American Honda started the year 2024 very strong, with a solid 10.3% delivery growth in January, but that was all from the namesake brand – Acura instead dropped nine percent.
However, the premium Japanese automaker had some quirky data to account for – they still sold the NSX supercar and the retired ILX sedan last year. Soon enough, the data will normalize. Interestingly, there was also one bright star among all the gloomy results – Acura's RDX compact luxury crossover jumped more than 50% compared to the same period last year.
That's kind of counterintuitive, frankly. The RDX is a five-door crossover SUV twinned on the same platform with the corresponding Civic and CR-V generations from Honda, and the third iteration appeared as a 2019 model year at the 2018 North American International Auto Show and started sales during the same summer.
After that, it received the habitual mid-cycle refresh for 2022MY, and not a lot of things have happened since, with one major exception – prices have jumped around quite a bit. For example, not much changed for the 2023 model year, and Acura only introduced features that would make the ownership experience a little better, with prices kicking off at $41,350. When the 2024 model year appeared, the same story – changes only included dropping the FWD option, so all versions use the SH-AWD all-wheel-drive system, and the MSRPs have gone up to at least $44k!
Luckily, when American Honda provided an outlook for its US automobile business for 2024 in January, they also announced a tidal wave of introductions from both Honda (Prologue, CR-V Fuel Cell Vehicle, 2025 Civic refresh, Civic Hybrid, Odyssey) and Acura. The premium brand will start sales of the all-electric ZDX crossover SUV early this year, followed by MDX – the brand's top-selling model – packing "significant enhancements." But that was not all.
Instead, the company also announced an all-new, smaller crossover SUV positioned alongside Integra, along with upgrades for the RDX to "enhance its appeal and functionality." These are subtly exciting perspectives for the compact RDX, but no worries, the imaginative realm of digital car content creators is ready to spice things up big time. For example, the Halo oto channel on YouTube provides fresh automotive info corroborated with their virtual designs; now, there are new CGI ideas about the upcoming RDX – including the potential for a Type S version coming alongside the second facelift.
As per Acura tradition, the channel's resident pixel master didn't dare to envision massive styling changes compared to the current RDX, but the addition of big alloy wheels and red brake calipers hints at the addition of the high-performance compact CUV's Type S variant to join Integra, TLX, MDX, and the new electric ZDX. Of course, take all this with a pinch of salt, as nothing has been officially approved by American Honda just yet, at least as far as we know.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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