Acura Will Skip New Hybrids and Transition Straight to EVs
Photo: Acura
If you’ve read our review of the 2023 Honda CR-V Hybrid or seen that the 2023 Accord lineup is mostly hybrids, it’s possible you might think Acura would have some new hybrids on the way, too. After all, it would make sense — better fuel efficiency and the possibility of improved performance? Acura could sell a ton of them. Except it won’t: The luxury brand is skipping new hybrids and moving straight into all-electric vehicles.
During a roundtable call with journalists, Honda shared a number of plans for 2023. During that conversation, the Japanese automaker said it doesn’t intend to flesh out the Acura lineup with new hybrids. Instead, it will skip that half-measure and transition directly into electric vehicles, starting with the ZDX.
Other Acura news was limited, although we did hear that the company plans to expand the program that allows customers to buy a car online and pick it up at the dealer. It doesn’t cut dealers out of the equation entirely like Tesla does, but it should make the buying process easier for people who don’t like sitting across from a salesperson trying to sell you on dealer-installed pinstriping.
Meanwhile, Honda itself plans to stick to traditional hybrids in the U.S., at least for now. We’ll still get a plug-in hybrid fuel-cell CR-V, but outside of that one exception, Honda plans to stay away from PHEVs. Also, while the company has already announced plans to bring the Civic Hybrid to the U.S., that won’t happen this year. Instead, we’ll have to wait until 2024 for the electrified Civic. Similarly, don’t expect a hybrid Passport or Ridgeline this year, either.
The decision to introduce hybrids to the Honda lineup so slowly is a confusing one, but it sounds like supply chain issues are at least partly to blame. No one explicitly said, “We would have had more hybrids in our lineup by now if it weren’t for problems with our supply chain,” but based on the way some things were said earlier in the call, that’s the impression they gave off.
