I recently purchased a 2020 ES 300h with the Mark Levinson premium sound. I enjoy listening to the couple hundred albums stored on my USB stick. My experience with cover art during play has been great with the other 5-6 cars I've owned with premium sound. But with the 300h the cover art is replaced by the generic USB symbol when I put the car in drive. Nothing addresses this in the nav/audio user guide and I can't find a setting to change my preference other than the "common" setting that allows cover art to not display.

Is there something that I'm missing or does Lexus irreversibly disable this feature in drive mode??

 

You're not missing anything. No cover art once the car is put into gear. This subject has been covered in previous posts...

 

You can only view album art while connected to Carplay and I assume Android Auto.

 

That's a good tip for those that have the Apple and Android option. Thanks...

 

Clear but disappointing. As mentioned all of my recent cars with premium sound show album art so it obviously isn't something that auto safety gov regs don't allow. Bummer.

Thanks for saving me the ongoing task of trying to figure this out.

 

After buying 2 new Lexus cars I've found that Lexus does things without explanation and purpose. This is one of them.

 

I suspect this is inherited behaviour from the original Toyota Parent Company. Still no excuse, IMO.

 

I would speculate that Lexus' legal department believes they may have some liability if someone were gawking at the album art while driving and got in a wreck. Government regulators may not have a problem with the art displays but Lexus or their insurer must feel it exposes them to liability. Lexus seems to take a cautious approach to most of their actions so I wouldn't expect this decision to be any different. Just one possible theory...

 

Apparently the other major manufacturer's don't see it that way according to the OP. However I think that your theory is probably correct...

 

My wife's 2017 RX displays album art in drive. Our ES of course does not. Go figure. But I don't see how this should bother anyone honestly🤔

 

Well, along those same lines, I really don't have any idea if our 2016 NX shows the album art or not. I don't pay any attention to it anyway.

 

Apparently, Lexus sees ES drivers as more of a liability risk than RX drivers.

It would definitely bother me, but since I use Amazon HD/CarPlay, it doesn't.

 

I find it annoying that my 2021 Lexus ES300h have a crippled album art display on drive mode. Apple Carplay though have the album art OK.

 

Your eyes need to be on the road and not the album art!

 

It goes without saying! You don't stare at it while driving. The same way that you just take a glimpse of your surroundings. Drive safe.