Stop Everything—There’s Still a New Car On Sale With a CD Player?!
Fed up with streaming and subscription services? Consider the mobile CD player that is the Lexus IS500.
If you want entertainment on a drive, there’s no shortage of options to choose from. Streaming services, podcasts (may I suggest The InEVitable?!), satellite radio, and good old-fashioned AM/FM radio are all great options. Those of us driving cars built before 2015-ish may also enjoy the simple pleasures of a CD player, as the feature was largely omitted after that. I, personally, thought compact disc players weren’t a thing in cars anymore—until I sat in a 2024 Lexus IS500 F Sport Performance Premium a couple of weeks ago.
Yes, you read that right: This is a car you can buy new in the year of our Lord, 2024, that still comes with a CD player. If being able to own a naturally aspirated, V-8-powered sport sedan wasn’t reason enough to consider the IS500, there’s this. Actually, now that I think about it, the CD player might be more compelling than the engine; that certainly applies in the less-powerful IS300 and IS350 models that also enjoy the feature. Lexus isn’t merely purveying CD players in new cars, either—it seems to have several models that offer them, including the RC coupe and, until just recently, certain LC coupes and convertibles.
Maybe you’ve forgotten or are unaware of the marvelous experience of playing a CD in your car. With basically all media shifting to a subscription service nowadays, the humble compact disc player feels especially prescient. Records are enjoying a renaissance, after all, so why shouldn't CDs?
Here’s a list of reasons why these flat bits of plastic deserve a resurgence.
- No subscription service needed. You own the music you buy, forever.
- CDs generally offer better sound quality than streaming.
- You are not reliant on cell reception, a data plan, or Wi-Fi to stream your music.
- No annoying commercials.
- Android Auto and Apple CarPlay not required.
Furthermore, a CD forces you to listen to an album in the order that the artist intended. I’m not saying people don’t do this when they stream albums, but it seems like building playlists is the go-to move, where we tend to pick and choose singles rather than letting an album run through its entire thematic course. Green Day’s American Idiot is a rock opera, for crying out loud. The story doesn’t make sense if the songs are missing or out of order!
I asked Lexus if keeping the CD player around was due to favorable customer feedback over the years.
“[The] IS has featured a CD player since the current generation debuted,” a Lexus rep responded via email. That debut happened in 2013, if you were curious. “In the years that have followed, the IS has not received any major refreshes, so the CD player has remained in the interior. While we do occasionally hear similar comments about having a CD player being an interesting feature, the continuation of this is not in response to any consumer feedback or insights.”
Ah, well. Just as with its available V-8, the IS remains unique today by way of literally not getting an update in, like, a bajillion years. (Though the V-8 was added back to the IS family after a long vacation, after the IS F went away last decade, the 5.0-liter engine itself has been around as long.) But in this case, it’s not a bad thing at all.
