If there’s one guarantee in life, it’s compromise. We can’t always get what we want, but sometimes the closest affordable alternative does the trick. For example, what if you want something a little bit nicer than a mainstream Toyota Corolla Cross or Subaru Crosstrek, but you can’t quite stretch to a loaded BMW X1 or Mercedes-Benz GLA? Well, this might be the answer. The 2025 Acura ADX hopes that luxury subcompact crossover shoppers will be willing to sacrifice a bit of power to get the features and price they want, and you know what? It just might work.
Straight out of the gate, the Acura ADX rides on the same 104.5-inch wheelbase as the Honda HR-V and features nigh-on the same width and height, so it wouldn’t be surprising if that’s where its bones come from. However, Acura’s done a good job at disguising where it got the platform from. Instead of just pasting on new fascias, Acura went to great lengths to style the ADX, even going with a different greenhouse than the HR-V. That’s costly stuff, but it works. The ADX looks like an Acura through and through, from the lighting to the scalloping on the lower doors to the glass.
Mind you, there is something weird here that we can’t just not mention — the Acura ADX is available with a mid-hatch spoiler. Yes, exactly like the ones you used to see in tuner magazines circa 2002. Basically, it’s a second spoiler that sits beneath the rear window, and Acura doesn’t appear to have paint-matched it either, instead just going with glossy black. While the color contrast is harder to abide by, I welcome anything Hot Import Nights-like being available straight out of the dealership. Where else are you going to find this sort of bravery without a complementary Tapout t-shirt?
Moving inside, the cabin of the ADX looks perfectly cromulent for its segment and price point. Sure, the climate control interface is borrowed from a Honda model, but a new dashboard, liberal splashes of contrasting trim, and a little more brightwork add some visual punch, especially with the box for red upholstery ticked, or the one for white-and-blue seats. Lots of stitched textiles elevate the mood, although we could probably do without the shiny black trim on the center console.
The biggest note inside the cabin? Hey, no Acura-trademark trackpad! Yep, the entire infotainment system’s a nine-inch touchscreen, and for typical CarPlay and Android Auto use, that beats a trackpad any day of the week. Sure, the screen itself and the volume knob look cribbed from a Honda, but if you’re going to borrow from the parts bin, borrow the good stuff, right?
Of course, with the ADX being the fancy subcompact crossover, don’t expect it to be light on equipment. Stroll up the trim level walk, and you can get some genuinely desirable features on this little crossover. We’re talking about stuff like a panoramic moonroof, ventilated front seats, a 360-degree parking camera system, a 15-speaker Bang & Olufsen audio system, and a power tailgate that’ll just automatically close if you absent-mindedly walk away. In the luxury subcompact crossover space, lots of models still don’t offer all those toys, which means Acura’s done its homework here.
So, lots of toys, a practical platform, and styling that’s all Acura is all good stuff, but it begs a question: Where did Acura compromise on the ADX? It’s under the hood, where you’ll find a 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine pumping out 190 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 179 lb.-ft. of torque from 1,700 rpm to 5,000 rpm. Admittedly, those aren’t brilliant numbers compared to the competition, although we don’t know the curb weight of the ADX just yet, so it’s most probable that acceleration will be theoretically fine. The only transmission choice is a CVT, but both front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive are available. Given how most of these things will just be tooling around urban and suburban areas, how much power do you really need, anyway? This isn’t a performance car, so compromising on output is probably the best way to save costs.
Ah yes, costs. While we don’t know exactly what the 2025 Acura ADX will cost, the brand claims a starting price “in the mid-$30,000s.” Considering the BMW X1, Mercedes-Benz GLA, and Audi Q3 all start in the low-to-mid 40s including freight, Acura might be onto something here. We’ll know for sure in the new year, as the ADX is set to roll into showrooms early in 2025. On the face of things, the Acura ADX seems to tick all the right boxes save for power, but given how nothing in this segment is a sports sedan, that compromise might be the right one. Needless to say, we can’t wait to find out for sure.
(Photo credits: Acura)
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I was shopping an HRV for my daughter and she was horrified by the catfish mouth/grill of it. She’s already informed me she’d like an ADX in white, please. 😐
Acura seems to be putting out some well placed, well thought out options in the entry level luxury field. Now they just need to do a TLX wagon and make it available with a Type-S trim and a hybrid powertrain option.
Yeah I guess it’s nice.. oh, 1.5 turbo.. never mind.
Looks pretty good everything considered. If you can drive it off the lot for under 40K, these may sell pretty well.
A fancy Acura is obviously a Honda, as such there is implied value and reliability baked in. Would actually consider one of the vs Mazda or Toyota if in the market.
I like my Acura, and that Apex Blue Pearl looks damn sharp.
Seems nice enough. I don’t like the black painted exterior trim, please just paint it all the same color if you’re painting it anyway. What I’m really not looking forward to are all the “ADX doubles Integra sales!” headlines in a few months…
The painted trim is weird looking. I know its an Acura so its supposed to be “nicer” than the Honda its based on, but I feel black cladding would have been better. The gloss is really throwing me off.
Mazda kind of did the same thing with the CX5 last year I think on the top trim levels but they painted it to match the body color and to me, it just throws off the whole shape of the vehicle. Nothing to break up the color. I know cladding gets knocked and can be over done/out of place, but on that car at least it kind of worked
Yeah agree, if your going to paint the cladding just make it all body color or don’t paint it.
you can get black interior trim/ceiling!! I’m sold on this car just for that fact alone. way too many cars are greige ceiling only these days!
Again, another, “ho-hum” review, which is what it deserves, and I’m sure it is the minimum required “excitement” in a review required by the auto company in order for this site to get more cars to review. I get it, it’s the business model.
But, another meh” from me should I be looking for a replacement vehicle, which would be more likely for my wife and I’d drive her hand-me-down hybrid.
I think this site needs to review more 3-year-old EVs, so we know whether to buy them at their more reasonable prices.
This is just an announcement post that this vehicle exists. It’s not a review. The car was only revealed today.
Nope.
Wife owns a Lexus UX 250h. The backseats are literally unusable unless someone at 5’5″ is sitting in the front. I mean, there is absolutely zero leg room in the back if the seats are pushed back in the front. NONE. The front seats touch the rear seats. Might as well be a 2 seater. On top of that, there is very little storage room. The HR-V was much the same that we test drove. Just buy the sedan or a nice wagon somewhere instead of this.
Wife had a hrv, and i felt it was enough when I’ve had to sit in the back, I’m 5’10”
Rear trunk space though, I’ll admit could be a bit better
I think they sacrificed some trunk room in the HR-V to make the back seat more livable, honestly. How does a car sacrifice BOTH, LEXUS?!
The miracle, err, curse of design and engineering committees..
Although I’m sure the platform they picked did wonders for screwing certain things
The UX is also incredibly unattractive to my eye. I like the idea, but it needs to look better for my money.
I like this package except for the drivetrain. I don’t want to be feeding this motor premium fuel for what is essentially a transportation appliance with a bow tie.
Yeah I want anything but black leather (or pleather) interior, but this white or what Acura currently calls “orchid” is not it either. Brown, why doesn’t everyone offer brown? Second place is tan. Third is gray. Red or blue works on the right car.
It’s like the ILX all over again. No clear advantages over a regular Honda.
Significantly better stereo, more comfort features, and more interior and exterior color combos might be enough.
They really need other powertrain options… A twin turbo v6 with a DCT oughta do the trick.
Integra Type S drivetrain should fit.
They had an r engine in em, which is about the same size as the k series, so totally should be doable
ADX Florence
Doesn’t tick the power box. Doesn’t tick the efficiency box. Doesn’t really even seem to tick the luxury box– that interior looks like any other mass market CUV to me. I don’t get it.
Nothing screams sporty luxury like an anemic 4banger and cvt combo. Looks pretty nice though
Again, if this was a hybrid that delivered CR-V Hybrid like fuel economy in a nicer package than a CR-V, maybe it’d be worth checking out.
As-is, it isn’t delivering performance or fuel economy. So why am I paying a premium for it?
To be fair the Integra gets mid 30s combined with this same powertrain. It’s not quite hybrid level efficiency but it’s way better than any of its ICE competition.
There is a not-insignificant quality difference in interiors from Acura to Honda. It’s not really about performance/economy with this thing.
Really I think that’s where the majority of the selling factor is in Acuras – they’re just nice places to spend time. They keep what works from the Hondas they’re based on, e.g., infotainment, climate controls, but add additional features and higher-quality materials in general. This would be a perfect car for somebody with a longer commute who wants luxo-SUV equipment but doesn’t want the reduced efficiency and higher price tag of an MDX or something. A hybrid option would definitely be ideal, though, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Honda was working on adding something like that to this platform.
I get that, but it like they picked the least interesting drive train to differentiate it. If it is supposed to be a “nicer” transportation appliance, than give me a hybrid. If it is supposed to be sporty, give me more power.
I say that as someone who is potentially squarely in the target market. I like the look of modern Acuras, I know the interior should be nicer than a CR-V, the ELS stereo is supposed to be great, but I also do not want to go back to mediocre fuel economy.
Drivetrain-wise, this is a significant upgrade from the NA 2.0 that’s standard with the HR-V. I can only assume that a hybridized HR-V platform is currently under development, as Honda would have to be daft to not go that route. I agree that it would’ve been ideal for this to be introduced with a hybrid powertrain, but I’m sure it’ll sell extremely well regardless.
The RDX is already the Acura CR-V. It is silly they don’t offer the RDX in hybrid form, yet. But I’d give it a year to see if the CR-V hybrid take rate is high enough to port it over to the Acura lineup. Likewise with the Accord/TLX.
I just can’t get into this brand or their overstyled and overpriced Hondas. At. All. Maybe the overly edited, quick cut commercials will do the trick when they start rolling out in the coming months.
I know it’s horses for courses, but you’re missing out. They’re excellent cars.
The back takes on a sort of Lexus UX effect to me in some angles? but I like it. Ventilated seats and rear HVAC vents make me hopeful that the Integra might add those at a facelift too.
You have to step up to the top Advance to get remote start. Why does Acura do this, when an equivalent Honda puts remote start usually only one up from the base model? A $28k HR-V has it.
Other than that the base mostly picks up where the top HR-V leaves off – and it leaves off a lot for the price, like a center rear armrest. Hopefully a few features still trickle into the HR-V at its facelift, which will I would think would bring the hybrid too.
Pricewise the ADX may have to contend with the CR-V, which does offer the choice of the 1.5T or the hybrid. Extra space of the CR-V, or gadgets like the pano roof and ventilated seats?
I expect a lot of reviews to mention the turbo CX-30 in comparison, which is about where this will start. A turbo CX-5 is probably similar in content dollar for dollar and has the power advantage, but that is eventually getting replaced.
I think this, like pretty much all current Acuras, looks great. The CVT/reduced power over the Integra are definite bummers, but with the AWD option ticked it’s probably going to be slightly faster. The HRV is also an enormously practical car, with adequate back seat space (which isn’t a guarantee in this class) and a lot of cargo space. Even with the Acura sexiness likely eating into some of that this should still be an incredibly usable car.
With all that being said, the elephant in the room is the lack of a hybrid option. Honda has an excellent hybrid powertrain that already works with this platform, and it offers improved fuel economy AND acceleration over the 1.5 liter. I’m genuinely not sure what the downside of offering it in this and the Integra would be unless they’re at manufacturing capacity for it and would rather leave it to their higher volume vehicles.
Now that I’ve typed it all out I’m pretty sure that’s it. They’ll sell every Civic, CRV, and Accord hybrid they put on lots and maybe they think they can woo more environmentally conscious buyers with the crazy leases on the abomination that is the ZDX. But anyway, as I’ve said several times…I would buy an Integra with the Civic’s hybrid system tomorrow if it was available. I’d look at this as well.
The big plus to going Acura or Lexus in this crowded and often forgettable class of cars is resale value and longevity. The equivalent German compact luxury crossover will be lucky to make it to 100k miles and will be worth like $20 in 5 years. You could conceivably keep this or a Lexus UX for 10 years or more and it’ll still be worth 15-20 grand when you’re done with it.
If you’re leasing a new car every 3 years the German offerings are probably going to be a lot more fun and draw much more attention…but if you’re the rare person looking to buy and keep in this class you’d be nuts not to go Japanese. They’re significantly better long term bets.
The lack of hybrid offerings in the Acura lineup is baffling. I know Honda isn’t Toyota sized but they’ve already developed the hybrid drivetrains, putting them in as many models as possible to recoup costs should be a no brainer.
I think it does come down to where they are chasing volume. They aimed for a roughly 50% model mix on Accord and CR-V of hybrids. Through September of this year, the CR-V hybrid has outsold the entire Acura brand’s sales last year.
The handful of sales from an Acura hybrid won’t make up for the volume they need to chase – assuming the next RAV4 follows the Camry in going hybrid-only, they need every one of those powertrains for CR-Vs. And Hondas run more expensive than most Toyotas as it stands.
We don’t even get the hybrid version of the HR-V yet, but assuming that’s next, I think that will make more sense than an ADX hybrid off the bat. But that all may depend on production as our HR-V is built in Mexico, I assume the ADX will be the same, and I don’t think that plant produces any hybrid models at this point.
That’s the only thing I can think of as a meaningful reason as well. That being said, Acura might get significantly more sales if they had hybrid offerings. Most of the new Lexii I see on the road are the hybrid offerings. I think the market is there, but I can see Honda/Acura hesitating due to supply issues.
my guess on the limited hybrid offerings is the limited battery production capacity. Honda is trying to sell EVs so the majority of their lithium ion batteries are going into those.
This article kind of makes me think that, aside from the Civic R and the Accord, CR-V, and Civic hybrids, Honda doesn’t really provide a compelling powertrain. This thing seems like it’ll be miserable to get hustling
This engine in the Civic is perfectly fine, and I doubt the ADX weighs enough to make it a slog to move around.
The CVT Integra hits 60 in about 7 seconds. This will be slightly heavier, but the AWD will help it off the line. I imagine it’ll be about as quick. I personally wouldn’t consider that sluggish.