KURT NIEBUHR: Back in 2017, I had a chance
to drive the then-all-new Acura NSX,
and I was surprised that I came away
from the whole experience not really
liking the car that much.
Maybe that's because I've been privileged to spend
a not inconsiderable amount of time in an older NSX.
And those cars are just electric,
like you want to drive them all the time.
You look for any excuse you can to just get in the car
and drive it.
And I didn't really have that with the new NSX.
Is it unfair to compare the two?
Not if you name it the same thing.
But there are other reasons why I didn't really
gel with the new NSX.
And most of them centered around the interior,
the infotainment system, its head unit.
There's no interior storage space.
The trunk got hot, like Easy-Bake Oven hot.
Have I mentioned its head unit?
Yeah.
That.
And they were really expensive.
All that seems kind of vague, I'm sure.
And I think it's because I'm having a hard time putting it
into words here.
But I already have.
I rated the car back in 2017.
So let's just use those words here.
Or here.
Now, at the end of our exhaustive rating process,
the Acura NSX scored a 6.9.
To put that into context, its direct competitor, an Audi R8,
that got 8.1.
Even the BMW i8, a quasi-supercar hybrid,
scored a 7.5.
Now, that score might seem a little harsh.
But those numbers are a result of our exhaustive rating
process, and we stand by them.
Acura has worked to solve some of these issues.
They've improved the infotainment system.
They've made the upgraded ELS audio system, navigation,
and proximity sensors as standard equipment.
They've even included heated power seats.
But they've done work to the suspension and the electronics
tuning, the stuff that's going to make the car more
exciting and more fun to drive.
There's a new rear sway bar, a new front sway bar.
They've made the rear hubs stiffer.
They've even worked with Continental, the tire supplier,
to come up with a SportContact 6 as the base tire
because not everybody is going to go for the option tire
because they don't drive on a racetrack every single day.
Speaking of racetracks, Acura claims
this new NSX is two seconds a lap faster around Suzuka
than the old one.
Well, who cares?
What's it like out here?
Has Acura changed my mind about the NSX?
So Acura has made improvements to the infotainment system.
The graphics look a little bit modern.
And it just-- it presents itself better than the last one.
But the response times are still a little bit on the slow side.
There's still a feeling of Honda-ness to the graphics.
It's not bad, but it's your flagship
and it should represent the best of the Acura brand.
Now, that being said, Acura has a really good-looking
infotainment system in their RDX,
but it's not a touchscreen system.
It's got that weird, little concave pad,
which you don't want.
But if they could make the screen a touchscreen,
that would be fantastic.
And that would then force them to redesign
the rest of the center console, including the climate
system, which is an issue.
Being able to redesign the center console area
would allow Acura to make all the climate control
buttons physical.
As it sits right now, it's about half and half.
So you've got basic climate control settings here,
like temperature and on and off and recirc.
But you don't have other basic controls, like the fan speed.
For that, you have to press the climate control button
and then select your fan speed or the way you
want the air blowing on you.
And then you have to push the climate control button,
and it goes back.
It should be all one or all the other.
Having it split like this is not good.
This would be great to redesign, which
means they could do something about this mode selector.
Let's talk about the mode selector for a second.
Why is it so big?
Why is it this big?
What they should do is take this and put it
where Porsche puts it or where a Lamborghini puts
it or Audi puts it.
Put it on the steering wheel right in here, right down here
where you're not going to hit it.
That frees this whole area up for a more efficient use
of space.
And now we can talk about the transmission selector.
I know how this works.
I can figure it out, and it's not a pain in the butt.
But it's not efficient.
It's not.
And there's very limited cargo space inside the car as it is.
So if they shrank this, they put a little gear selector knob,
just something like maybe the new 911-style thing--
it's that big--
that opens it up for more cell phone capacity,
more sunglasses capacity.
This car has a cup holder, but it's in the glove compartment.
And you have to take it out of the glove compartment
and put it here to use it.
Your passenger might not like that.
Unfortunately, Acura really hasn't made any improvements
with regards to interior storage.
There still isn't a lot of place to put even
a small, basic smartphone like this one.
Just kind of got to wedge it into place.
You can put your sunglasses, your wallet, maybe a garage
door opener back here.
But there's really no room.
There aren't even pockets in the doors for a bottle of water.
You can't put a jacket in here.
You can barely put a laptop if you have passenger.
And I know what you're saying.
Well, you have a trunk.
Like, why can't you just put stuff in the trunk?
We're going to get to that.
In the last NSX, the trunk got really hot,
like Easy-Bake Oven hot.
So I want to see if they improved that.
So we're going to take this bag and put it in the trunk,
and we're going to leave it there for the entire shoot.
At the end of the shoot, we're going
to take this digital thermometer and check
the temperature of the bag.
See if they fixed it.
I know all this stuff sounds kind of silly,
but if you're paying 200 large for a car,
it shouldn't have any of these issues.
Now let's go drive it.
So driving fast is all about having feel.
And I know that feel is very subjective.
But if you have the feel, you can push, you can explore,
and you can enjoy the speed.
And that's why you buy a car like the NSX, is speed, right?
The 2017 NSX-- well, it didn't feel like that.
There's the quote.
Of course, all the early reviews of the car in 2017
were positive.
Everybody came back and said, oh, it's amazing, It's great,
the traction, the confidence, everything.
But all those people drove it on a racetrack,
and they drove it on the optional Trofeo tires.
But everything's fun on a racetrack and everything's
going to be fun on Trofeo tires.
You put good tires on a Honda Fit, it's fun on a racetrack.
If you put good tires on an Acura ILX,
it's fun on a racetrack.
Now, to my knowledge, Edmunds was the first set
of reviewers that drove the car on the normal tire--
you know, a tire that has to take
into account stuff like water and lasting
more than 5,000 miles.
And in that situation, the tires and the car just
really didn't work that well together.
I'm not going to say it was slow.
I mean, you could drive the car at 7/10, and 7/10 in this car
is pretty quick.
It's quicker than most anything you can find on the road.
Except, you know, maybe in Los Angeles.
But when you started to push and ask more out of the car,
like you would an NSX, to try and get
more out of that cool, electric front axle,
that's when the NSX should start to distinguish itself
from other cars on the road.
And it really wasn't able to.
Your crystal ball of performance started
to get a little cloudy the faster you went,
and you just didn't really have the faith or the feel
to push it, at least not on a public road.
Carlos Lago put it this way in his test notes
when he tested the car back in 2017--
So, yeah, if you don't like it, you can take it up with Carlos.
But he was right.
The car was this weird combination of pushy and loose.
You'd go into a corner and you'd feel the understeer.
So you'd lift off a little bit, hoping
to get a little bit of rotation, a little bit more grip
on the front, and the electronics
would cause the car to get loose.
And you'd wind up having to countersteer just a little bit
before the electronics came all the way in
and shut down all the fun.
Now, if you wanted to turn everything off, you could.
But on a public road, that's taking some risks
that I'm not really prepared to take.
But I think that's where the NSX really needed to shine.
Cars like the 911, cars like the R8 and even the AMG GT R--
they encourage you to push, and they work
with you to help you go faster.
The NSX from 2017 didn't work that way with you.
Acura really needed to get this right.
So let's put it into sport plus, turn the big knob,
and see if they did.
[ENGINE REVS]
[LAUGHS]
Oh!
Yeah, this is way better than it used to be.
Now, what Acura changed--
and the most important thing you can change are the tires.
And Acura went to Continental, and they developed
a new tire, the SportContact 6.
And it sounds silly to say that just the same manufacturer, two
different tires can transform a car,
but immediately I can notice the change just from the tires.
Other-- oh, yeah!
Other changes they made--
the rear sway bar is different.
The front is, as well.
That helps keep the car--
there's just that much less body roll,
which makes you feel better at these elevated speeds
that we're traveling.
Another change they made-- and this seems really minor--
but they stiffened the rear hubs by 6%.
That's not a lot.
It might not seem like a lot of stuff.
But they also increased the stiffness
of the trailing leg pushins.
I think that's what they're called.
All those are little, tiny changes,
but they all have a knock-on effect to how much
you trust the car, how the car makes you feel.
And I feel much more confident in this car
than I did in the last one.
I want to drive fast.
Oh, man.
Acura also spent some time tuning the drive systems.
They're kind of vague about that.
But I'm going to guess that's a lot of electronic work.
It's very subtle electronic work.
But it's worked.
In the earlier version of the NSX,
that electric front axle with two electric motors
seemed like it was a millisecond ahead
of the mid-engined twin-turbo V6.
You'd ask for some power, it seemed
like the front reacted just a little bit quicker
than the back.
Not anymore.
This seems-- the car is working in unison and--
oh, man.
Sorry, I'm not looking at the camera because I'm, you know,
driving.
[ENGINE REVS]
Yeah, they got it right.
It's right.
It's righter.
Much righter.
The feel through the front end is better.
The throttle response somehow feels slightly better.
Oh, it feels like a 911.
The front feels light and fast.
[SHIFTS GEARS]
That sound.
That intake hog.
Yeah, everything is just better.
Everything is better.
But because we're in an NSX, we're also in a hybrid.
So I'm going to turn the big knob
and put us into quiet mode.
And it's important to keep this part of the NSX's personality
in mind.
This is still a hybrid.
This drives like a really nice Prius.
The transition from electric drive to gasoline drive
is so subtle, I find myself driving on the freeway
not even realizing that it's switched over.
It rides well.
It's comfortable.
It's still firm.
You're not in a luxury car.
There's not a lot of suspension travel.
But it can be supple, and it rounds off bigger bumps.
What the NSX was always capable of
is transitioning from electric and fuel-efficient
transportation to all-out, canyon-carving murderer.
Acura has kept the easy-to-drive hybrid bit,
and they've sharpened the ax of the canyon murderer.
So it's better.
Acura made the NSX better.
And it's better to drive when it counts, when you're pushing it.
That's the way this car should be.
And because it's better, it's given me
a new appreciation for all the really interesting tech
that they've crammed into this little car.
Think about it.
It has three electric motors, two of which
are on the front axle.
Each front wheel gets its own electric motor.
That's real torque vectoring.
It has a mid-mounted V6 engine with two turbo chargers.
It's brake by wire.
It's a hybrid.
And the seats are really genuinely comfortable.
Now, its base price is 157,000 bucks.
And that is spot-on for this car.
But as you see the one parked right here, that's $194,000.
Now, most of those options are cosmetic,
but that still puts it in some pretty extreme territory.
That's Audi R8 territory.
That's upcoming Porsche Turbo territory.
That's McLaren 570S territory.
But the Acura NSX has one thing that those cars don't have,
and that's all the technology that's in this.
That technology, when performance
is relatively similar across all of those cars,
that can sway some buyers.
Are you swayed?
That's it, right?
CREW: What about the bag in the trunk?
KURT NIEBUHR: Oh, yeah.
Hand me the thermometer.
Yes, thank you.
Let's go.
Where's that?
There we go.
They fixed it.
It's under 80 degrees.
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