Yeah they are not building the current version anymore so they are just selling off whats left of the inventory. The new G series configurator has been up for a few weeks now but don't think the are delivering any cars yet. So no sales numbers.

What is interesting is current 4 series (used to be 3 series coupes & convertibles) January 2019 sales were 2842 vs January 2017 sales of 1585. An increase of 1257 cars. This increase in the 4 series is more cars than the 3 series sold last month. 4 series has 2 more years in it before the new generation.

Think that after all this time that they are still trying to sell "TLX power" is pretty funny.

i agree but those bells and whistles are nice... waiting for good deals!

Acura needs the new TLX like today. Sales numbers show that TLX isn't hot at all in this competitive market.
First sedan market is a tough one.
Second TLX interior is very outdated like Q50 and IS.

Japanese sedans are not attractive at the moment.

TLX sales are obviously winding down in prep for the new model, and in a challenging sedan market.

Look up A4 sales @ 1436 and IS @1115 for the month, apsolutely brutal. Even if the next gen TLX is a homerun it will probably only sell 2-3k per month at the most. Sedan market is dead. They better have decent sales or Acura just might cut their sedans altogether.

The A4 is not brutal at all....you have to add the sales of the A5 which has a hatchback variant of the A4, they compete in the same market segment....A5 sales are 1603 for Feb so combined Audi moved 3000 units in Feb....not bad.

The IS is dead. The Q50 moved 2230 units.

Accord and civic is doing fine how is the sedan market dead.

Acura need to get rid of the RLX. Make the ILX and TLX better

If I were running Acura:
1- Kill the RLX.
2- Make a great sedan - direct competition with Audi A4 (with 4 and 6 cylinders, FWD and AWD versions).
2.5 - I will force the designers of that sedan to drive it as a daily driver, to make sure they actually "live" with the car...
3- Make a sub-RDX crossover.
4- Further develop the RDX and MDX.
5- Re-design the infotainment system across the brand. Have the engineers look at the latest Audi touch and the VW interface, and clone it.

I was at a restaurant with my son last weekend with a view of a busy intersection. He loves cars, so I took the opportunity to teach him different vehicles types. Sedan, coupe, hatchback, wagon, SUV, truck, etc. By the way, us aficionados may know what each make/model is, but it's hard to explain the difference to a 7 year old between many cars nowadays. Take a Forester. He says wagon. I say fine. Or a Civic hatchback. He says coupe. I say fine. Then try classifying these crazy HR-V and C-HR type hatchback/coupe/micro SUV for a 7 year old...

Point is, based on observations that morning, most cars on the road are sedans. About half. It was hard to find coupes. A lot of wagons and crossover SUVs, maybe another quarter. A lot of pickups and full size SUVs, maybe another quarter. I don't think sedans are dead. I think there are so many options that none stand out anymore, except the Europeans which are simply gorgeous. Everyone sells a sedan with varying sizes. Toyota, Honda and Nissan of course, plus their luxury arms. Those must comprise at least 15 sedan models (Camry, Corolla, Avalon, ES, IS, GS, LS, Civic, Accord, ILX, TLX, RLX, Sentra, Altima, Maxima, G). Add BMW (indisputably the best sedans in the world), MB, Audi and VW and I count at least another 12 (Jetta, Passat, A3, A4, A6, A8, C, E, S, 3, 5, 7). I'm sure I'm missing some off the top of my head. Add Americans (Fusion, Taurus - both which may be dead soon - Malibu, SS, Regal, I don't even know what GM is making these days, Chrysler 200, 300) probably at least another 10. Add Volvo S60, S90, Subaru Impreza, Legacy and whatever Kia, Hyundai and Mitsubishi are making. There must be 50-some sedans you could buy new and drive off a dealer lot today. Those models are before getting into options/packages/engines. Those are new. Imagine the hundreds of discontinued used sedans still on the road. Pontiac, Oldmobile and Saturn. Saab. Mercury.

I doubt that would be the case if there weren't a market for sedans. Maybe for the money, more people want the space of a wagon or SUV than ever before. Maybe the sedan market is weaker and more competitive than it historically was, but I don't think it's dead.

I agree with everything except #1. The RLX needs to exist. Without it, the TLX would be the flagship sedan. A luxury brand cannot have a flagship sedan with starting price of $30K.

And add these 2 goals:
1. Make the ILX better too (Mak P already said this).
2. Re-focus on engineering. Make Acura reliable again!!!

I am in the kill the RLX line & make the TLX line the best premium car they can produce camp.

The RLX is at best a Zombie. They sold less then 2000 cars last year & 127 last month. Like Chevy's StingRay ZR-1 they have the NSX as a top of the line car. IMHO the Acura line can be considered a premium car line but they have no true luxury car to sell. So far whenever Acura pushes its prices up into the higher end premium car level of the luxury brands it gets killed.

IIRC every mass produced luxury car brand, Jaguar, Lexus, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, has $100,000+ cars topping the line. That's what makes them luxury car producers not 3 & 4 series level cars.

Even with the RLX @ starting at $55,000 Ford has F150 pickups @ $67,000.

I thought Acura is done with the "Smart Luxury" BS. If they want to play the luxury game, they need the RLX. They need to have cars in both 3 segments: compact, midsize, and full size.

Why bring Chevy and Ford in here?

Why not have it start at 40k almost like the A4. The ILX can stay where its at. The advance is already 46k, I'm expecting a Type-S to replace the advanced sh-awd and exceed 50k who knows

The RLX, if it exist they might just want to have it compete against a LS, why not increase the size and horsepower and actually turn it into a true luxury sedan. At-least out-do the damn Hyundai Genesis G90

The RLX is technologically very advanced and built quality is excellent, unfortunately it is brought down by extremely boring/derivative styling, lifeless driving experience and lack of trim segmentation...a FWD and an Hybrid....Acura ineptitude at its finest.
But they do need a flagship to be taken seriously (Ford and Chevy are not premium brands), just not the RLX.

+1

More competitive for sure, in decline yes but not dead.

One of my favorite sedan for the money, the Dodge Charger, clocked an impressive +20% in sales from 2017 to 2018 (and FCA slashed significantly fleet sales across the board so, no, they are not all rentals). People after all respond to a good value for the money proposition (and good discounts).

Acura is already having problem selling well-equipped TLX at $40K. It's a long shot to price the new TLX starting at $40K ...

A true luxury sedan. Yes, this is exactly what they need to do (well except that I personally think the current RLX side is quite alright). I think if they can put the new RLX together with the new Type S engine along with SH-AWD, the RDX infotainment, driving nanny techs, the build quality. All that at around $55k, people will buy it. Still a low volume but people will buy it. Not everyone wants a $100K LS or 5 series or $120K S Class. People who want those cars don't even look at Acura. So don't worry

Nailed this. A flagship sedan without AWD or a V8 is practically DOA in the premium market of A8, S class, 7 series or LS.

I agree, but I think this is easier said than done. There was another thread where someone astutely pointed out that Lexus and the Euros have groomed their buyers over the course of several years and decades to "graduate" to these cars. New grad? 3 series. Promotion? 5 series. Retirement gift? 7 series. Most people don't spend $100k on this caliber of car. Acura would need to do something they haven't done since... oh I'll guess about 2002... when the RL, LS 430, 5 series, A6 and E class could be roughly considered the same class. While all the others makers moved on to bigger and better flagships, the RL just sort of stayed it's course in the "I'm sort of a premium car, but neither really performance oriented nor oozing luxury. I guess I'm still a fully loaded Honda."

You don't get to be a luxury brand by saying you are a luxury brand. Its a perception thing. The Japanese out of the box did 3 cars, Toyota-Lexus, Nissan-Infiniti & Honda-Acura. The Lexus was clearly a 2/3 price Mercedes Benz knock-off. The Acura & Infiniti went with original designs.

Only Lexus made the grade because people recognized the "look" & Toyota steadily improved the product. Not sure what happened to Infiniti, thought they had a good product with the Q but it did not catch on. Honda went with a modified TL which boxed them in because they never made the investment in a stand alone flagship level car. It was just a big TL which was a big Honda Accord FWD V6.

Its 30 years later & the perception of what these cars are in fixed in the public's mind. Lexus is a $100,000 brand, Acura is a premium level bang for the buck brand & Infiniti is thrashing around as something in between.

Maybe instead of trying to turn 30 years of perception around it might be a good plan to play to their strength & be a premier Bang for the Buck brand with products that can compete head to head with the premium versions of the luxury brands at a better price point. They were very successful at that at one time but lost their way when they thought the 4G would give them parity with the luxury brands. That boat had already sailed 20 years before.

On sibling marketing Alfred Slone?sp of GM invented that with progression from Chevy to Cadillac. After WWII flatened Germany & they started to rebuild their auto industry they copied the GM model as did the Japanese in their home market.

Consistency...this is what is needed for a luxury brand and this is exactly what Acura and Infiniti lack. Lexus is no perfect but it did execute better (let's not forget the dealer experience where Lexus is head and shoulder above anybody).
Early generation Infiniti were goofy looking cars, the brand made a clear breakthrough in the early 2000s with the G and the renewed Q only to basically give up again. Acura, same problem...the second generation RL and the 4G were a move in the right direction but instead of improving on that and correct mistakes, they raised a white flag after few years. They should learn from the Koreans.

Jaguar is a good example of a brand that albeit not being very successful (sales volume) get the luxury car brand concept right.

Yawwwwwwwwn. Acura’s going to do, what they are going to do. It’s working in SUV land as they are at the top of the game. Sedans, not so much. We’ll see what happens with the next sedan releases...

They do sell a good number like 50K MDX last year. That said they outsold the 46K BMW 5 series sedan by only 4K units, but the RDX sales were 10K less then the 75K 3/4 series sedans sold. The TLX only added 30K units to the mix.

In SUV sales the X3 did 61K & the X5 45K. They also did 29K of the small X1 SUV.

Bottom line for Acura is yes the SUV sales are good but not outstanding compared some non SUV sedan based companies. Based on that don't know how well they can do as an SUV company without a good sedan in the mix. The 2G TLX is an important car for them.

Many good points here and your prior post too. I think Acura can be a great bang for the buck alternative to the more pricey/plush premium sedans with a single TLX. An affordable base package, then tech and advance packages, and finally a loaded ASPEC performance model. I think people will look past the size of the car if it has a long list of features, performs well, is reliable, and costs less than the Euros. I agree that NO car company should try to survive on just SUVs. I think Ford is going the wrong direction with that decision. As a matter of fact, I happen to believe that the days of 2007-08 and 2011-12 when gas was over $4 (or higher) in some places will return. People were trading in their trucks and SUVs furiously and dealers couldn't sell them. It's all cyclical. Anyone like Ford putting all their eggs in the SUV basket is as shortsighted as GM killing the EV1.

The SUV chat inspired me to do a little analysis related to something I think I said here previously (if not this thread, must have been elsewhere). The line between Acura and Honda has been blurred if not erased. Someone at Honda must be okay with this. Not only are Acura sedans and SUVs are losing ground to the likes of BMW as Bear mentioned, but I think Honda is cannibalizing Acura. A base TLX is like an Accord EX-L and an Advance is like a Touring (except the AWD, which is why I went with the TLX).

The difference is that back then there were a lot more SUVs and fewer crossovers than today, and the gas mileage discrepancy between those and cars were much greater. These days, the gas mileage penalty for getting a crossover isn't nearly as bad, and for many people it's marginal compared to the extra utility and practicality you get. What more, if the end game is electrification (even partial), then you can throw the fuel economy concern completely out the window.

I've been saying the same thing about Honda in relation to Acura for a little while now. Hopefully things are changing, the RDX has its own platform. Someone in the 2nd Gen TLX thread is saying it'll have its own platform as well, so hopefully

To be fair - the TLX is nearing the end of a model run and the Accord started a new model run last year. It makes sense that it caught up with the Acura. When the TLX was launched in 2014 it far surpassed the then-current Accord with the new automated safety features (The TLX had LKAS for years before the Accord, etc) and a quick test drive in both cars back to back showed the TLX rode much better and was more quiet. My 13 Accord rode like an ox cart - my TLX has a nice comfortable ride by contrast.

Still - your point is well taken. It's such a hyper competitive market that Honda simply has to load up the Accord with luxury type features if they want to compete.

Bob Lutz predicted about 8 years ago that all cars would have similar features in X years. Then product differentiation would be based on styling, materials & name plate.

Welcome to the future.

Honestly, I find the quality levels in the new Accord a little disconcerting and wonder how well they'll hold up over time. Though nowhere near as bad as Nissan products (the 18 Rogue SV I rented during my recent vacation was a complete dumpster fire), it does make me wonder where else they may have cut corners.

Edit: Interestingly enough, I just came across an email from my local dealer detailing a fairly attractive lease deal on a 19 LX. Not in love with the new styling but, I've heard that the new base powertrain is pretty good. (CVT notwithstanding).

Anyone have any information on the sales numbers for March?

Does anyone have the sales numbers for April?

April 2019

-30.9 for the TLX

Thanks FLYGUY.

To put this in perspective, Google says there are about 250 Acura dealers in the US. If I did the math right, initial 2015 TLX sales were clipping at around 15 per month per dealer - don’t know if that’s weak or strong compared to other premium sedans. It sounds respectable to me. Last month, they were down to about 8 per month per dealer. Now... I see RDX sales are strong and the MDX always moves a lot of units, but the first gen TLX has clearly run its course. If I were a dealership owner, I would be clamoring for the redesign to get people in the doors and buying sedans again. Halving sales of the de facto flagship sedan for the brand (the RLX should be but is dead) can’t be good for business. The TLX is supposed to be a mainstay for Acura.

I will say, though, that this should be promising to Hondaficionados. Acura could have released the TLX on their normal five year cycle, probably before it was ready for release, just to drive up sales figures again. But they didn’t. They’re riding the lame horse first gen while they get the second gen right. I think this shows they acknowledge the first gen wasn’t ready to be released (but was anyway), it was plagued with problems both hardware and software, it over promised and under delivered in driving experience, it disappointed journalists (the tranny and infotainment specifically got hammered) and it drove many owners - and potential buyers - away from Acura, some Honda/Acura loyalists (likely including me) for good. Sure, many forum users are completely satisfied with their TLXs, had no issues and the first gen sold well enough, but this car was not what Acura wanted or planned. Acura is still perfecting the second gen and these sales figures show they learned their lesson. I think they understand this release is critical to their success (and existence) as a sedan maker. They chose to manage through one more year of poor sales pain over instant gratification to make the TLX a better car.

why offer 3 sedans anyway if nobody is buying them? kill off one and reintroduce the Legend and Integra badges.