Luxury brands have also been hit harder than mainstream ones- especially the Japanese marques that are somewhat light on new products this year. BMW is enjoying strong 5 Series sales and the updated 3 Series remains strong while the new 7 Series should lure loyal buyers back to the showroom. Mercedes is still riding high on the new C Class with the brand new E set to arrive next month. Audi recently redesigned the A4 and A6 while the A5 and S5 remain hot-ticket items, as does the brand new Q5 crossover. Things are not great for the Germans, but they certainly are not bad either.
Infiniti and Lexus are launching convertible variants of their popular entry level models, the G37 and IS, though Infiniti’s version is undoubtedly better executed and designed than the frumpy
ISc. Lexus will also bring the HS 250h hybrid sedan to market later in the year and Infiniti is rumored to show the redesigned M before January rolls around. Meanwhile Acura has hung all of their hopes of success on the beak of the 2009 TL. While Infiniti and Lexus are indeed light on new products, Acura is the company that is truly in danger- for a variety of reasons. Increasing competition is one factor and an aging product line is another, but as the years pass by it seems to me that Acura is becoming something of a menace unto itself. Here is why:One of the main reasons that Acura has struggled so badly in recent years is because they lack any sense of direction, where they belong, or who their target market should be. Between Lexus and Infiniti (Let alone Mercedes, BMW, and Audi) they really don't fit in and have struggled endlessly to define their brand and or any core competency. To this day they still lack any definition or clarity as a marque...SH-AWD is probably the only thing that is noteworthy about the entire brand.
Honda has tried several times, to no avail, to make the Acura brand "different" and quirky (like Honda), but upscale. They are determined to do it their way- the way of rebadging and part-sharing at every point possible- to a fault, really. Lexus and Infiniti have both had to break away from that mentality and consider their success relative to Acura ever since they did. Clearly, Honda is determined to make a compelling business case for Acura as a premium brand while using as many pieces from their own corporate parts bin as possible. Unfortunately, this line of thinking has illustrated its flaws time and time again.
Cars like the NSX, Legend, and S2000 have shown that Honda is one of the engineering powerhouses of the automotive industry, but then we are given cars that are as deficient as the TL or RDX. Why? Especially when they are one of the most cash-rich companies in the business and could easily afford the required investment to actually make competitive luxury cars? Why?
Obviously a large part of Acura's failure is Honda's fault. They have always given the brand limited resources to retool and reformat hand-me-down platforms while repeatedly
shutting the door to anything over 6 cylinders or chasses that aren’t derived directly from a Honda product. Every vehicle in the Acura lineup is an Accord derivative of some type, and while there is nothing wrong with that, there are explicit limitations- namely power and performance- to this method of building a car. Competitors build three, four, five, or more dedicated platforms for specific vehicles while Acura builds one that sees fit in an I4 family sedan that sells 350,000 units a year, all the way up to a "premium branded" 300HP AWD 7-seater utility vehicle. Yes, this is smart business engineering, but not necessarily a smart way to engineer or position a premium automotive brand. By design limitations, the platform that underpins the uber-successful Accord just cannot be truly willing and able to rival the 5 or 3 Series in terms of dynamics, refinement, and overall performance. Here the flawed logic that “Honda hand-me-downs are sufficient” rears its ugly head.These deficiencies might be forgivable if Acura cars were engineering marvels (like the NSX and Legend) or if they had high feature content and remarkable quality. At least do something great, right? Wrong. Their cars use many of the same plastics, paint, trim pieces and technology as their lesser brethren and are often times deficient in many other ways in comparison to their competitors. Every other luxury brand has or is about to have a hybrid model...Acura has not so much as a hybrid concept that we know of. 6 and 7 speed automatics are the standard while some brands offer 8 speeds- Acura uses a 5 speed. The list goes on.
At the end of the day you are left with a car that is based off a Honda platform, uses several parts that are found on many other Honda cars, and that offers a minimal amount of unique content over that same Honda. At the same time, because of all of these inherent characteristics their cars are not as well built, fun to drive, powerful, or cutting edge as products from competing brands i.e. Lexus, Infiniti, BMW, etc. because of the lack of resources.
Do not get me wrong- Acuras are still nice cars that do plenty of things well - and for a couple thousand people a year that is enough to sign on the dotted line and grab the keys. Many buyers of premium brands want more than just nice cars that do things
well- they want performance, handling, quality, unique designs and technology- all things that come with a level of engineering and investment that Honda has not, and evidently will not, put into Acura. It's sad, really. It seems as though Acura will have to completely fail for Honda to realize that the company will require significantly more time and investment to be suited for success. At that point though, a company as money-minded as Honda might consider scrapping the brand all together. Or might they just be content selling rebadged and retooled Accords for the rest of time? Who knows?Often times we make fun of GM or Ford for penny pinching, but the Acura brand is the single greatest testament to automotive bean counting that any of us have seen or know. Seriously.
In a time where luxury consumers are increasingly discerning and ever more frugal with their dollars, will they spend them on Tier 3, in-between brands like Acura? Conversely, does Honda’s approach make Acura the sensible luxury choice, thus setting them up for success in a market such as this? The sales numbers seem to say “no” but time will ultimately tell and unfortunately for Honda, these times are not too forgiving.
Food for thought…
How will cars like the Hyundai Genesis affect Acura and other brands that trail the “top dogs” in the luxury arena? Do they have reason to be concerned?
Infiniti, Audi, Buick, and Jaguar have shown significant progress in building or rebuilding their brands and capturing market share while many industry critics say that Acura has been relatively flat. How does this bode for the company?
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