Rydo
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CarPlay, and to a lesser extent Android Auto, has been a bone of contention for Lexus vehicles for a number of years now. Whilst the competition have been quick to adapt and offer it in their vehicles, Lexus and Toyota more widely clung on for longer to their own phone integration technologies, before finally conceding that buyers were not going to be fooled.
At this point, a curious series of events took place across both Toyota and Lexus lineups. Cars like the Toyota Aygo got CarPlay almost as soon as Toyota had changed their mind and licensed it, making a £13k car have a feature more than Toyota's pinnacles of engineering such as the LC.
Between that point and now, many vehicles across the range have been updated to offer CarPlay, or CarPlay & Android Auto. Some of them still don't, which is frankly embarrassing and still a point that is raised frequently across LE. But within Europe a curious and shameful act has taken place by Lexus.
You see, where in NA and I presume other territories, the CarPlay functionality has been offered to Lexus LS and LC owners - bear in mind these are the flagships of what Toyota can do outside the Century, Europe has been flat-out told that LS and LC will not be updated.
In announcing their retrofit update plans, Lexus listed only a handful of vehicles, omitting the £100k flagships - for reasons that owners on Lexus Owners Club UK have yet to determine. Dealers have simply stated over and over again that no word has come from Lexus, just that only certain vehicles will be updated.
Now, when we look at the situation in greater detail, Lexus say that some infotainment systems are of the older spec, and won't support this. But, LC and later LS were the first vehicles to debut the CURRENT generation of infotainment. The cars being offered the upgrade are running the older version of infotainment design.
Whilst that alone is not evidence that Lexus are seemingly ignoring LS and LC buyers, the fact that LS and LCs are actively being updated in NA is.
So what we are seeing here is this: Lexus have sold so few LS and LC models, that putting any resources into offering the infotainment update for them is seen as wasteful. The update is being offered to the models that are sellers, such as the NX and UX, despite those vehicles being of far less value and of older infotainment design in the case of the NX.
At this point, a curious series of events took place across both Toyota and Lexus lineups. Cars like the Toyota Aygo got CarPlay almost as soon as Toyota had changed their mind and licensed it, making a £13k car have a feature more than Toyota's pinnacles of engineering such as the LC.
Between that point and now, many vehicles across the range have been updated to offer CarPlay, or CarPlay & Android Auto. Some of them still don't, which is frankly embarrassing and still a point that is raised frequently across LE. But within Europe a curious and shameful act has taken place by Lexus.
You see, where in NA and I presume other territories, the CarPlay functionality has been offered to Lexus LS and LC owners - bear in mind these are the flagships of what Toyota can do outside the Century, Europe has been flat-out told that LS and LC will not be updated.
In announcing their retrofit update plans, Lexus listed only a handful of vehicles, omitting the £100k flagships - for reasons that owners on Lexus Owners Club UK have yet to determine. Dealers have simply stated over and over again that no word has come from Lexus, just that only certain vehicles will be updated.
Now, when we look at the situation in greater detail, Lexus say that some infotainment systems are of the older spec, and won't support this. But, LC and later LS were the first vehicles to debut the CURRENT generation of infotainment. The cars being offered the upgrade are running the older version of infotainment design.
Whilst that alone is not evidence that Lexus are seemingly ignoring LS and LC buyers, the fact that LS and LCs are actively being updated in NA is.
So what we are seeing here is this: Lexus have sold so few LS and LC models, that putting any resources into offering the infotainment update for them is seen as wasteful. The update is being offered to the models that are sellers, such as the NX and UX, despite those vehicles being of far less value and of older infotainment design in the case of the NX.