Picked up my new 500h last month from a local Lexus dealer here in Vancouver, Canada. Only one key, navi orientation issue, Spotify connection issue, wipers not going off when rotating the sensitivity dial and a few other concerns that have been discussed here already. But there is one other problem that drives me bonkers.

Raodtripping is our thing. We live 30 minutes away form the boarder which present a great opportunity for travel to the beautiful neighboring states of Washington and Oregon (except Portland) and even trips to Cali are not uncommon for us. And then there are those monthly trips to Costco and Trader Joe's for your inexpensive good wines, great selection of cheeses, cheap gas, etc. As many of you know, here in Canada the speed and distance are measured in kilometers as the country officially adopted the metric system back in 1975. That never presented a problem in my previous 2019 RX350 where I could switch the units from metric to imperial within a few clicks of a button and not having to do math in my head every time I drive past a speed sign on the highway.

Unfortunately this is not the case with my new 500h. Upon crossing the border the navi announces through the speakers "Welcome to the United States". Great, the car knows which country it is currently in and may be it'll change the units automatically. Nope... So I stated scrolling through the options on the gauge cluster. Not there... The infotainment system was my next choice. Found the units settings, great... Aaaaand the speed or distance options are not there either. But hey, I can set the fuel consumption to be displayed in MPG (US), MPG (Imperial), KM/L and L/100KM. I really want to look at the software engineer who thought that knowing my fuel consumption in four different units is more important than knowing my speed! Imagine being pulled over by a cop, you roll down your window and the officer goes "sir, do you know how fast your car consumes that premium fuel? And in imperial MPG? And in US MPG? And in KM/L? Ok, I'm going to let you off with a warning this time!".

And the funny part is that the car knows the difference between KMH and MPH. I realized that when the car red the speed sign in MPH and the icon did not turn red even though the threshold is set to 10 points over the limit. You can see on the picture below that the spread is 46 points and the light is still not red. That's because 70 MPH is 113 KMH and technically I'm not speeding.

I wrote an angry email to Lexus Canada and they first referred me to the owner's manual which states the distance option but only if equipped. This is a Canadian spec car and I really want to know all the IFs that prevent certain cars from being equipped with such a useful feature. I send them a follow up email with pictures and again they replied with a corporate friendly email but at least this time they reassured me that my complaint was forwarded to the appropriate department. I guess if enough people complain they will do something about it.

I also thought that it could be that the 500h are made in Japan and they don't need to drive to Costco every month but no, the VIN starts with "2". Also, the fuel door is a bit crooked so that's a pretty obvious Canadian giveaway. Hoping the next update will fix this and other known issues.
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If you are using apple carplay or android auto you should be able to change your preferred units. In our case ( NJ USA ) my wife somehow has apple car play set to km and she happily sticks with it ( we have lived outside the us in 'metric' countries so we are used to km, celcius, etc ) I recall that on the dashboard on the small 2nd navigation display in that case the car play metric units are converted back to imperial units. Needless to say - it does not bother us much

 

But that would only apply to the distance shown on Google maps, no?

 

I was in Canada for several days and could not find a way to change my speedometer from reading Miles Per Hour to Kilometers Per Hour. On the customization settings for Meters I can select things like MPG, and tire pressure, but there is nothing for MPH to Km/Hr. I can't find anything in the manual or when doing a Google search. The cameras are picking up the metric speed signs and the display sign changes color when I exceed that speed but my speedometer continues to show MPH.

I am guessing that the percentage of drivers on thiis forum who make border crossings is pretty low, but I am hopeful that someone can help me. I make 5-6 trips a year and don't want to have to create a conversion chart!

 

It's a much higher number when you remember Euros traveling to and from Great Britain could us it as well.