EvilRacer329

I do have some sympathy with Lexus here. They (along with Mazda) are trying to avoid going down the touch-screen route because, quite frankly, they're dangerous. Studies have shown that they encourage people to take their eyes off the road, primarily because they can't be navigated by feel alone. You lean forward towards them, and odds are end up drifting out of your lane. Lexus is trying to let you navigate the interface without moving from your driving position, and in theory allowing you to see what you're doing out of your peripheral vision without distracting you overmuch from the task of driving. That being said...and while, after a year, I do know how to use the system it's still awkward. The navigation is still hopeless, simply because it takes so long to type in an address, and gods help you if you're trying to enter a postcode. Apple CarPlay works quite well with the touch pad, especially when combined with Siri, and will ensure that as I update my phones hardware and software over the coming years my car's infotainment system will continue to look modern and work well. Nick

No sweat. But honestly, the most satisfying results are when you're trundling around somewhere like Devon or the Scottish Highlands and you coast all the way down a long hill on max regen but without pushing the pedal too far and engaging the disk brakes. You can easily max out your battery charge doing that! Nick

Interesting discussion. The battery charge meter I'm referring to is the information display on the big central screen or the one you can bring up in the dashboard that shows how fully-charged the battery is. I've managed to get mine fully charged to 100% before now and never noticed the electric motor spinning the engine to waste the power down to 80%. I'm going to have to read up on that. The electric motor can take you further than you think - Lexus reckon 1.2 miles, and I reckon I've managed that under the right conditions once or twice. If you're trickling through town in heavy traffic below 30mph you can keep the "EV" light on the entire time, rolling along silently. It's great! Forcing EV mode discourages the system from firing up the petrol motor, and does allow you to request a little more throttle before giving up and switching the engine on, but I have noticed that it's charge-dependent. If the battery has a high state of charge it'll tolerate a slightly heavier throttle before giving in. Most of the time though the results are the same as just leaving the car in Drive and being gentle with your right foot. The most reliable way to test charging your own battery is to fire up your car on a cold morning and leave it idling in the driveway until the engine warms up and shuts off. If you have the climate control disabled there will basically be no draw on the traction battery and your engine will be acting purely as a generator. I recently did this with my aircon on because I'd washed the car somewhat enthusiastically and needed to get the damp out of the cabin with the air-con. By the time the engine had warmed up (just a couple of minutes) my battery was at 80% or so. If you're driving it like a normal car you'll see some benefits (engine shutting down during coasting) but you'll also find that your battery is used more heavily to haul your car up to speed. On the motorway the system will cycle back and forth automatically between charging the battery a little bit to letting the engine rev lower and using the recently-gained charge to make up the shortfall, keeping the overall power output the same and maintaining your requested speed. If you brake earlier and more gently, keeping as much care as you can to only brake hard enough to just fill up the regen gauge on the dashboard you'll find you recoup more electricity for the battery. I usually find that I can drive all the way through my housing estate on electric only and park the car up in total silence. Nick

I just read this morning that it's rumoured the UX will get a refresh for next year with body-coloured arches an option... Nick

I measure my fuel economy at every fill-up, and use an app to compare it to the trip computer's estimated MPG in each instance before resetting. That means I've been able to track how accurate the computer is at estimating actual fuel economy. Lexus is doing pretty well here - it about averages out as spot-on. A far cry from my motorcycles or other cars I've driven where the trip computer seems to be pulling the numbers out of it's exhaust... Nick

This is fantastic. I’m half-heartedly looking for a set of slightly lowered springs and some colour-matched fender wraps for mine to no avail… Nick

The theory on Eco mode is that, because the initial throttle response is so sluggish, it encourages enthusiastic drivers to put their foot down much harder when initially very little happens. It’s helpful if you actively want it to underestimate his mic throttle you want and gives drivers with imprecise throttle control a smoother drive, but I hardly ever use it. Sport is for fun, twisty roads, and Normal is well-judged for everything else. Nick

I’ve always thought the black wheel arches and the ride height were things I’d like to fix. I can only find lowering springs from a single expensive us supplier though. I don’t want much - just to centre the wheels better in the arches. I’ve got the style pack - it’s more of a sort of dull steel than a chrome effect and looks fantastic. Tuning you’ll struggle with - getting gains out if naturally aspirated engines tends to require physical mods. They’re not like turbo engines that can get an extra 50% just out of increasing boost pressure! Please do let me know how you get on. I love the idea of wrapping my arches and other black plastic parts to match the paint! Nick

Mud flaps on the UX look great, very subtle - I think you’ll be happy! Nick

It’s not the new “pedestrian warning” noise that newer electrics/hybrids have to make at slow speeds is it? My ‘69 UX doesn’t have anything like that, but the ‘71 loaner I drove did. Can’t recall if it sounded like that though… Nick

I’ve not really found the different driving modes don’t affect fuel economy much, the way I drive makes far more of a difference! Nick

I’ve done some experiments over the last year. It’s worth bring up the battery charge indicator on-screen. 3 bars (or lower, though I’ve never seen that!) and the engine fires up, no matter what. Beyond that I can ‘force’ EV mode, but it takes very little speed or throttle application for it to drop out. Interestingly, the higher the battery level, the more speed and throttle I can use in EV mode before it stops out. If the battery has a high level of charge I can stay in EV mode at slightly higher speeds before it drops back out and fires up the motor. Ive found the battery chargers best when driving enthusiastically - accelerating quite hard and then coasting back down to charge up again. Even better are long hills you can regen all the way down! Nick

I’ve spent the last year chasing a series of rattles all over my ‘69 plate ex-demonstrator. Both loaner UX’s I had also had door rattles - not even related to loud music! Two dealers assure me that I’m the odd one out, but I’m taking advantage of some offers to swap for a brand new one. If that rattles as well I guess I’ll have to either live with it or give up on Lexus… 😞 Nick

If we're going to descend into climate change denying then I'll check out of this thread. If past predictions turn out to have been overly pessimistic, I'll call that a blessing. In many cases those dire warnings resulted in policy and social changes that ensured they have yet to come to pass. I know that the average Lexus owner is closer to retirement than their A-Levels, but some of us are going to live long enough to boil and drown in the mess we've inherited. Nick

Looks like I'm not the only one thinking along these lines, and this guy has a hell of a lot more industry experience than I do. I guess I'm just resigned to the fact that we probably are moving towards a future where only the wealthy can afford cars. At the very least, there will be a long period where this is the case, and hopefully technology will eventually bring prices down. A personal computer used to cost thousands and thousands of pounds in the 1980's, and now anyone can pick up a good laptop for a few hundred. In 20-30 years time I daresay we'll have figured out how to make £15k electric cars that don't weigh 2 tonnes and can manage more than 100 miles to a charge. But the climate can't afford to wait for us to develop that tech, and businesses won't be incentivised to develop them quickly unless their profits are threatened. Nick

I don't disagree; I think that the decision to outright ban internal-combustion vehicles so soon is a tactical one. I'm not an expert (I don't think any of us here are) but I suspect that hybrids like our Lexuses are a good compromise while battery technology evolves. The problem is that car manufacturers proved universally that they were never going to put in the development efforts into alternatives until they were issued with an existential ultimatum. Now, suddenly, they're throwing themselves at the problem and previously impossible electric options are springing up like a desert bloom. If it turns out that electric vehicles are not any more sustainable than internal combustion options then the answer is depressingly simple: we either give up driving (so much) or we irrevocably poison the planet we live on. A century of slowly warming the planet through thoughtless overconsumption is finally having an impact, and none of the options look good. We can argue forever about what we *should* do, and I'm sure government advisors are arguing and debating the same solutions at cross purposes in the corridors of power. But the die has been cast; a decision had to be made to make a change, and hope that it's for the better. Now we all have to figure out how we're going to adapt. Nick

The case for hydrogen is that it can be stored and transferred to vehicles in a similar manner to petrol. The problem is that creating hydrogen from electricity isn't a 100% efficient process, so it's another link in the fuel production chain that introduces energy loss. Like petrol, battery-electric, and other forms of propulsion, hydrogen isn't perfect. But I think that labelling it a "massive waste of time and resources" is a little reductive. Nick

You're not wrong, and technology *might* solve this problem. If my £15,000 electric car can do 400 miles to a charge and be topped up to full in ten minutes at my local charging forecourt, then my weekly fill-up is no more onerous than it is today. If those electric city cars get stuck at 100 mile ranges and 30-minute charge times then we've suddenly got a problem. Basically, I think that we - society - and our lifestyles are going to have to change in order to adapt to the new reality that's being presented. I still think that the government is being a little blunt in its insistence that we move 100% electric because wheel-to-well/lifetime emissions of some modern hybrids probably aren't far off those of pure electrics. But petrol really did buy us incredible convenience and freedom, but at a truly deleterious cost to the environment and civilisation (oil wars, turning a blind eye to oil-exporters human rights abuses etc.). We're facing a reckoning and may have to accept that the good times are over and things are going to be a little less convenient in the future. Nick

I'm afraid that you're right. One of the things no-one is willing to come out and say is that transitioning away from petrol also means challenging the assumption that almost anyone can own a new car. It's only been in the last couple of decades when it's been possible for even those on very modest incomes to afford a brand new vehicle and rely on it to support how they move around the country. I'm certain that we're faced with moving first to a point where only the more well-off can afford new vehicles, followed - as the petrol/diesel fleet ages out - by an era where only the well-off are able to even run one. Those living in cities will need to adapt to using bicycles (e-bikes especially) or public transport. Those living in the countryside will have space to install home chargers and will either run new or used electric cars, depending on their budget. Those caught in the middle, with longer commutes but nowhere to charge will be stuck, either dealing with longer bicycle/public transport commutes in an inconvenient spoke/hub public transport system, or will move house or move jobs to accommodate a more local commute. There will be advantages to this; safer cities, less traffic overall. But it will also mean fewer sales for car manufacturers, leading to consolidation of brands and higher prices as economies of scale collapse. Cars will continue to get more expensive, further shrinking the pool of sufficiently-wealthy customers and therefore sales. The cycle continues. Or maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, and this is all just total speculation. 🙂 Nick

Also...that is a reaaaaal nice-looking car. In the end it was the more modern interior that swayed me towards the UX, but I much prefer the exterior styling and saloon layout of the IS...to say nothing of the superior rear-wheel drive!

I genuinely think that this is all good news. The idea that we need to relentlessly manufacture new things to replace perfectly good things for the sake of ever-decreasing improvements in real-world functionality is a sickness that pushes people ever-further into debt and wastes natural resources at an alarming rate. The one glimmer of hope is that consumers seem to be getting tired of this race, with an increasing movement towards longer-lasting and better-quality products. I've been avoiding buying anything with less than a 5-10-year warranty for a while, and lifetime guarantees can often be a deciding factor on whether I purchase a product or not. I bought a Lexus because I wanted a car where long-term reliability was a top priority for the manufacturer, and I was prepared to pay a little more as a result. An awful lot of product areas have been engaged in a race to the bottom on quality and price for a long time - anyone remember when Tesco started selling £5 kettles?! Kia's 7-year warranty beat out Toyota's 5-year guarantee, and now Toyota/Lexus are fighting back. This is the kind of 'war' I can get behind - a race to see who can build the best, longest-lasting products in pursuit of long-term customer loyalty, rather than a battle to see who can make the biggest profits this quarter, and letting next quarter and beyond be a problem for another day. Now if only Lexus could solve the bloody rattles in my UX250h I could go back to intending to still be driving it in 2030...! Nick

Huh, interesting! I test-drove one a couple of weeks ago and loved it in sport mode, and found eco mode irritatingly lethargic. But then I am more used to riding hair-trigger motorcycles! I guess that's why they give you all three options - everybody is different! Nick

I'm starting to wish I'd been able to add the wireless charging to my F-Sport without going for the entire Takumi pack. Anyone have any idea if it's possible to retrofit the wireless charging pad? It would be great to be able to just throw my phone down there and not keep forgetting it in the arm rest when I leave the car! 😄 Nick

It gets worse...if you check the specs on most roof-rack-based bike-racks, the weight limit is less than even a light e-bike. I think my dealer quoted me over £1,000 for the tow hitch, I hadn't looked at prices of rear-mount bike racks yet. Will a bicycle fit inside the UX? I've squeezed bikes into some pretty small cars in the past, so it might be doable...! Nick

That is one seriously good-looking car. Really stunning colour choice! Looks like Lexus changed the shifter design on the electric model... Nick