Yeh, cant believe they got rid of the touchscreen. That thing was excellent.

I was thinking of defending this car... but no... its just plain ugly.

The interior is horrid... The design, the materials... wow what a step back for them... I never liked this car, but this version is just plain ugly. impressively ugly for that matter both inside and out.

From Motor Trend:

- I have the seen the future and it is the Remote Touch interface found in the all new Lexus RX SUV. Apparently Toyota's luxury brand is doing away with the touch screens it uses in all of its cars to control features like navigation and stereo in favor of this superslick system. Instead of the combination of a rotating knob and buttons favored by competitors including BMW, Mercedes Benz, Audi, Acura, and Infiniti, Lexus has opted for what can only be described as a flatted, pad-like joystick. But it's like no joystick you've ever used.

First of all, the part your fingertips touch is a flat pillow of leather. It tips and tilts in all directions, moving a cursor on a screen above. The big difference though, is that when the cursor moves over different positions on the screen, like buttons, there is feedback felt through the pad. The industry term for this is "haptic (touch) feedback" and it is very slick indeed. It is weird at first, feeling the cursor move and stick over a button, but it quickly becomes second nature. Also interesting is that the pad/joystick only moves the cursor -- you can't press down on it to click the button you're on. Instead, there is a button positioned on both sides (under the thumb of both the driver's right and passenger's left hand) for clicking on any of the buttons.

Why do this? Because it gives Lexus designers more flexibility as to where they can position the nav/audio screen, and also helps improves safety. With the Remote Touch controller under your fingertips returning haptic feedback, your eyes don't need to be glued to screen all the time. We'll have more info to come when we actually drive the new Lexus RX SUVs featuring this futuristic system, but from what we've seen/felt so far -- it looks pretty good.


LA (Auto Show) Confidential | Car News Blog at Motor Trend

M

Interesting. Should work well.

I think I can tolerate the interior design. But the materials always have a distinctly 'Japanese car' or 'Toyota' feel, that doesn't cut it against the Germans. This looks like more of the same.

The exterior looks like the bastard child of a Kluger and old RX330. But as others have said, it's target Audience will gobble it up.

I love the sound of it too. There will soon be videos on edmunds or motor trend to see it in action.