Episode 425: 2025 Lucid Air, 2025 Acura ADX

Hello and welcome to the Unnamed Automotive Podcast. My name is Sammy Hatch, a sad and

with me as always is my good friend and fellow automotive journalist, Benjamin Hunting. Say

hi to the people, Ben. Greetings, post-Halloween listeners.

Greetings to everyone. If this is the first time you're listening to our podcast, thank

you. Thank you for trying something new. Ben and I really appreciate it and I'm going

to reiterate, this podcast that you're listening to features not one, but two automotive journalists.

But more important than that, we're really good friends, right, Ben?

Friendship is important.

I think it's the most important element of any podcast.

Uh, pass on that.

I think podcasts where people don't have a friendly banter. That's a problem, man.

What if it was podcasts between two robots and they were discussing like exclusively

robot issues and neither of the robots have been programmed to understand friendship?

Yeah, I don't think that would work. I think that's the problem with that.

No, I think that wouldn't work. Actually, I remember there being a whole thing about

a, a pair of, um, it's about to get real weird, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. It was like, I think they were like Google homes that they programmed to

talk to one another in a way and they just made no conversation. I can't remember what

it was for. It's like a knockoff on waiting for Godot in a way.

Now I'm just sad.

Um, anyway, thinking about consumer products, trying to connect with other consumer products.

That's what they're trying to do, the internet of things.

Imagine if all the shoes in your closet were trying to be friendly with each other instead

of just, you know, unable to make a connection with other shoes.

No, but shoes, they don't need to have another connection. They've already got a built-in

connection with the other pair, the other size.

Shoes, shoes, at least they have souls, Sammy.

Yeah, that's a, that's true. That is the very important message that Ben wants us to

all take away from today's episode, but I want you to think about some of the publications

that he's recently written for. Ben, plug him.

Okay, you can find my work at Motor Trend at Hagerty at driving.ca and in the National

Post newspaper, it seems.

And you can find my work at driving.ca and autotrader.ca. Ben, we've got some cars to

talk about this week. I think cars that we've never spoken about before, which is one of

my favorite types of episode. This is like the like inaugural reviews of certain vehicles.

Inaugural reviews. I guess that's one way of putting it. For everything, there is a

first time and for me, that became the first time with a Lucid product over the past week.

I drove the 2025 Lucid Air Touring. Sammy, this is an unusual vehicle because guess what?

It's a sedan.

Yeah, very important to talk about. Yeah.

Not an SUV. Lucid led to Lucid, like Genesis many years ago, first came to market with

a four-door car instead of a sport utility vehicle like everyone else. And Genesis was

able to overcome that and make an impact regardless of the fact that the segment they were targeting

was less popular than it had once been. Lucid is, I think, a bit of a special case because

they're a boutique automaker. This is a company that isn't really aimed at volume. They're

trying to sell a high-end electric vehicle and they're relying on the tech specs of the car,

the styling of the vehicle and the overall experience, I think, more than the segment.

Now, that being said, there is an SUV that has finally made it to the market, the Lucid gravity.

I have not driven it. I've ran into them for the first time at the dealership where I picked up

this car. They just, just, just arrived and that will, I think, give Lucid the potential to maybe

do a bit more volume than they're used to. But I think it's really fascinating that they led with

the air. The air is, I mean, I've never really questioned the name air. Sammy, what do you think

of that name? Well, the more you keep saying the air and air and I drove the air, the less I'm like,

I'm getting, I'm getting it. Do you think Nike sued them?

No, I don't think so. They should probably. Do you think Michael Jordan sued them?

Do you think Michael Jordan knows the Lucid air exists? I bet you got a free one.

Do you think that's enough to like, he's a competitive guy? I think he'll,

I think he'll take a free Lucid air. He's currently suing NASCAR. Yeah, I know that. I remember that.

So yeah. So are you in or are you out on this name? On the name? Yeah.

Yeah, I'm in. Okay. As long as you don't have to say it, it's great. It's a great name.

Follow-up question. Did you know that they put a bear sticker on the front fender?

When you say bear, what do you mean? I mean, what does that mean? Is that a problem to ask? What do

you mean? I mean, I mean the, the large, hairy, carnivorous, omnivorous mammal.

They put a sticker on your car or? Each fender, it has a, like the cal, because they're from

California, right? So they have the bears, their symbols, like the state animal of California.

I'm looking this up. I don't believe you. I think you got, I think you got vandalized.

No, bear vandalism, perfectly symmetrical on both fenders. I mean, it's not impossible,

but it seems unlikely. Is this something that started doing recently? I'm looking at pictures

of them. I can't find the bear anyway. I can't tell you. Maybe it's for the Canadian market.

All I can say is my car was a beautiful burgundy with two bears, one on one side,

one on the other. As someone who previously owned a Subaru that had a Sasquatch on it.

Yeah. A Sasquatch badge. I can get behind this.

I want to talk about this design. This design is actually kind of interesting to me,

because from what I understand, the designer of the air, don't laugh. The designer of the air

is a dude named Derek Jenkins, who was behind the FD, not FD, what's it called?

I don't know what you're talking about. You're going to give me more than that.

The fourth gen, ND, sorry, ND Mazda MX5. Because the FD is a vehicle.

And that's a really, I think that's a really cool looking car, with the exception of the

target-top version of it. And it's way bigger, though, than the Lucid.

This is like, the Lucid is enormous. This is a very, this is a full-size sedan.

It's roughly, Sam and I were doing, crunching some numbers before the podcast, because it's

nothing we'd love more than doing that. And it's... Well, no, I really love getting the

numbers before the podcast and then immediately forgetting them. And immediately closing all my

tabs. Tabula Raza for Sammy every podcast. I should have more physical papers when I'm doing this.

No, I think that you'd be buried under an avalanche of notes.

This vehicle is within a half-inch of wheelbase of an i5, which is BMW's also EV.

They are also very close in price. The Lucid Air starts at 70 grand US. The model I drove was

the Touring. The difference is two motors, so you get all-wheel drive and considerably more

horsepower. You're looking at 430 horsepower in the base 70 grand version and 620 in the car that

I drove. The reason I mention these two models is because the i5 starts around 70,000, or sorry,

the two... The all-wheel drive version starts around 70,000. So this is... You're paying a

nine grand premium over an i5 to get into an all-wheel drive version that has considerably

more power. The i5 itself is only about 400 horsepower. That's a really big difference. Now,

it's not unusual for this kind of thing to be the case. This is a company that is a startup in a lot

of ways. They have to attract attention. They have to go the extra mile. Again, if we reference

Genesis, very similar idea in terms of bringing more for the customer for maybe just a small amount

more money or maybe a bit of a bargain. The car itself, I think, looks really good. It's hard to

talk about design in a visual medium like podcast, but it's aerodynamic without being a caricature

of aerodynamics. It's not the blob of an EQS. Exactly. It's got personality. It's got a sloping

roofline. It's got a big wide front end with a huge light that goes across it at night. I want to

say these are the best headlights I've ever used on a production vehicle, ever. Period,

point, final, fantastic headlights. Where I live, it gets real dark. What happened? What do you mean?

You need to explain what makes these... I know it's impossible to explain. I could see down the road.

So I'm currently... Are those high beams or low beams? Both are good, but the high beams are just

amazing. Where I live, there's a ton of deer. It's something I think about a lot now at night

because the clocks just went back and it started all the time and everyone's sad and no one has

any vitamin D. You need these giant headlights to just get through life. I was really impressed.

Really, really, really good. Anyway, back to the design of the car. It has a frunk up front.

In the back, it has a trunk, but not a traditional trunk. I want to say that you look at the roof

line of this car and you think this would be a perfect hatchback. It's not a hatchback, unfortunately,

but it has a... It opens almost the full width of the rear, including the taillights. So you have

this huge... The lip of the trunk is very wide. It pops up and then you slide things in like a

parcel shelf. It's not super deep, but it's deep enough. I thought that was a unique way to incorporate

the styling they wanted and the mechanism that they wanted in the car. Continuing the styling,

inside, it's somewhat simple. We've all been trained at this point to get into an electric

luxury car and be overwhelmed by either the number of screens or the size of the screens.

In this respect, this is not what Lucid has done. They have a screen. Obviously,

it's more affordable to use screens instead of buttons. That's why car companies do it,

especially boutique car companies like Lucid. It's helped some a lot production-wise,

but they didn't really overdo it with this vehicle. There's a screen in front of the driver.

It's kind of a, I don't know, rectangular shape with curved on either side that on one side,

it's divided into three panels. One side is controls for things like the windshield wipers,

the headlights, opening up the the the front, that kind of thing like controls that you would

use on a regular basis. Directly in front of you, the segment is for showing the map

or the speedometer or some combination thereof. It's your gauge cluster. Then to the right,

you have a pretty small infotainment screen. Small to the point where when I had Android Auto

loaded up on it, it was a small square inside a larger square. It doesn't run full edge-to-edge,

so it kind of drives home the fact that it's smaller. And how did you feel about the idea that

this startup, usually like you said, we're trained to believe that a startup and new EV is really

going to be pushing the technology as far as they can. You got to let me finish because

there's another screen I haven't talked about yet. The center console, there's a large tablet,

an angled tablet, and that is where the vast majority of vehicle functions are you interact with.

There are some buttons for things like temperature and whatnot, from what I remember. On the steering

wheel, there's some rollers for volume, for changing the cruise control speeds, for moving

through media, that kind of thing. But there's really this large tablet that has all the drive

modes. It has all of your, the vast majority of your climate control functions, all the settings

for the vehicle, that kind of thing. It is not always easy to get to what you want to get to.

The seat controls are completely on the screen. The steering wheel stuff is on the screen.

The mirrors are on the screen. No thanks. It saves them to a profile. I had the profile,

most of the time, the profile loaded no problem. At one time, I got in the car and it felt like it

loaded a different profile and I had to reload everything. Now, I'm not going to ding the car

for this because when you have a media vehicle, sometimes they have like a universal profile

and it's used across multiple cars and you get into it and someone has made a change somewhere

else and it propagates to your car. This happens to me a lot in Toyotas, where the entire language

of the car switches to French, even though I've already had it in English. And I think it's a

login issue. So I can't say for certain that that's what's happening with this. But I will say that

some of the menus are a little too buried for things that I would want to use

on a regular basis. And that was somewhat frustrating. But going back to the styling

inside the Lucid Air, it does feel restrained. Materials, they look good, but there's not a

lot of detail. It is a lot of smooth surfaces. It is a lot of curves. It is, I guess, austere

would maybe be the word. It didn't feel plush. I am currently driving a Genesis GV70 Electric,

whose interior is insane. It just looks fantastic from every angle and it costs much less than the

Lucid Air. That was surprising to me. That is huge. That's a really big, that's important to point out.

So where are they making their impact? A new company needs to come in and try to

differentiate itself from the traditional and legacy automakers. How are they doing that?

Because these things don't sound like, they don't sound like negative, but they don't sound like

positive either. I will get to that in one second. I want to wrap up the infotainment thing quickly.

There's one other aspect of the experience of getting in and out of a Lucid that I didn't

really jive with. That's the fact that as you approach the car, it turns on. Once you get in

the car, let's say you're listening to a podcast, it's already playing. You've already missed the

first 10 seconds. Yeah, at least, because it turns on from a fair distance away. I could not figure

out how to change that setting inside the car. If there was a way where I could just be like,

don't turn the car on until the door is closed or something like that. I couldn't make that happen.

Maybe it's possible. The flip side of that is it automatically turns off as well. But

on a lot of cars that do the automatic on off thing, like all the GM, Altium EVs,

when you close the door, it turns off. You close done with this car, you close the door,

and you have to keep walking away from it. And at some point it turns off. So again,

you're losing like another 30 to seconds, 45 seconds of whatever you were listening to.

Unless you go in your pocket and push the actual lock button. So again, a little bit

frustrating, a little bit weird. I've got to go back in my notes, but I feel like BMWs,

not their EVs, but even their gas cars, you had to turn them off twice. You had to hit the

power button twice sometimes to make sure that they're really off. But that's a car that has

a power button. This doesn't have one. So you're really locked into what they're asking you to do.

So to ask you a question about how they set themselves apart, there's many different versions

of the Lucid, sorry, the Lucid air. There's some that have like 1200 horsepower, 800 horsepower,

mine had 600 is a 400 horsepower one. The way they're separating themselves is with performance.

They advertise some pretty crazy numbers like zero to 60 of three seconds. Mine was 3.4 seconds.

And I believe it. It was extremely quick. But when you're looking at range, they also advertise

really high range, 512 miles of driving. 431 was the number that's attached to mine.

That's a pretty impressive number. That's really good. In the real world, I did not see that.

So when I got into the car, it showed me with a full battery, 578 kilometers of range,

which is 359 miles. Now that is 50 miles less. Actually, that's 70 miles less than the advertised

431. I want to say it was cold when I drove the car, but not freezing cold. Again, kind of like

we were talking about the week before, I was around like, I don't know, 40 degrees between 40

and 50 degrees Fahrenheit. So like between 10 and 20 degrees or 10 and 15 degrees, I would say Celsius.

There should be some impact, but not a large impact on range. Then when I looked at my actual

performance, when I looked at the actual efficiency numbers, it was showing me 4 kilometers per

kilowatt hour, which is like roughly 2. something miles per kilowatt hour. With a 92 kilowatt hour

battery, that should work out to 368 kilometers, which is only 228 miles. Yeah, not very good at

all. So I don't know what's going on here. I was almost always, there are three driving modes

with different levels of performance. I was almost always driving in smooth mode,

which is considered the eco mode. Yeah, that's the normal, that would be the average mode.

So I wasn't romping on the accelerator all the time. It was, I was very surprised by that because

I was prepared to be blown away by the range of the lucid because a lot of testing has shown that

the range is really, really good. So I don't know if there's something to do with the weather that

particularly affects the lucid air. I'm assuming it has a heat pump and everything.

It's just, it was just a little strange. In terms of power, it felt very,

very fast. 620 horsepower. It felt like it was present and accounted for very quick.

Is it faster than an i5 m60? I don't know. Hard to say.

Look, does it need to be? We keep asking this question every time we pick up one of these

fast cars, three seconds, anything with a three or even four in terms of zero to 60 sprint.

Sure. I mean, the price difference between the vehicles, the BMW is $5,000 more. I'm just trying

to situate it within its competitive set. I thought the performance was great. I thought

it was very comfortable. Smooth mode wasn't lying. When you say comfortable, you mean in terms of

ride quality? Yeah, in terms of ride quality. In terms of high performance, this is a big car.

This is not a car that you would take to a racetrack. In a corner and particularly when

braking, you notice the weight. That's true of almost every EV. I'm not really going to ding it

for that. There's a couple of weird things about the driving experience with regards to regenerative

braking. It had multiple regen settings. Basically, there was like a one-pedal setting, then there

was the normal setting, and then there was off. I found the normal setting, it was tough to maintain

a consistent speed. I found that it was really not too aggressive, but definitely aggressive about

kicking in the regen as soon as I pulled my foot off the accelerator. I turned the regenerative

braking to off. It didn't just turn off the braking when you lift your pedal. It turned off

regen when you used the brakes. Have you ever encountered an EV that did that? No, I don't

think so. The power meter on the gauge cluster, when you hit the brakes with the regen off,

does not regenerate any power. That's so weird. So weird. Please change that, Lucid. I don't know.

The only thing I can think of is they have a simpler controller that doesn't have multiple modes,

but that doesn't even make sense compared to the fact that I was given three mode choices.

You can't put a fourth one in there where it's like, brakes are always regen, just no auto

regen. That was strange. The brakes also rumbled a bit. Not vibrating, not shaking,

not feeling like they were defective, just the noise. There was a bit of a rumble from the front

end. I don't know if it was simulated when I was braking, but I hadn't really encountered that in

an EV before either. That's really... It wasn't disconcerting, was it? No, not disconcerting,

just a sound. It almost felt like it was on purpose. Finally, I was talking about the range

earlier. If you romp on the accelerator and get on it really hard, the range drops. You see it

that is also unusual. I think I've seen other cars that do that. It was 11 degrees out,

and I was doing some pulls up to speed, and I lost 30 kilometers of driving just from a couple

pulls on the highway. Anyway. Lesson learned, bud. Lesson learned. Again, what about charging

speeds? Did you experience any good charging out of this thing? I only charged at home on level two.

This is an odd statistic. On the Lucid website, they say it takes 16 minutes to get to 320 kilometers

of range or 200 miles, but it doesn't say where you're starting from. Yeah, just that's the way it is.

That's who it is. I do think it charges pretty fast. I want to say it has a 900 kilowatt

electrical system. I could be wrong about that. Let me double check. I can get some charging

information here. It could recoup 300 miles of range in 21 minutes, too, if you want. I think the

charging is probably pretty quick. Bear in mind, though, these are the same tests that showed it

had the actual 410 miles of highway range, which is not close to what I was seeing.

I liked the car. It had a really big back seat. The reason I mentioned that is because

when I was driving it, I kept thinking Hyundai Ioniq 6 is very stylistically similar to this car.

It's an outlier. It has similar performance. This car felt quicker, but the Ioniq is lighter.

The price difference is substantial between them, like I think like $20,000. In Canada,

it's like $60,000. Then you have to consider there's an Ioniq 6N now, which closes the gap price-wise,

but also closes performance-wise. It was really, really hard, like interior-wise.

I'm not sure there's a huge difference. I'm not sure that... Not just in terms of space,

but in terms of quality. I think that the Hyundai's measure up really well. I think they're less

overtly luxurious, but I did find that the Hyundai's, the overall experience of the software

and the controls was more human and just simpler and easier to use versus the Lucid.

I don't know. It just felt like maybe the software was holding it back a little bit.

The screen size also, the way it truncates the infotainment, why have that giant tablet and

then such a small infotainment screen? Why not have some kind of compromise between those things?

These are nitpicky things. This is a luxury car. It has that crazy advertised range. It has the

crazy speed. It's aimed at a different customer. I was trying to decide if this is something that

I would spend extra money on. I'm not sure that I would. I feel like the human factors in the car

are just different enough from what people are used to with other EVs that it might be

off-putting unless that's the reason you're buying it. That's my major thought process

on this car based on what you've described. It's different for the sake of being different.

Is that enough when establishing a new brand and new automaker compared to?

I think that's going to be fine for a certain number of buyers. They're going to want to be

different. How do you scale that? Exactly. Not only do you scale that, it just feels so

inadequate, not enough. You've got to really deliver when it comes to

something that the competition is not doing. Comfort and speed is there. I think speed is,

like you said, who cares? Yeah, I said that. It's not a reason to pass a certain point. It's no

longer a reason to consider a brand because you will not be taking that EV to a performance

environment. In any case, this vehicle isn't designed to go into performance environment.

It's too large for that. It's bragging rights at a certain point. Eventually,

the people in your circle will be tired of hearing your brags. Exactly.

Then you're going to be left with the car. If you like the car, that's fine. There's a lot

to like here. Let's think I dislike it. I think I was expecting a lot and what I got was good,

but it didn't really elevate for me aside from the speed, the smoothness, and I do like the

styling. Those are the three standout aspects. The pricing in the US is not that crazy. It's

like 70 grand to 79. In Canada, it starts like 112. At 112, you have a lot of options. That's

right. You can choose a lot of different cars and this is one of them. I'm not going to recommend

or disrecommend it. I mean, drive it and see what you think. Be open-minded about it. Don't go in

with expectations like I did and maybe you'll be more attuned to what it has to offer.

There's one more thing that I want to point out. I don't think there's anything to say about this,

but I need to mention this because it gives me a little bit of like,

it gives me a little bit of like, it doesn't make me feel good, but the majority shareholder of

Lucid is the public investment fund from Saudi Arabia with 58% ownership.

There's been a lot of criticism with this investment fund and the Saudi government,

which controls that investment fund. I'm curious to see what the plans are for this. I don't think

they invest in things that they think will not have a success of any kind, but there's clearly

something going on there and they're planning to have an international manufacturing plant in

Saudi Arabia. We'll see if that turns out. I was not aware of any of that. This would be

Saudi Arabia's first foray into like a domestic auto industry. There's always

things, there's always a criticism when it comes to the Saudi. There are certainly ethical concerns

surrounding that regime. I'm not sure if I've talked about this on the podcast, but

I have been offered to travel to events in Saudi Arabia and be paid by the Saudi government

to attend these events in an automotive capacity. That's just not the way we do things.

Yeah, in an automotive capacity and I have said no. It was easy to say no.

So I was not aware of any of this about the Lucid's financial backing. Is that recent?

Did they buy out the original founders or how did that work? It happened in 2022.

Okay, so not that recent. So it's just something that has been on my mind ever since that

announcement. I do think it's cool to see a Middle Eastern EV manufacturing pioneer,

I suppose, or someone working on that. But on the other hand, the Saudi, the government and the

PIF, the public investment fund has been caught in some really hot situations that I'm not

I'm not in love with. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, if we're specifically talking,

Sam and I are both journalists and this is a regime that has executed people for being journalists.

So that's a very real thing. Yeah. So I just wanted to bring that up. It's an interesting

tangled part of Lucid. The other investment groups are also not that great to talk about either, but

I just wanted to point that out as a startup. They do have maybe a little bit of money in their

back pocket from a major government like that. But if we are talking about startups with money,

though, it doesn't always guarantee success because if you look at a company like Scout,

which is essentially being bankrolled by Volkswagen, which has tons of money,

we don't have any products like there's nothing, right? That hasn't happened yet. We've seen

concepts. We haven't seen actual vehicles. Well, not just Scout, Rivian too, right?

No, Rivian has actual products, though. Like what I'm saying is there's no guarantee of success

just because you have a large financial backing. So in the EV world, you never know what's going

to happen. Sam and I often joke that what we really should be doing is creating an EV company,

getting tons of financing from the Canadian government, and then just going bankrupt.

Yeah, the Fisker way of doing it. The Fisker or the Northvolt model. This seems to be a perfect

way to essentially get tons of tax-free cash and then disappear into the night.

Walk away, exactly. We don't have an exit plan yet. We've just talked about the beginning of it,

but not the exit. EVs are like the Ponzi scheme of the automotive world, it seems sometimes.

The other thing is, I probably shouldn't have recorded any of that.

I think the other thing is you sent me a note from TechCrunch in which they've announced that

there's a big change at the executive level at Lucid. They still don't have a permanent CEO,

which is another weird sort of trait of this company. And again, it makes me think about its

future in a critical sense. Who knows what will happen? It's very difficult to run a car company.

I think Lucid is doing a better job than most startups. I think Lucid and Rivian are probably

on par in terms of the amount of pop culture penetration they've had. People know they exist.

That's a great point. That's half the battle. People can't buy a car if they don't know where

to get it. Tesla, they overcame the, I guess, they made it work, but they also had the richest man

banking. Yeah, and they've been around for 15 years at least, right? Yeah, it took a while.

That's a huge head start. These companies are riding on the tail of that and there've been other,

for every Lucid, there's a Fisk or maybe even three Fiskers. That's true. I still see some Fiskers

on the road and I just, I want to salute them. Good for you for trying to not kill that car right

now. You imagine the fear that person is. Exactly. If anything happens, it's just a wheel. My fender

is dented or scratched. The entertainment screen goes black. You're just done. There's this whole

thing about the events. I'm always getting notes from the subreddit. I think the events get messed

up or something. How are you on a subreddit about Fiskr? It's interesting. That's like being on a

subreddit about car accidents. No, photos please. But you know, it's interesting. Speaking of like

weird things that I was going to, I mean, I think we should save this for next week's episode, but

did you hear like Toyota brought back the Scion name at SEMA this year? Yeah, but for like a side

yeah. Anyways, I think we'll talk about, we'll talk about auto shows next week because I don't

have a car to talk about next week, but this week, wow, later, later, let people down. People are

tuning out right now, but this week I do have a car, a really, a really important car for me to

drive. It's called the 2025 Acura ADX. Why is this important for you to drive? I'm going to tell you

exactly why it's important for me to drive because it's based on one of my least favorite vehicles

in the whole world, the Honda HRV. You hate that vehicle. I really don't like that car at all. However,

Sammy has one tattoo. Yeah. And it's the letters HRV with like the Ghostbusters thing around it,

like with the X, the half X. That's right. Who are you going to call? The HRV I've always criticized

as saying it does not meet the potential for a subcompact crossover built by

Honda. The Acura ADX takes a slightly different approach. It's meant to be the sort of SUV or

crossover variant of the Acura Integra in that it uses a, it has more power than the HRV ever did

and it features an optional all-wheel drive system and looks a little bit sharper inside and out.

Optional all-wheel drive. Yeah. I mean, you don't have to get all-wheel drive. You can get

a front-wheel drive version. Does that extra power paper over the horrible CVT? No. The CVT is

probably the least. This car, when you accelerate in it. How bad can a CVT be if there's...

It is the saddest sounding car I have driven in a long time. Make the sound.

Like that. That makes me think of like Milktoast. Milhouse's dad on Simpsons,

like having a romantic encounter. No, it sounds like...

Is it Tina in... Tina Belcher? In Bobsburg. Tina Belcher. Yeah. Some erotic friend fiction.

It is one of these... The first thing I drove, the first time I drove it, I was like, oh,

wow, they need to make sure that people don't hear that. But otherwise, it is a totally functional

vehicle and it's easy to drive. It is large enough. It's quick enough. It has enough drive modes

that have good variability. You love drive modes. Mainly because the CVT can just like,

when you put it in the sport mode, the CVT can just decide that all of its power, like it'll

just stay in the power band at like 3000 RPM. It sounds awful, but the car is going. And that's

great. But at 190 horsepower, you got to make do with what you've got. And that's how they do it.

Exterior is, it looks like a mini RDX. I'm pretty comfortable with the, with saying the exterior

of the ADX is among its highlights. The interior is also fairly nice. It's not nearly as

high end feeling as other Acura vehicles, especially mentioning the RDX, which can sometimes be

had with like this really cool, like, I think it's kind of like a suede or an ultra suede,

what do they call it now? Alcantara. I think it was a little baby Alcantara as they were

sacrificed for that interior. Yeah, it doesn't have anything like that. The steering wheel is nice.

It's reasonably like chunky feeling. It reminds me of other Acuras, you know, like there's parts

of this car that make it seem like it was not just a badge on top of an HRV. And I'm glad that is

what it needed to be. But conceptually, is this something that's just filling weight space?

Yeah, I mean, Honda, I mean, Acura needed a subcompact crossover,

badly. Is it enough to make up for how long they've not had one? I don't know.

Do they really need one badly? Like, does the Lexus X really sell that many units?

They have the, yeah, they apparently they do, I think. I believe that the UX

is quite is getting pretty popular and I think is marketed really well.

And then there's also, look, I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been seeing a lot of these Buick.

What are they called? Invistas? Yeah, this is fantastic. Yeah, I see a ton of these things.

Do you think it's similar to the to the ADX? I don't know. I haven't been in one lately.

Well, tell me, hit me with some pricing. The pricing is not my favorite part. In the US,

it starts at 30, 36,000 with destination. Wow. So it's, it's $10,000 more than the Buick?

Yeah, I guess. Whoa. I mean, I think it's bigger than a Buick. I'll be clear. I think it's bigger

than a Buick. I'm just brought up the Buick because no, I, I, I like I think the ADX maybe

would compete more with the other Buick, the Encore, Encore GX. Is that a still thing?

I think it's still around, but it's very similar in size to the Invista. It's the

Envision that's a little bit bigger. Yeah, it's, the Envision is too big. Okay.

For the ADX. So this is also like X1, X2 size. Yeah, somewhere around X1, X2, Q3,

Q3 that I just drove. Yeah, I would not recommend an ADX over a Q3. I mean, that's not surprising

to me, but like, it really makes me wonder who this vehicle's for. It's for somebody who wanted

an Integra, but with more headroom or something. But it's nothing like the Integra. Yeah, it is

basically, if the Integra is based on the Civic and the, and the HRV is also based on the Civic,

making my head hurt. The ADX is the same thing, right? You know what I mean? No, it more or less

is. No, because we've established that the HRV is awful to drive yet the Civic is really good

to drive. So like, how does that, how does that, by the powers of transference, how does that work?

How does this make the ADX like the, like the, like the Integra?

Well, no, I mean, of course, the reality with the HRV is I think the all wheel drive system,

the CVT and the limited power of those, of the powertrain really deteriorate what is going on

with a pretty good chassis with the Civic chassis. And then when you go to the ADX part,

the upgraded power helps, like you said, paper over some things, not the CVT, which is still like

ugly sounding. But as a result, the car doesn't feel as bland to drive. And I think

it makes up for other deficiencies by actually looking pretty decent too. Okay.

Top range models will cost $45,000 in the US. I drove a Canadian model, which is far too

expensive for what it is. It was $55,000, which I would not recommend anyone spend $55,000 on a

subcompact crossover. I think that is really hurting your, that's hurting your budget. Like,

I don't think that's a great idea. It's still $10,000 less than the average

transaction price in Canada. I just want to keep that, that fact out there.

I don't know who has the budget to put $55,000 on a small SUV and especially one with no,

with the groaning noise of Tina Belcher. You know what I mean?

You can finance it for 1200 months or until the heat death of the universe.

Okay. But the funnier thing is when I was on the website researching,

trying to get some more information, when they, when they mentioned the horsepower

in torque figures, they use a term that I've never, I don't think I've ever heard before,

in which it says up to 190 horsepower. Now,

we're used to EVs that have a boost mode. Is that what we're looking at here?

No, I don't think so. I think it gives you the one, the 190. And again, I think for me, like,

perception. Oh, I think I might know what it is, Sammy. What is it? Premium fuel.

I looked into this. It didn't look like it needed, it does need premium fuel.

So it will probably run. It probably has an 87 map, right?

I guess so. Like that's the best way I would describe it.

Very strange.

There was another thing I want to talk about the power train before I get into the other parts

of the car. It's supposed to average 27 miles per gallon. Okay. I'm not getting exactly that.

I'm using a little bit more fuel than I'd like. Let me double check.

Did I have that same problem in the HRV recently?

Maybe.

Where it just wasn't like, it didn't feel, it didn't feel like the suffering

translated into like a gain, you know, didn't feel like the translated into like,

oh, that's cheap at the fuel pump.

No, I'm getting about 24 miles per gallon, which is not good.

No, for something that size.

Yeah, but I have been playing around with it with the sport mode. So maybe that has

something to do with it. And I do spend a little bit more time in the city.

But I did find my fuel economy actually going down in the city than on the highway.

So maybe I was just going too quick for its fuel efficiency usage.

Maybe I'm going to say one of the major things that I have a problem with is the infotainment

system. Not because it's like bad, but I think for a car that costs 55 grand or 45,000 in the U.S.

The screen is kind of small. Is that like a weird, like it just is noticeably a small screen.

I'm going to tell you how big it is. It is a whopping nine inches.

Okay, I can't picture that. I don't know what something that's nine inches long looks like.

Okay, and has a significant bezel. Android Auto looks really like squashed in there.

At least there's wireless Android Auto. There's wired Apple CarPlay.

I think wireless Android Auto and wired Apple CarPlay.

Yeah, that seems strange to me. I'm not sure why that is. That's what the

I believe you. It just seems odd.

And I do think the screen system is actually really like responsive.

It just doesn't look really high res or really high quality.

Do you know what I mean? I think we've been maybe spoiled.

Again, I drove the Q3 recently. It hasn't been that long since I've been in an X3,

which is a similar class. I have seen these screens and these infotainment systems of other

cars looking far more impressive. I think X3 is much bigger. You think X1?

Sorry, X2. X1, X2. Yeah.

And another thing I want to point out is that while it boasts a Bang and Olufsen sound system

with 15 speakers, I cannot possibly tell you that this is a good sounding sound system.

It sounds like every other car I've been in. It's totally fine.

Now, not a reason to buy one. I want to throw a wild card at you.

Hit me.

Mini Countryman.

A car with personality. Are you really trying to catch me off guard by giving me a car with

personality? A car with personality, but also a car that has some particular quirks that not

everyone might like. And my question is, is the of the ADX worse than the giant center screen in

the Countryman? Yes. I would take the giant, the giant center screen because I find that to be more

of a conversational, you know, like a little piece that reminds you in a positive light that

you're in a mini, which is a unique vehicle, a unique brand, and is full of like charm and quirk,

as opposed to the... I feel pricing is probably similar too.

Of the ADX, which is, which feels like a compromise. This is not like when you've driven a,

if you've driven an RDX, if you've driven a an Integra, they don't make those noises.

Do you know what I mean? They, they feel like fun.

You just told me this was the same as the Integra.

Kind of. Yeah. But I don't remember the Integra. I mean, I've driven a, what is it called,

A-SPEC with a manual and the Type S with the manual.

They're both good.

Excellent cars.

So, and I've driven, I've driven the manual, the, sorry, the CVT equipped hybrid

civics, which are, I think, standouts, but they don't sound like this at all.

It's really odd to me because I agree that this is like the one area where Honda cannot get

its CV tuning seemingly right for, for the experience the vehicle should be offering.

And they're able to do it everywhere else. And then you come here and I really thought

that the turbo engine would fix everything for this car because that was my complaint

about the HRV, right?

It's almost there, but it's just the sound of that CVT is not great.

You've got to have music playing or something.

Was it, was it that I wanted the turbo or was it that I wanted the hybrid version?

I think the hybrid would be better. I think the hybrid is significantly

more impactful because the hybrid in the civic, when it comes to the civic,

the hybrid provides the power of the turbo 1.5 with the fuel economy of a hybrid.

Like, and it just is, is two things that come together really nicely.

I guess that's the ethos behind the prelude, which everyone's been talking a lot about.

I don't want to get into the prelude.

Okay.

I think it's for another day.

When we actually get to test drive it.

Yeah.

Okay. So, my, my overall impression is that they've done a decent job of translating

the design language, accurate design language into a smaller package.

And the performance of the 1.5 T is adequate, but the transmission and the fuel economy

and the infotainment system all need to be improved a little bit in order for this to be

a true competitor contender in this class, especially at the top edge of the price range,

which is 45,000 us or 55 in Canada.

Any questions you have about it?

Any more questions about it?

Would you prefer me to recommend something else?

I mean, I sounds like you want to recommend something else.

No, I don't.

I think the mini countryman is a great recommendation.

Okay.

I'm okay with the countryman.

I'm neither positive or negative on it.

It's there.

It exists.

It has unusual styling.

I'm not a big fan of that center screen.

But yeah, I, from everything that you've described, I did not enjoy the driving experience of the

HRV and it doesn't sound like the ADX has really improved that much on it.

I want to talk about this like subcompact class, which like bugged me 10, maybe 12 years ago.

There was an, I think this, this, there was a class of compact luxury cars like the Mercedes

CLA in the A class, the BMW two series Grand Coupe, which is a relatively new one,

but there was also the Audi A3.

And then they took those, first of all, I thought those ones were going to water down

the premium car, you know, branding that those automakers had.

And then they took those and made it even more difficult with the crossover versions of all

those cars.

And now we're like in this area where you're spending lots of money on tiny compromised

luxury cars, which can feel as capable and as, you know, and feel super like a really

bad bargain compared to a mainstream car, which can come with, with many of the same equipment.

But I think we're at the point where you're spending a lot of money on every car.

And it's, it's kind of highlighting the deficiencies of the luxury model.

You know, like everything has gotten more expensive.

And so entry level luxury feels like something you should skip.

Absolutely. That's what I'm trying to say.

And I am struggling to find the real winners in the entry level luxury class.

Yeah. I mean, how far away are we from like a Canadian $80,000 average transaction price?

You know, like, it sounds crazy to say, but it's risen, I think 23% in the last three years in

Canada. And that doesn't seem sustainable. Like I don't know, I agree with you.

Like how that keeps going.

What will save us?

Because inflation is all well and good, but wages have not risen with inflation.

So when you start saying stuff like, Oh, well, you know, if you adjust for inflation,

this car is the same amount as it would have cost in the 90s.

That doesn't work because wages were higher relatively in the 90s compared to that purchase

price. So like the growth isn't there on the earnings side. The growth is only on the expenses

side. Yeah. And that's brutal. It's completely brutal. Everything else has gone up in price.

I mean, housing pricing is out of this world. Grocery prices are super high. So it makes,

you know, if I was going to tell anybody to cut costs, it would be on the on the luxury,

the luxury crossover, absolutely unnecessary. And it's luxury in quotations a lot of the time.

Yeah. But I would tell you, if you had to pick between the HRV and the ADX,

you'd have to pick the ADX. What a grim choice.

It is exactly. That's the word, the word, an awful choice.

Anyways, that's all I got for this week's episode. Do you have anything else you want to talk about?

I do not.

Okay. So next week, I think I mentioned, I'm not, I'm not test driving anything right now,

but I do. I'm very excited to talk to you about a number of cars that showed up

at the Japanese Mobility Show and the SEMA Auto Show, which is always a weird and fun show that

we've, you and I have both covered in the past, but it's exciting to talk about sometimes how

wild the concepts are. And I am going to be talking about next week, the Genesis GV70 Electrified,

which has been refreshed for 2026 and which I've had a bit of an adventure with. I also want to

actually end it today. I'm recording this. So it means a lot. Sammy got in there too.

And we know how much he hates to read. So that's, that's a big step for him.

So thank you to everyone who took part in that. And I can't wait to get the books in your hands.

Once Kickstarter sends me that cash and I'll just clickity, clickity, click on the www.computer,

and it's going to be in your inbox. We encourage other people to www and click on the,

on the things on the internet. Head on over to our website, unnamedautomotivepodcast.com.

There's a contact form there. Fill it out. Send us your thoughts, send us your questions,

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Thank you for listening, everybody. See you later. Bye.

Episode 425: 2025 Lucid Air, 2025 Acura ADX

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