Urgently wanted: a ha’porth of tar
Infotainment needs a rethink. By Tim Pollard
There’s an elephant in the room when we discuss the Lexus RX at our desks. It’s hard to talk about the big SUV without conversation quickly turning to that dreaded infotainment system. It’s horrible. We each drive upwards of 100 cars a year in our line of work and are exposed to different technologies and interfaces every day. We live and breathe these comparisons – and only criticise where it feels justified. And not one of us gets on with Lexus Remote Touch.
I reckon there’s a cultural divide at play here. Have you travelled to Japan in recent years? Experienced the fizzing, flashing energy of Tokyo and its neon-bathed Akihabara electronics district? It lends a little perspective to the Japanese digital mindset – there’s a different appreciation of HMI in Asia, it seems. I can believe the typical Japanese consumer interacts with digital touchpoints in a different way to western norms.
How else to describe the clunky joystick and buttons to operate the RX’s pointer? It buzzes and judders with haptic feedback (which you can vary) but it’s a tricky thing to operate with your left hand when on the move. Then there’s the labyrinthine menu structure and arcane, cluttered graphics. I’ve yet to find a member of the CAR team who doesn’t view the Lexus’s infotainment, mapping and UX as a generation or two out of date.
What about voice control? Well, we’ve tried that and the audio recognition is just as bad. It’s much, much worse than the class best – and by that we probably mean Mercedes’ MBUX system. There’s no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto available, either. It’s a real shame, because I struggle to think of many other aspects of the RX L that we don’t like. We’ll cover more of the positives (and there are plenty) next month. @TimPollard Cars