Lexus LF-1 Limitless Concept Megathread [LF Coming in 2023?]

[spwolf]

TMC is clearly a market driven company, and they bring to market when they make money, that sometimes use marketing which shows it has value if applied in the right way (LFA, IS F, 86, RC, LC, Supra). They now come with worthy PHEV because they know they'll sell them for a profit, same is happening with BEVs. They have to focus on infotainment and now they show they do, because unfortunately is has become very important for consumers and can be a deal breaker if the customer is not satisfied.

I remember talks of Linux based infotainment system, where is it? It would be grear, it would could open the door to custom in-car operating systems. I don't like what makers do, I would want my custom one, as a can customize my PC operation system, including graphical UI.

I have driven with Audi's virtual cockpit, worst thing ever, total information overload, so much useless redundancy, just terrible. I doubt new BMW iDrive or Mercedes thing is any better. Even old unintuitive infotainment systems appear to be better than what is done today. Smartphone also are terribly cluttered. Quite a paradox how 'minimalism' got so 'cluttered'.

Internally, TMC has been focusing on multimedia system for 15+ years.

I believe new latest systems already use linux... but this is just in the backend, it means nothing really.

 

[CRSKTN]

Toyota runs QNX, which is linux based, yeah.

I would be shocked about customizable OS or firmware for a vehicle. Way too risky.

 

[Levi]

Toyota runs QNX, which is linux based, yeah.

I would be shocked about customizable OS or firmware for a vehicle. Way too risky.

What is risky about? ECU does cost money, it is hardware, but software is already engineered and written, it should be free to write on the ecu for which it has already been paid.

Car theft is a totally different topic and so is warranty.

 

[CRSKTN]

What is risky about? ECU does cost money, it is hardware, but software is already engineered and written, it should be free to write on the ecu for which it has already been paid.

Car theft is a totally different topic and so is warranty.

Have you ever led a software development effort, or tech company, or worked with/around this sort of stuff?

You just grossly oversimplified what is, in reality, also a safety issue and regulatory issue, not to mention the technical challenges of hardening your system against users breaking it.

How much can you customize the operation of your iPhone? Compared to android? Why do you think that is?

Imagine if the guy next to you on the highway could have treating his car like a rooted android phone, but for systems tied into the giant metal cage moving at high speed that they're in.

Go spend time online and see how badly people can mess up and brick a smartphone, and how they react. Blaming the manufacturers, kicking up a storm, slandering the products everywhere. And that's on a much smaller economic and human risk scale.

User manipulation of a vehicles central systems is incredibly dangerous. There's a reason even Tesla has limits on what theyll allow.

 

[F1 Silver Arrows]

I don't mean to offend you but are you a bot? Because many of your posts are a random combination of "car model"+"engine layout"+"power figures"+"time of release", many of which don't make sense and have nothing to do with the thread. It looks very similar to an AI algorithm that is trying to learn natural language by analyzing people's conversations and combining the elements.

This guy reminds me of a discount version of the Twitter Bot that Microsoft created. When the bot was first introduced, the bot would first say really short, sweet and kind messages. Then over the course of a few hours, due to people trolling the bot and teaching it some horrifying language, the AI that the bot was programmed with later learned to use racial slurs against people. 😂😂

 

[Sulu]

I remember talks of Linux based infotainment system, where is it? It would be grear, it would could open the door to custom in-car operating systems. I don't like what makers do, I would want my custom one, as a can customize my PC operation system, including graphical UI.

This current generation of the Camry was the model that introduced Entune 3.0, the open-source-based Automotive Linux infotainment system. Being an open-source operating system should allow more software developers to more quickly develop software (and apps) for it.

I have driven with Audi's virtual cockpit, worst thing ever, total information overload, so much useless redundancy, just terrible. I doubt new BMW iDrive or Mercedes thing is any better. Even old unintuitive infotainment systems appear to be better than what is done today. Smartphone also are terribly cluttered. Quite a paradox how 'minimalism' got so 'cluttered'.

A few years ago, talk of "automotive tech" would be about engines and high-tech engine controls. Now, "automotive tech" is about that centre screen (and, to a lesser extent, the information display directly in front of the driver), how many pixels it has, how fast it is, whether it is a touchsceen or remote manipulation, and whether it runs Android Auto and Apply CarPlay. The car could be driven by a 50-year old iron-block engine with terrible efficiency, but that would not matter if it had the latest computer technology in that centre screen.

 

[mikeavelli]

Is your friend here in Florida? I work at Audi Of Fort Lauderdale

If you sold it to Fonzie, it’s the same guy!

 

[Lexus Cohen]

If you sold it to Fonzie, it’s the same guy!

Unfortunately I wasn't the one that sold him the car, my last day was March 27th due to the pandemic. I'm pretty sure abass sold him though, he's the only salesman at the dealership now.

 

[spwolf]

This guy reminds me of a discount version of the Twitter Bot that Microsoft created. When the bot was first introduced, the bot would first say really short, sweet and kind messages. Then over the course of a few hours, due to people trolling the bot and teaching it some horrifying language, the AI that the bot was programmed with later learned to use racial slurs against people. 😂😂

he just might be using bad translation software

 

[Ian Schmidt]

Toyota runs QNX, which is linux based, yeah.

I would be shocked about customizable OS or firmware for a vehicle. Way too risky.

Nitpick: QNX isn't Linux based, QNX and Linux are both UNIX clones. (Real Bell Labs UNIX is best known to consumers as the basis of all of Apple's stuff and the PlayStation 4).

And yeah, nobody's gonna let you customize. Tesla's been locking down third-party customizations as they're found.

 

[Ian Schmidt]

What is risky about? ECU does cost money, it is hardware, but software is already engineered and written, it should be free to write on the ecu for which it has already been paid.

Car theft is a totally different topic and so is warranty.

Because it's easily possible from the ECU to blow up the engine in various horrible ways. And on the infotainment end, that stuff's still on the CAN bus so it can do things like cause unintended acceleration or shift into reverse at 65 MPH. The well-publicized FCA/Jeep hacks a few years ago all got into the car through the infotainment, and they were able to remotely steer, accelerate, and brake.

 

[CRSKTN]

Nitpick: QNX isn't Linux based, QNX and Linux are both UNIX clones. (Real Bell Labs UNIX is best known to consumers as the basis of all of Apple's stuff and the PlayStation 4).

And yeah, nobody's gonna let you customize. Tesla's been locking down third-party customizations as they're found.

I figure explaining unix was a bit too semantic. Most barely understand what linux is.

 

[spwolf]

Nitpick: QNX isn't Linux based, QNX and Linux are both UNIX clones. (Real Bell Labs UNIX is best known to consumers as the basis of all of Apple's stuff and the PlayStation 4).

And yeah, nobody's gonna let you customize. Tesla's been locking down third-party customizations as they're found.

also to nitpick, they used QNX before, they moved to Automotive grade Linux now.

In the end, it looks the same to the end customer, but should be easier for them.

 

[spwolf]

also, while we are talking abount Infotainment - people do not understand that they have invested a lot of time in the past 15+ years into systems they are having now.

In 2008/2009 at dealer council in Europe, we heard that they have been developing a new infotainment system that will blow everything else out of water. Result was first version of Entune/Display Audio.

They got some things right and some things bad for traditional auto maker, hopefully they will be able to re-do it in next generation system, properly.

 

[Tragic Bronson]

also, while we are talking abount Infotainment - people do not understand that they have invested a lot of time in the past 15+ years into systems they are having now.

In 2008/2009 at dealer council in Europe, we heard that they have been developing a new infotainment system that will blow everything else out of water. Result was first version of Entune/Display Audio.

They got some things right and some things bad for traditional auto maker, hopefully they will be able to re-do it in next generation system, properly.

15 years to develop, I don't know who they blew out, because a lot of people like myself who used it in the RX and ES found it to not be very intuitive.

Entune was a joke

Toyota's Entune App Suite is breaking Camrys

My stepfather has driven a Toyota ($NYSE:TM) Camry since the 1980s. His last one, a 2006 Hybrid with over 200,000 miles on the odometer, was finally traded in for a candy-apple red 2018 special edition. Like a proud father he sent pictures to all his children and even to the two grandchildren...

media.thinknum.com

 

[spwolf]

15 years to develop, I don't know who they blew out, because a lot of people like myself who used it in the RX and ES found it to not be very intuitive.

Entune was a joke

Toyota's Entune App Suite is breaking Camrys

My stepfather has driven a Toyota ($NYSE:TM) Camry since the 1980s. His last one, a 2006 Hybrid with over 200,000 miles on the odometer, was finally traded in for a candy-apple red 2018 special edition. Like a proud father he sent pictures to all his children and even to the two grandchildren...

media.thinknum.com

sure... what I am saying is that a lot of effort went into it.

so they are not late into infotainment field, they are just bad at it.

 

[Tragic Bronson]

so they are not late into infotainment field, they are just bad at it.

No argument there. I think they wanted to go their own way with infotainment, with the Scout app instead of Carplay and Android Auto early on. No automaker these days is trying to do their own proprietary version anymore because they are not tech companies.

 

[Ian Schmidt]

No argument there. I think they wanted to go their own way with infotainment, with the Scout app instead of Carplay and Android Auto early on. No automaker these days is trying to do their own proprietary version anymore because they are not tech companies.

Plenty of tech companies are bad at UI/UX too.

 

[Carmaker1]

I am glad to see that it was reiterated that the LQ is not going to be a Lexus. At least not until a formal full-length trademark is filed in the form of LQ 600 or similar. You remember what happened with "TX" back in 2013, with a bunch of extrapolations on something that had no formal trademark denoting engine capacity. That being said, Instagram's "Allcarnews" is NOT a good source and are the entity that created a rumor about a non-existent Mirai-based Lexus.

@Gecko and co. usage of "LF-1" is probably for the best for the time being.

One thing that disappoints me about the past, is how the heck did this never go into production?

When you look at the landscape of the automotive marketplace all together in 2003, no one of high caliber (sorry GM) had anything like this in production.

In development though? Hell yes (see below). What the hell were Lexus product planners thinking in 2001-05?, to reject making the HP-X/LF-X into a production vehicle?

Either development should have been underway from about 2001ish, with HPX as teaser of finished car in 2003 and production vehicle in 2004-05. Or pure design study in 2003 again as HPX, then production vehicle in 2006-07.

Underpinning this concept was the N Platform, a new unibody RWD architecture in 2003, later debuting on the S180 Crown. In fact, the percieved regression over the XF40 LS of 2006 against XF30 LS 430, I wonder if can be connected from switching a bespoke LS platform to a stretched version of executive class N Platform shared with RWD JDM Toyotas and 3GS (S190) ?

For the first time, the next S-Class (W223-2020) will essentially ride on the same MRA II architecture as the future E-Class (W214-2023) and C-Class (W206-2021). Outgoing W222 flagship was a heavy redesign of W221 S-Class introduced in 2005 ironically, married to ultra-luxury elements heavily borrowed from Maybach and British luxury.

Anyway, back to LF-X (HPX)

So the luxury crossover segment brewing in April 2003:

• Cadillac had revealed the production version of the ugly, yet revolutionary unibody RWD SRX 7-seater crossover due in Sept. '03 All in spite of their already successful BOF GMT800 basis 2nd generation Escalade. Styling was finalized by GM management in 2000 and initiated in 1998.
• Audi/VAG the longitudinal FWD-basis (std. Quattro AWD), yet unibody 7 seater Q7 for early 2006 launch off of new Pikes Peaks Concept (did actually influence Q7). Production styling was frozen in late 2003, entering production in November 2005.
• DaimlerChrysler had already signed off on X164 program initiated in 2000, for bigger "ML LWB" as G-Class replacement in 2006. A full sized, uniframe, RWD crossover. Final styling was frozen in 2002 ahead of Lexus concept showing in 2003. This later arrived in 2006 as the GL (now GLS).
• I don't consider the E70 BMW X5 later introduced in 2006 to be a genuine, large 7-seater.

What was Lexus doing by dropping the ball and not putting this vehicle into production?

First shown as the HPX (by designer Bill Chergosky in 2002) at the New York International Auto Show in April 2003 as the first public introduction of L-finesse design language created in 2001 and then shown in Tokyo in October 2003 as the renamed LF-X.

This thing was fire and more beautiful than the current LF-1 on the exterior. The parent of LF-1 essentially. Is it because the SUV/crossover landscape in the early 2000s was still in infancy, feeling LX and GX were good enough on family sized side of things and RX was too precious to threaten its success with another crossover?

Even the 5-seater Porsche Cayenne (L-FWD/AWD) had just been released and much smaller Infiniti FX45 launched January 24, 2003.

20 decades SHOULDN'T have elapsed between HPX/LF-X and production LF-1. Like with the LF-LC concept. LF-1 is taking the whole nine yards and wasn't in planning long enough to be ready to go.

 

[Will1991]

No I'm thinking Lexus does look in here, a few moments after this post from @Carmaker1 goes up, this shows up on Facebook: