Tony Pac

Acura invited journalists to test drive the new ZDX. A couple of the initial reviews have been published, but I expect the more detailed reviews to be available within a week or so. Let's keep this thread for Review only!

Alex: Kirk:

sonyfever

Had a first-look on ZDX/Prologue. I did not have time to do the test drive, so no driving impression.

[ Exterior ]

Good things first, and that is ZDX looks way better in person than in phone. Forget the complaints about hearse and dual-tone painting. In person, the exterior is cohesive. The car could have been a bland box, but Acura put in sharp creases on the hood/fender, the door, and the tail. Those creases connect the car from front to back, and are powerful design elements that give the car presence, as well as the flow of energy.

Unfortunately, that is where the good ends. The rest is a mixed bag. Where do I start?

[ Interior ]

- The interior definitely smells GM.
- The dash/console area is all right - not good but not bad. In person, the dash is not as bland as I thought, as the paint or coating on the main slab that crosses AC vents is of decent quality.
- The storage space is great, but the glove box is not damped and the inner is very cheap looking plastic.
- The leathers on the seats and doors are the highlight of the interior. They are thicker and softer than MDX Type-S. The leathers on the dashboard are obviously pleather, and about the same quality as the pleather on RDX console.
- The seats are comfortable and familiar to me as an Acura owner.

However, there are a few things that left me wanting to cancel my reservation.
1) The steering wheel sucks big time. The buttons are lifeless, and the grip is unnecessarily thick and does not have any contour. It is a significant downgrade from the awesome steering wheels on recent Acuras.
2) The doors are heavy, but don't sound heavy upon closing. The door panels are crazy thick - a lot of space wasted here. Seems to me GM were super concerned about protecting the battery pack so they left a good amount of margin on side-crash buffer zone.I estimate they are 1.5x~2x the depth of those on MDX/RDX. What is worse, the surface is not curved inwards (relative to the door) like that on RDX/ZDX. As a result, the interior feels narrower than it can be, especially the rear suffers in the shoulder and elbow room. The center console reaches closer to the rear seat than native Acuras, adding excellent center storage space but at the expense of spaciousness to the rear passengers. All of these details in the interior add up to take away visual and physical space from the big car, and the rear feels somewhat cramped compared to even RDX.
3) The HVAC is oversized, in both the space it occupies and the size of the buttons. I get a truck vibe from the infotainment and HAVC, and surely that is where they come from. In comparison, I feel the steering wheel is plucked from a smaller car. Small details like this ruin the interior of ZDX, and also make me appreciate the RDX/MDX interiors more than ever.
4) Look above the door handles, and the interior is reasonable on a ~$40k car....

[ Infotainment/Sound ]

- The infotainment is fine. In a familiar theme to Acura, it does not look fantastic but gets the job done. It is responsive enough and does not have any touch sensitivity issue seen in Prologue reviews or AoA's lastest ZDX video. It is running Android 12 so the SW backbone is on the same track as Lyriq.
- The B&O sound system.... I only listened to some HD radios and did not feel significant improvement from ELS 3D. Maybe it is the Beosound (i.e. quick EQ) setting that is too warm - I could not figure out how to completely turn it off during my seat time.
The system has good fidelity, but sounds sharper (in a not-pleasant way) in high-freq region. The sound stage seems improved over RDX, as it is less front heavy than RDX, and in the passenger seat the sound stage is less biased to the right. But I think the sound stage is still not consistent to the driver and passenger. ELS Signature on MDX-S still reigns supreme by several miles.

[ Comparison to Polestar 3 ]

Happened to sit in a Polestar 3 lately, so use it as a loose reference:

- I am surprised to say that Polestar 3 rear seat "feels" a little more spacious than ZDX. Probably not in reality, but the Polestar 3 cabin is way more welcoming than ZDX.
- Polestar 3 dashboard sits very high like a van. Thankfully, Acura/Honda intentionally pushed the dashboard low to keep ZDX/Prologue familiar to AH owners.
- I noticed that both cars have less than ideal cargo space thanks to high trunk floor and low roof, especially on Polestar 3. The roof drop is rather dramatic on the 3, but at least it has a decent-size underfloor storage as compensation. ZDX Type-S uncharacteristically loses the underfloor storage, leaving only a tiny amount of space between the trunk floor cover and the air suspension tank cover.

mvl

Were you part of the press drive, or are demos in dealers now?

Ken1997TL

I got to try it out briefly when I was at the Long Beach Grand Prix. It's nice but you can still tell its a GM product. Sonyfever's comments are similar to my thoughts.

Having said that, I still want to give it a fair attempt and drive it on roads I'm familiar with before having any 'final thoughts'.

silverTL6

iTrader: (2)

There's a driving event for the ZDX / Prologue happening across the US, I suspect this is what sonyfever attended (as did I) -

https://evolution-experience.com/?so...uraInviteEmail

Long story short, the ZDX interior is still a letdown in person (despite what the naysayers claimed when I made the same observations re: the debut pics). Kinda sucks considering the 1G was used to showcase what Acura was capable of at the time. Not even sure why they didn't let it borrow more from the Lyriq instead of the Blazer - as a result, it's only marginally different from the Prologue's interior (akin to the Civic / Integra's similarities on the inside).

This might be acceptable for the $48k+ Prologue, but for a $64k+ ZDX? As fun as it was mashing the Type-S' throttle and getting thrown back in the seat, I'm not sure if it's enough to convince shoppers to overlook the interior, especially with the Lyriq having essentially the same pricing / drivetrain options while being much more luxurious inside. Sadly, I see the 2G ZDX going the way of the dodo bird just like the 1G did, once Acura's own EV platform rolls out. Perhaps they're OK with that, as long as it allows them to get their foot in the door vs. having nothing in that space for the next few years (?).

DJ Iceman

This is why, if I had been in the Acura boardroom when they were bouncing model names around, I would have STRONGLY advocated to call this stop-gap, GM-produced thing the SLX, and saved the ZDX name for the in-house, hopefully far superior EV that's coming in a few years.

silverTL6

iTrader: (2)

The LX suffix would've strayed from their current naming convention, but then again we have the Integra

My guess is they needed a catchy name for their first EV, and figured resurrecting one that symbolized their treading into new territory would get people talking (it didn't hurt that the "Z" resembled a bolt of electricity too). Whereas ADX sounds a bit more generic and probably more fitting for a gateway product.

Whatever the case, the ZDX name certainly deserved better. Hopefully the 2G will have a short lifecycle too, and replaced by a 3G based on their own platform with a class-leading interior once again.

mvl

Acura corporate pretty much announced ZDX is just a stopgap. I believe it was planned as part of a long term partnership and planned as the 4th gen RDX, but Honda pivoted to inhouse EVs and dropped the GM collab a coupe years ago. So they launched an unprecedented second MMR for the 25 RDX and renamed the GM effort as the ZDX. I agree the SLX was what leadership is hoping reoccurs (learn a new matket with a rebadge then build inhouse as the best selling premium SUV for two decades). But I don't think the SLX works as well as the ZDX for a new generation of non Honda converts (Z = zero emissions), and any name would work for a Honda loyalist. Acura is targeting the post-Tesla 2nd car owners with the ZDX, they are even giving a conquest incentive for ZDX buyers who used to own a Tesla. The ZDX loses vs Tesla in techiness, pricing, and range/chargespeed. But it is a clear winner (even with GM assembly) in build quality, dealer service, ride comfort, ride sportiness, and real world (non-roadtrip) usability.

The Honda Ohio battery factory remains on track to launch in 2026, using the same LG chem batteries used in Ultium, so there should be some knowledge to be gained. Acura has the model lineup set with a next gen TLX due from the EV factory in 27, a next gen MDX due in 28, and marketing timing perfectly lined up for a low volume EV 40th anniversary Acura PMC Legend in 26. And they can slot in a 3rd gen EV NSX and 4th gen RDX in those years too.

I'm more intrigued with what Acura is dreaming up now that the whole industry realizes USA is a long way away from charging infrastructure being anywhere near sufficient to sustain Acura as a planned all-EV brand. The Honda ECVT Hybrid is intriguing as it is basically the old Chevy Volt (gas-rechargeable electric motors) in disguise as a single transmission. If you combined a 1L VTEC engine and tuned the exhaust for the noise, put in in the Honda ECVT and the SHAWD rear-TMU from a Hybrid MDX, plus 50 mile range batteries from the Ohio plant, you would have a perfect Acura PHEV for the next ten years.

silverTL6

iTrader: (2)

The theory re: ZDX originally being the 4G RDX is an interesting one, since 2024 would've been the FMC year if the 3G RDX had stuck to their usual 5-year lifecycle (2019-2021, 2022-2023 MMC).

Makes me wonder though - if the GM partnership had remained long term, would it have kept the RDX name, and if so would the design have stayed the same? Almost none of its design elements harken back to the 1G ZDX, but the upright greenhouse, rear 3/4 view, and taillights do remind me of the 1G RDX.

That said, second MMC's have occurred for other models (e.g. ILX and 2G RL), and they were presumably all stopgaps due to the next gen's getting big but delayed changes (Integra, Sport Hybrid).

iforyou

iTrader: (1)

This is such a good post. +1!

Looking forward to their in-house EV options in the coming years.