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2019 Acura RDX named a Top Safety Pick+ by IIHS

To the accolades being heaped on the all-new 2019 Acura RDX, the automaker can now add another: a Top Safety Pick+ designation from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the organization's coveted top rating. IIHS cites the SUV's good crashworthiness ratings, standard front crash prevention technology and even the availability of "good"-rated headlights, which has become perhaps the group's most daunting hurdle. To qualify for IIHS's top award, a vehicle must earn "good" ratings in the driver-side small overlap front crash test, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests and an "acceptable" or "good" rating in passenger-side small overlap test. The RDX earns "good" ratings across the board. IIHS also rated the standard AcuraWatch safety technology as "superior," saying it avoided collisions at 12 and 25 mph, and it rated the base LED headlights as "good" and the curve-adapted headlights on the top-of-the-line Advance trim as "acceptable." Autoblog recently learned that 40 vehicle models earned good enough crash ratings to qualify for IIHS' Top Safety Pick rating but fall short because they don't meet the organization's criteria for good headlights. Acura says the 2019 RDX features the newest generation of its Advanced Compatibility Engineering body structure, plus new high-strength steel door stiffener rings and eight airbags. The AcuraWatch suite of safety technologies includes collision mitigation braking, adaptive cruise control and road departure mitigation, all standard. The RDX is powered by a 2.0-liter turbo-four engine that makes 272 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque and comes with a 10-speed automatic. The compact luxury crossover went on sale June 1 and set monthly sales records in both June and July. You can find Autoblog's driving review of the 2019 RDX here. Related Video:

Acura RLX Sport Hybrid SH-AWD set for LA debut

Acura has announced that it will be showing the production version of the RLX Sport Hybrid SH-AWD at the 2013 Los Angeles Auto Show. You'll recall that the standard 3.5-liter V6-powered RLX has been on sale for some time, and that our review of Acura's flagship sedan was mixed. On paper, at least, the RLX Sport Hybrid SH-AWD should fare better.
Sporting a similar hybrid powertrain to the one expected to motivate the NSX supercar, the RLX uses a 3.5-liter V6 paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and a trio of electric motors to generate 377 horsepower, net a combined fuel economy of 30 miles per gallon and offer the security and performance of torque-vectoring all-wheel drive.
The RLX will hit the LA stand on November 20. Scroll down for the full press release from Acura.

Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.