2017 Acura Mdx Sport Hybrid Advance on 2040-cars

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2017 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year entries announced

Over 40 vehicles will compete for the 2017 North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year awards. If that name looks a little strange, it's because the competition added a third category. In years past, pickup trucks, crossovers, SUVs, commercial vans, and minivans competed for the same award. That's why there were occasionally weird comparisons, like last year's competition between the Volvo XC90 and Nissan Titan XD. The new format separates pickups and commercial vans into the truck contest and CUVs, SUVs, and minivans into the utility competition. A complete list of eligible vehicles is below, but here are a few highlights. For one, the entire list of entries has a luxurious lean. Of the 43 vehicles, nearly half of them are from premium brands. There are two eligible Bentleys – the Bentayga and Mulsanne – the Rolls-Royce Dawn, Jaguar F-Pace, Audi Q7, and the Mercedes-Benz GLS-, E-, and S-Class Maybach. The performance ranks are lofty, too, with the Audi R8, Acura NSX, Alfa Romeo Giulia, Mercedes SL- and SLC-Class, Porsche 718, and F-150 Raptor. The mainstream entries are just as comprehensive. From the Chrysler Pacifica to the Chevrolet Cruze to the Fiat 124 Spider to the Mitsubishi Mirage, NACTOY has covered an enormous price range with this year's contestants. Of course, these are only the eligible vehicles. They'll need to run through three rounds of judging, starting in September at NACTOY's traditional Hell, MI, test drive. The Canadian and American journalists involved in the judging will announce this year's nine finalists – three in each category – on December 6. Cars Acura NSX Alfa Romeo Giulia Audi A4 Audi R8 Bentley Mulsanne Buick Cascada Buick LaCrosse Cadillac CT6 Chevrolet Bolt Chevrolet Cruze Fiat 124 Genesis G90 Hyundai Elantra Infiniti Q60 Jaguar XE Kia Cadenza Lincoln Continental Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan Mercedes-Benz S550 Maybach Mercedes-Benz SL-Class Mercedes-Benz SLC-Class Mini Clubman Mitsubishi Mirage/G4 Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman Rolls-Royce Dawn Toyota Prius Prime Volvo S90 SUVs Audi Q7 Bentley Bentayga Buick Envision Cadillac XT5 Chrysler Pacifica GMC Acadia Infiniti QX30 Kia Sportage Mercedes-Benz GLS-Class Jaguar F-Pace Mazda CX-9 Nissan Armada Trucks Ford F-Series Super Duty pickups Ford F-150 Raptor Honda Ridgeline Nissan Titan half-ton Related Video: Featured Gallery Bentley Bentayga View 23 Photos News Source: Automotive News - sub.

Daily Driver: 2016 Acura RLX Sport Hybird

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers that drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2016 Acura RLX Sport Hybrid, reviewed by Seyth Miersma. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. And don't forget to watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00]Hi y'all. This is Seyth with Autoblog. I am driving the 2016 Acura RLX Sport Hybrid SH All-Wheel Drive, or SH-AWD, as we like to call it. Any way you slice it the name is a mouthful. This version of the RLX, the hybrid, incorporates an all-wheel drive system that includes three electric motors: one up front, two in the rear turning the rear wheels in [00:00:30]addition to the 3.5-liter gasoline engine. Now, that powertrain effectively makes it the performance version, hence the sport, of the RLX line. It's got a total system output of 377 horsepower, and 341 pound feet of torque so there's plenty of go juice in this hybrid. Clearly Honda had some performance in mind when they were putting this system together in addition to the sort of typical hybrid good gas mileage. It's rated at 28 MPG in the city, and 32 on the highway. [00:01:00]I've been seeing around 28 in two days worth of driving so far, and playing around with it. It's not the fuel-sipper that you're going to buy ... not a car that you're buying for economy exclusively. The good news is that when you really get into it, the car does feel quite quick. You still have that electric torque so you're really getting a lot of torque push from the rear wheels. You really do feel like kind of a performance all-wheel drive experience [00:01:30]more than a front-wheel drive experience like you get in the typical RLX. Now, it's not a sports sedan. It's pretty squishy. There's not much steering feel. Really throwing it from bend to bend isn't that rewarding. The car that I'm driving today is loaded out to around $67,000. I think you can spend a little bit more than that if you really try, but it kind of is at the top end of the RLX range. I feel like everything does come together kind of neatly. I don't think that this interior is going to feel very old in a couple of years. I think it'll age pretty well because it's a [00:02:00]conservative design frankly. The downside is that, unlike some cars, particularly a lot of the new Mercedes coming out right now, nobody's going to sit down in this RLX and think, "Wow.

No S660 for US, but Honda wants sporty cars

Honda, best known lately for being a mainstream player rather than the brand that brought us the CRX Si, NSX, Integra Type-R, and S2000, apparently wants to builds sporty cars for the US again. With that in mind (or not), Honda has ruled out bringing the tiny, sporty S660 roadster across the Pacific. "I wouldn't put my chips on [the S660]," American Honda Executive Vice President John Mendel told Automotive News. At nearly 11.1 feet long, the S660 slots in between the 12.8-foot Mazda MX-5 Miata and the 8.8-foot Smart ForTwo. Yet Mendel says the tiny two-seater wouldn't work here. "When the practicalities of the market come in, and the car only so big, that might not be the best car for the US market," Mendel said. "It might be better for India or China or somewhere else." Honda is considering its options here in the US, though. As AN reports, after his takeover earlier this year, new CEO Takahiro Hachigo promised more sporting models, like the new, US-bound, 300-horsepower Civic Type R. And while it's no secret that Honda has filed patent drawings for a mid-engine model, Mendel offered little to indicate that it'd become a reality. Calling the project from Honda's Silicon Valley research and design facility a "design study," Mendel wouldn't answer AN when it asked whether this new model was successor to the S2000 or a more attainable, lower-powered NSX. He did, however, say his company was getting pressure from dealers over the lack of verve in the company's lineup. "They want anything in the sports car world," Mendel told AN. "They're going, 'Gimme a sports car.' They want a retractable hardtop; they want a high-horsepower $20,000 sports car. Because that's the nature of what they do." There you are, Honda. Your dealers want it, which means your consumers are probably are asking for it, and your CEO wants it, too. Make something happen.