application where battery packs from old cars can be reused on scale... and finally we come to recycling it. Again - I do believe it can be done using very advanced facilities, but it is just uneconomical and for foreseeable future mining new lithium will remain cheaper than recycling, so I am not expecting much.

That is true... but it is more of the issue with any car after 2018 (and you can't get much without paying less than £40,000). I was talking more about pre-FL models - they are £20/year (maybe £30?). The new tax system really made hybrids like 300h pretty much irrelevant... at least from taxation perspective. Because after initial £2000 on RC-F one would be paying same tax as RC300h.

I think what is not well understood (in UK) - both Norway and Sweden are countries with tiny population. Sweden is about the size of London and Norway is like Manchester and third of Birmingham. So the challenges in UK and challenges in Sweden and Norway are different. You simply don't have such issues like shortage of housing, parking paces and lack of all imaginable infrastructure. And it seems what is not understood outside of UK is that at least around London the infrastructure is just horrible... like nothing is right and everything is in shocking condition. As you live in Sweden I am sure it is hard to even understand how bad the situation is in UK with parking. It was probably 8 years since I been in Stockholm, but as far as I can remember one can drive to the centre and find plenty of parking there. Not only that - many residential parking spaces had like 10kW capable socket for each car to connect electric heater i.e. my friends explained to me that they come in the winter morning, flick the switch next to the car and there is heater fitted to the car and connected to the socket and it heats the car.... so you already have infrastructure for BEVs... If the matter in UK would be just to buy the cars themselves there would be no issue. But we lack even most fundamental things - if you have no parking then you can't install the charger, if you can't install the charger then you can't have BEV. And I mean it is not like "not having parking at home"... no most of the time people don't have parking at all! I take the estate I am living as example... we have ~30 parking spaces per 100 apartments... and in London this is pretty much norm. Taxes as well are less beneficial to BEV in UK, because we have 5 years tax supplement for cars over £40,000. So BMW 440i is not going not cost you that much more over 5 years than BMW i4 M50. Sure first year will cost a lot ~£2,000, but 440i is much cheaper compared to i4 (£59,000 vs £71,000), then you will have to pay £390+£180 for 440i and only £390 for i4. So total cost for 5 years will be £64,500 for 440i and £72,950 for i4 M50. In UK most homes won't have 3-phaee and especially in countryside most can't handle much kW at all anyway. Just search for "black-outs" in UK and you will see it is quite common in more rural areas. So in the cities we have no parking, outside of the cities we don't have reliable electricity. So forget any sort of chargers before there is complete overhaul of entire distribution network.

Absolutely, we can talk a lot here, but in the end it is your money and your expectations. So best is to go and try it yourself... ideally without sales person on the side.

Very straightforward answer - NO. It is not sports coupe, it is relaxed and economical GT car... It looks fast standing still, but does not feel sporty when driving (although suspension in F-Sport could be set very tight and it stays flat and corners well), but engine is NON-EXISTENT. So it is a cruiser, not a sports car. Acceleration is - lethargic, car does not even like being pushed, not sure how to best describe it, but it feels good when you drive it in very relaxed way, almost coasting, pressing accelerator gently... then it is rather quiet and comfortable. But if you stab the accelerator then the car really groans and feels literally broken, the transition for hybrid system to engine becomes harsh and you really feel like it just doesn't have what it takes to go fast. Can you remap it - NO. Generally true for any NA engine, but even more true for this particular economy focused hybrid engine. Not even sure what you mean about more boost - it is not turbo. RC200t is turbo, but you can't do it there either (different reasons and different topic). Can you put customer exhaust.. well NO... you can, but what you expect to hear? 3500RPM drone? It is CVT... engine already doesn't sound good and when it stays at constant mid-RPM is pretty much the worst sound you can have. So yes you can put exhaust and amplify the worst exhaust note? I would say you only need to look for full and good service history, regardless of the year or mileage. RC300h is reliable car, up-to 100k you have Lexus "Relax" cover as long as you service it with dealership.. so there are no nasty surprised. Although you MUST get car with at least "premium" audio or preferably ML, standard audio system is just unbelievably horrible. If you want sports car you have to go RC-F. Now ... if like me and you think that you want something in between of boring 300h and mental RC-F... then sadly you will be disappointed, because no such car is sold in UK. I got RC200t hoping that will be it, but I was wrong, if anything RC200t is even worse than 300h as it is not good from any perspective, 300h is at least economical and cheap to tax. Obviously in the world RC350 exists, which is all around amazing vehicle, but we don't have it in UK.

And that is the shame to be honest. Because mk3 IS250 is identical to mk2 in this aspect, both have A960E gearbox... which is decent 6-speed auto, but paddles don't do much. They are okey to do some engine breaking, but else kind of limited. And this is why I said Lexus did nothing to improve the car. In IS350 they improved the engine (added Atkinson cycle), so it is 10% more efficient when cruising, as well they have replaced A760E (stronger version of A960E) with IS-F derived AA81, meaning paddles actually do work. IS200t as well got same gearbox and IS200t got IS350 brakes kit. IS250 got nothing - identical engine, identical power, identical gearbox... Lexus really didn't even try. That doesn't mean it is bad... it is just hard to expect for the car to sell and be successful when since ~2003 they made no changes to design (mk2 was launched in 2005, but it's sister car Mark-X was launched in 2003 with 4GR-FSE). I do believe Lexus could have given same treatment to IS250 - 8-Speed fast shifting auto, slightly revised engine with maybe 10 more horses and slightly more economical... brakes from IS350 and the car would be "brought up-to date". But clearly Lexus decided that by 2013 IS200t should replace IS250, not even sure why they bothered to bring IS250 to the market (perhaps had stock of engines to use?!). Kind of "missed opportunity" in my opinion.

I am pretty sure they will figure out battery tech within maybe 20 years, but there is no chance in hell or heaven it will be ready by 2030-2035. Not only battery tech as well - it is everything about our infrastructure that sucks, we don't generate enough energy, our transmission networks can't handle the demand and in the end we simply don't have enough fast chargers where they need to be. To be fair we have solutions for all these things, it is just going to take time to actually install everything and so far goverment does not give a shaite it seems, so we definitely not going to be ready for 2030... at least I personally think it is too late even if they suddenly decide to do something about it next year. First we need to increase our peak energy generation by 50% if not double it (I mean 6-8PM peak), then we need to probably quadruple transmission capacity and then we need to install 300Kwh+ chargers at every home including all related wiring. Or else we need to abandon BEV plans. And I am sure there are some people who says - "well I am fine, I have driveway, I have 7Kwh charger and I can charge my car overnight". Yes you can, as well you are lucky minority in the country. Majority of people can't even park at home, never mind charge the car. That said I think BMW i4 would be my choice of BEV if I had to choose... I hate that they don't make any coupes (there is basically no electric coupe on offer for some reason), but i4 is closest thing to the normal car which isn't made by chinese toys company (Tesla).

How about just getting newer mk2? Because to be fair the only advantage going for mk3 is the looks, maybe slightly updated infotainment (although I personally believe it is even worse to use than mk2 in terms of ergonomics), yet mk2 with with aftermarket Android system is probably better. Apart of that mk3 IS250 will be slower, less fuel efficient and more expensive to tax despite being fundamentally the same car. I know exactly what you mean when saying IS300h doesn't "float the boat" and I felt the same... hence my mistake going for 200t... but 300h does make economical sense with £20 road tax. That said you will be spending £6000 more than decent mk2 for what is in my opinion is less of a car, and even then only assuming you go for at least Premier or F-Sport, other trims of mk3 are really poorly equipped to the point where some trims in early 2013 cars you don't even get keyless entry (that was standard across the range in mk2). Likewise on mk2 you get very decent 13 speaker audio system standard, on mk3 you MUST go for at least premium (10-speakers), else you getting 6-speaker stereo from 80s Allegro (exageration obviously, but for modern car it is horrendous, even similar year Ford Fiesta has better standard audio). You think that if the car has screen it must have sat nav... well think again, this was as well optional. Like honestly with mk3 Lexus went hard on stripping lower trims very bare to justify the premium going to the upper trims in the range. I do understand why... because nobody was paying £2000 for ML, when on mk2 even standard system was pretty much comparable. mk2 IS250 was very good and competitive car when it launched, but honestly by 2013 it was dated and they have absolutely nothing to improve mk3 IS250. You can pretty much consider it as facelift, looks more modern, but everything else stayed exactly the same, suspension, engine, gearbox etc. Exactly same stuff as in 2005 model... And by the way I am not exactly hating on mk3... obviously if I had a choice to buy mk3 for the same price as mk2, I would go for mk3... or even if it is let's say £2000 more... but when the difference is literally double the price for basically the same car it is really hard to justify it. As well note that mk3 IS250 are very rare (like 5 for sale) so you inevitably paying extra to get one over IS300h which are simply better price because there is more choice/competition.

freeze frame data... it is sometimes more useful for garages who does not know when fault happened and what conditions there were. Although I fount it to be difficult to use as it does not have a trip logic in TechSteam i.e. it may show you 0.5V on something, but without knowing that trip logic for that part is "below 1V" is really make little sense. In theory you should use it together with service manual, but even service manual usually does not state what all the data means and may say just check the resistance or something like that, so often when looking at freeze frame or for that matter live data once needs to have some "mechanic common sense" or just experience - like sensor measuring 0V is probably faulty.

Isn't that redundant and exactly opposite of what you would want nowadays? i.e. to enjoy car which is load even when going slow, so that you can feel "excitement" whilst still doing legal speeds? Because what I found an issue in many modern cars, even performance ones is that they are way too fast to enjoy and to keep the license (and yes this is coming from person who said IS300h is too slow and sluggish). I mean to enjoy any of more modern performance cars one has to be doing like 100MPH... which is basically jail time in our retarded society. Take for example older car - something like BMW E46 M3 or ideally E30 M3 (if you can afford it) and they will make a lot of noise whilst still doing 35MPH. I found naturally aspirated cars being better for that as well... as you can still rev to like 7000RPM in 2nd and be below 50MPH... new turbo-charged ones have to be at much lower RPM and in 4th already doing 100MPH by the time it gets even little bit exciting... So EV sounds like opposite of fun here - silent speed is only good if you looking to lose your license.

I am not forgetting that - this is exactly what it is... it is greed, they know there is shortage of parking spaces (deliberately created by stupid government policy) and they know they can charge whatever they like... And you know what happens when nobody could afford to park? Then they say "ohhh this parking was abandoned for some unknown reason, let's demolish it, build 100 flats for £2 millions each that nobody could afford in UK and sell them Chinese investors who won't even live there for 1 day per year"... and then circle contunies. Perhaps they will stop when they will face one of two outcomes: 1. cut the spaces by 30% and accept less profit 2. keep doing what you doing and when the whole thing colipases to the ground be found guilty for corporate manslaughter and go to jail. (ahhh I wish in this country there would be such things as corporate manslaughter... they could not even found anyone at fault for Grenfell Tower, so collapsing car park is non-starter). But in shot what I am saying - the should shut the fff-up about the weight of the cars. They know what to do and they can do it, or close the parking... no empathy towards them!

I have addressed that as well - they have already increased the price 10 times, so losing 30% should not be a problem 😄 In one of the London multi-storeys car parks I used they still had old sign tucked away on the side, it was pricing from probably 1980's and hour was £0.20, day was £2.40... now £4 hour, £20 day (or rather in 2019 when I was used it). Sure some inflation happened over the time etc. but inflation since 1980s is not 2000% (actually it is about 400% or 4 times). So the fair price today for the parking should be ~£0.80 hour/£9.60 day... in 2019 before this big inflation jump recently it was only 3 times. So they making the money for sure... even if they reduce the number of parking spaces. That was timely... yeah about the same https://www.enjoytravel.com/en/travel-news/driving/uk-cheapest-and-most-expensive-car-parking-rates The most expensive I have used was something like ~£48/day, but because it was on company expenses I didn't really car. From my own money I maybe have paid £15 at most...

That is what I said 🙂

Yes and then they shut-up about cars being too heavy... if the cars too heavy and damages their parking, then it is their problem isn't it?

No worries, Yes Lexus been like that for a while now... I remember wanting dynamic cruise in Lexus RC, but to have it you must buy Premier which by the way came standard with Sunroof. So to have dynamic cruise you had to have a sunroof, but then you would lose digital dash. And if you want digital dash, then you can't get dynamic cruise control... really cannot understand why have such limitation. Although I like the sunroofs, for me the point is the extra light in the cabin, which makes it feel more spacious (despite probably making less spacious). If given an option I would choose glass roof which doesn't open, over the sun roof which does open, because like you I never seen the point in opening it when there is AC in the car, it is literally there just to let the light in, not the dirty air from outside 🙂

I do think it is possible to beat private companies in court if the bay is below "standard size", I have indeed refused to pay parking fines for this reason, although they never got to the court, so it is hard to say how it would pan-out. For example BPA in UK states that bay has should be 2.4x4.8 for it's members, so in theory if you were issued a parking charge by BPA member and the bay was below the recommended size, then it could be used as solid reason to appeal. By law private parking companies are allowed to operate only if they are part of industry group like BPA, so again such charge should be rejected by both internal appeals process and if not then in the court. However, that is unlikely to work for the council issued fines and in my experience it is not worth going to the court as courts will always side with councils unless you can prove very specific failing (like missing sign), too small parking space is usually not accepted as valid defence.

I would put it into UX forum, I found it strange that 12" was not available on F-Sport, but I assume what you got is called "F-Sport Design" pack, which seems to be very cut down version... Lexus are honestly weird with locking people into trims like that. So F-Sport can get Takumi-Tech pack, but F-Sport Design can't? Why would the prevent people from spending extra money on the car?! Although that said Takumi-Tech is £4500, so not exactly great value anyway. To be fair I doubt you find option here. For older Lexus there are aftermarket retro-fits, but for your car which is so new it will be near impossible to find the bigger screen infotainment system. Your only option is to find somebody who is parting out crashed UX which would have the system you want, but as you can imagine there isn't many around. Sure - you have an option to order it brand new from Lexus, but it will literally going to cost thousands... like £3000-4000 for whole system. I don't believe you can just get bigger screen and call it a day, usually the whole unit is made by different company. I am not certain about UX, but for example in IS the standard system was made by Panasonic, the premium was made by Pioneer and ML had mixture of Pioneer and ML components. So if UX is similar then you can't just get screen made by Pioneer and connect it to Panasonic head-unit - hope that makes sense. All in all, Lexus are really difficult when it comes to OE retrofits. I was about to say you may have to wait until Lexus US aftermarket re-retrofit comes out, but it seems you are in the luck, they already exists https://www.dvdgpsnav.com/blog/2019-2020-lexus-ux-200-250h-300e-android-head-unit-10-25-hd-screen-replacement/, you just need to make sure they have it for 2021 model year. However, just to be clear - this is not Lexus system, it is chinese made generic Android system. Now being generic Android that is not really a problem, actually it is million times better than what Lexus has made in terms of functionality, but don't expect same quality and warranty conditions. Who can do it for you I don't know... usually these are sold as "plug&play" DIY kits, there are probably some AV companies in UK which specialises in car AV which could do it.

I don't know about specific planning rules and indeed you are likely right.. but the UK norm for parking spaces is 2.4 metres wide by 4.8 metres long... which shockingly I have never seen being done. Most of the time I would estimate parking spaces to be ~2.2 x ~ 4.5 meters, and many roadside spaces are just 1.9-2m wide, but often slightly longer ~6m (to accommodate parallel parking I guess). That said I know of several cases where local planners insisted for parking to be removed from the plan or otherwise they refused to grant planning permission. "Several" - that is exactly 5 and it was trough word of mouth so you can treat it as anecdotal evidence, but what I am trying to say - planners are putting pressure on developers to remove and reduce parking spaces to absolute minimum... and then government blames drivers for parking in the hedges!

I am a bit late to the discussion, but I think it is correct to say that equivalent BEV is much heavier than equivalent ICEV... BMW 3-Series is bad comparison, because it's size is like previous gen BMW 5-Series, so it is really more the size of Model S than Model 3. So the statement is not that Range Rover or LS is light, but that equivalent car with battery would be even more heavy. There is even talk of changing rules for driving licenses because in many countries 3500kg is the limit for Category-B License. Where I agree with you is that it is not ONLY BEV issue, the whole SUV stupid fashion doesn't help for sure, where in the past the person would have had Fiesta or equivalent car, now they have some for of crossover or SUV. Basically all cars got much larger and heavier over the time, BEVs are just last straw really. So it is correct to criticise the BEVs for the weight, it is certainly a negative thing for the car, but to blame them for car parks collapsing is probably not right. Blaming any car regardless of the size of weight really sounds like an excuse for me - they failed to build sufficient infrastructure to accommodate changing needs, not only we don't have enough car parks/parking, but as well every time I go there the spaces are so tiny that no modern car fits and no wonder, because all of them were built in 50's and 60's. And then they find reason to actually demolish "unused" multi-storey car parks... really?! "unused car park in central London..." how did that happen?! This isn't anything new really, UK infrastructure is crumbling, this is not different from blaming motorists for traffic jams... Well... "you collect the money for the roads, but then don't build the roads to meet demand and we are at fault?!". So same here - they collect the money for parking, but then don't want to accommodate the cars they collected the fees from?! Solution is really simple - just redraw the markings and whereas the car park had 600 places, make it 400, because that is the size of the cars nowadays... You can't fit 600 Teslas where 600 Minis used to be parked. The weight problem will be gone as well. And by the way parking charges have already been raised and not by 30%, but rather by 3000%, so they can't even complain about getting less out of their car parks.

First thing - I don't know who is right either, we just discussing, have opinions, examples and arguments - as long as it is civilised discussion I think everyone benefits! I think comparing insurance with tax is very correct - both are mandatory "deductions". Yes you pay more tax because you earn more, but you are not paying more tax because somebody of your age, gender or colour makes £200k a year? Whereas for car insurance you pay more even if you personally have not done anything wrong, you are just considered more risky because some 18 years idiot crashed and killed 3 of his friends when drunk. If the taxes would work like insurance then it would be something like that - "a 25 years old male is EXPECTED to earn £35,000 and pay 20% tax, which is £7000 - therefore EVERY 25 years old male have to pay £7000 tax per year regardless how much they ACTUALLY earn". I said it would be "fair" or maybe "fairer" if we just divide the costs across the society, I never said it would be "perfect". And yes - I do believe that charging 50 years old perfect driver £86 and at the same time charring 17 years old in "souped-up hot hatch" the same £86 would be "fairer", than charging one £500 and another £15000. I don't believe you have not described any risk factor here - age should not be risk factor, only experience, car modifications themselves aren't really a risk factor as long as it is road legal... so yes I cannot see any reason why 17 years old should be paying anymore than 50 years old provided they have same experience. Now obviously, no matter which way we look at it 17 year olds will be at disadvantage as they simply didn't even had an option to have any experience, but assuming edge case where both 50 years old and 17 years old got their license yesterday and drive same car, they should be charged same for insurance... unless other RELEVANT risk factors exist, like 17 years old's car costing double the price. Speeding convictions and driving bans are for goverment to worry about, I wouldn't even allow insurance companies to access the data. If we as society decided that speeding should carry 3 points and £100... and 12 points within 2 years = 6 months ban, then this is FAIR PUNISHMENT already, why should insurance company have any say in further punishing someone who was already punished?! Since when it is alright to punish people twice or 5 years in a row for same crime? We talking about "big brother" here and the information insurance companies have and complex and opaque calculations they make is definition of that. My main problem is that they are acting almost as extension of government, just even more evil, because frankly they are more competent. Goverment decided that legal driving age is 17, but insurance companies says "nope... we decided we make it impossible to insure unless you are 25+". If there is anything worse than "big brother" in government, then it is private individuals/capital acting as if they have right to decide what is right and what is wrong and then as well having means to do it (in this case via excessive data hoarding). No they do not have a right and they should not be allowed to imply their own overarching policy above the law, they should only operate within the law i.e. they should not be insuring somebody who is 15 or who is 85 and had surrendered the license already, they should not insure somebody who is banned and thus don't have a license, but beyond that they should not know and should not care. The accidents are different thing and they do have a database of the accidents which they have compiled themselves, I would argue that database should be subject to GDPR, meaning one insurance company should not be able to share the data with other insurance company without your explicit permission. This is how it works within any other industry - your hair dresser is not sharing you phone number with another hairdresser do they? For that reason they have NCB and that is only one thing which should matter. If they decided to have industry wide "discount and reference scheme" fair enough, they can say "this person overall have accumulated 3 years NCB", how and why does not matter, maybe they had insurance for 10 years and hand 2 accidents, or they only had insurance for 3 years and had no accidents... 3 year NCB = 3 years NCB. They do say they keep it for purposes of "preventing fraud", which not only isn't true, but again I would argue is not their business to care about. Insurance fraud is criminal offence, people can get real prison sentences for it, thus it is not for insurance to care about it. Insurance simply receives the claim, investigates the claim and if it seems fraudulent, then they report it to police... then police do investigation and if it is fraudulent take an action. It is government who decides how fraud should be punished, not insurance company... sure insurance company can suspect fraud, find evidence of fraud and like normal people go to court and say "we not paying this out as it is fraudulent". Why should they have any more information than any other business? When I go to restaurant they don't have database on all people they serve to identify those who were paying with fake money?! No - they check the money you gave them and if it is fake they confront you or call police or whatever... So here insurance clearly have unreasonable expectations to be protected from fraud above all other businesses. I do not consider driving a choice - I consider it a right, but even then you should agree we not giving any choices for many people, they just considered high risk right away regardless of how they personally drive. Likewise I do believe health care should be more restrictive - why am I a "healthy eating and exercising individual" paying same tax as somebody who is "overweight, drinks, smokes and abuses other substances"? Surely eating, drinking, smoking, not exercising and drug use is a choice?! That isn't right either... but this is different topic. I guess if I summarise what I am trying to say - consumer rights are ABOVE the rights of service providers and should always be protected at any cost. This is similar to "innocent until proven guilty" - 17 years driver should be considered as "perfect driver" and given a choice to to prove themselves, if within 3 months they are banned from driving then they will be banned from driving because of speeding, or because of drink driving, this is for laws and for government to decide, if they have 3 accidents which they make the claim for, then it is for for the insurer to say "sorry nest year either you pay us £5000 to insure or we not covering you anymore"... but as long as they drive without penalties and crashes they should have a "perfect record" and pay low insurance. Same as we don't put new-born babies in prison "just in case they going to commit murder at some point in their life". And it isn't a gamble, because insurance companies have basically rigged the game - if you don't crash they win, because you just paid "thousands for insurance" and they can keep it... and if you do crash then they still win, because now you will be paying more for your insurance for many years to come and they pretty much charge back everything they paid... just think of how often people have minor accident and "agree not to report it and just pay for it out of their pocket", because they know they ultimately are better off not to involve insurance. So not only they paying for the cover, but they as well are better of not using it! Finally, I don't believe insurance companies or people working for them are inherently evil... they have legal cash cow and they are abusing it, most people/industries would do the same, look at what is going on in US with health insurance for example. Give people an unfair advantage and they will use it, it is that simple. I guess the question here is whenever we agree that they have unfair advantage or disagree?!

No - it is most certainly not standard interface... I would assume you could fit the "joystick" from similar year IS300h. That was certainly possible for pre-FL cars, but I am not sure it still the same on FL. That said - anything else is much worse than your FL trackpad or even pre-FL RC "premium" trackpad. As far as Lexus infotainment controls goes, the trackpad you have is the best Lexus managed to come-up with 😄 Still horrible, but least horrible option. Compared to other cars I have as well found it "acceptable" when you get used to it, definitely not the most intuitive, but not the worst system either.

I think it is pretty much covered here... even if you made it up 😄 The whole issue is that insurance is mandatory, hence the level of "fairness" expected is much higher than for anything else. Likewise insurance is highly discriminative pretty much inherently - imagine if the amount of tax you pay would depend not only on how much you earn, but as well 100 other things that are not in your control... and in principle if you 17 years old male you would pay 100% tax rate and would work basically for free. Well that is literally the insurance in UK and it is not OK. The reason I am comparing insurance with tax is that - it is basically a tax and I am sure everyone would agree taxing people pretty much at random to the point where the taxes would be 100% or even over 100% would not be fair and would not work... but we doing exactly that with insurance... not even theoretically or whatever... but literally, because car insurance for young drivers can easily exceed their annual income. I honestly don't know another country which is as bad as UK in this regard (potentially Ireland?!). So... NO... I don't think they have a right to check their clientele, beyond things directly related to driving. I would argue... it could be. If we take aggregate of all damage, claims, injuries etc. over the period of 1 year and then divide it by the number of keepers (except SORN) and ask them to pay it on top of their road tax, then it would be inherently 100% fair. Everyone would pay same price, it would work more or less like general taxation, like we pay for NHS, which is basically a health insurance. I have even done calculation in the past, which was very very inaccurate because the data is not there (we simply don't know total number of damage caused), so I had to extrapolate I believe Admiral claims data... but the amount worked out at something ridiculously low... like £86 per person per year. Now obviously, this would require nationalising the provision of it, taking out profits, taking out private capital, taking out inefficiencies and tax avoidance, losing industry which employs 100k+ people and which still pays some taxes. But even if we double the total amount it would still work out cheaper than the cheapest insurance at the moment. Coincidentally my father pays something like 172 Euros for insurance and his "mandatory" insurance, something along the lines of "third party only" in UK is ~90Euro and then he gets what is equivalent to "Comprehensive" for extra ~82Euro. It would cost very similar amount for me to insure, maybe like 20 Euro more... and when I was 18 it still was very similar price, except my "mandatory" insurance was ~110Euro maybe, but the "comprehensive" would have been ~800Euro, what is important that you only need the mandatory third party insurance to drive and it was very affordable. Same in UK, you only need "third party" to drive, problem is that even today "third party only" would cost me like £4000, whereas "comprehensive" costs me £520. So this price of ~£200 is realistic and in most countries that is approximately how much it costs on average... it is only UK that has ridiculous £1000, £2000, £4000+ insurance.

I meant to say BEAN/CAN-BUS/AVC-LAN MPX=BEAN:

Lacking any particular codes hard to say... MPX system controls quite a few things that you mentioned are not working, other parts related to them may be Power Source or Main Body LH/RH ECUs. Gateway ECU as well could be related as it interconnects MPX, BEAN and CAN-BUS. But this is needle in the haystack situation.