{"id":32697,"date":"2024-05-10T08:30:17","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T12:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=32697"},"modified":"2024-05-10T08:30:17","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T12:30:17","slug":"payne-behind-the-wheel-of-the-acura-zdx-type-s-a-high-powered-gm-charged-ev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/payne-behind-the-wheel-of-the-acura-zdx-type-s-a-high-powered-gm-charged-ev","title":{"rendered":"Payne: Behind the wheel of the Acura ZDX Type S, a high-powered, GM-charged EV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santa Barbara<\/em>,\u00a0California<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 I pulled to the brief left passing lane on California Route 154 and \u2014\u00a0ZOT!<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 my 2024 Acura ZDX Type S tester exploded past a line of slower traffic down the Santa Ynez Mountains north of Santa Barbara. Merging into heavy Route 101 traffic along the coast, the ZDX\u2019s Hands-Free Cruise system took over and I sipped a can of iced tea while riding hands-free at 70 mph. On the screen, I tapped the nearest fast charger and Google Built-In took me eight miles to an Electrify America station in tony downtown Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n

Electric vehicles\u2019 niche is the luxury market, and Acura\u2019s first EV has found the sweet spot with its swashbuckling, high-tech $75,000 Type S entry. Call it the Type Sweet Spot.<\/p>\n

Like its sister Honda Prologue, this is new territory for Acura. The brand captured American hearts in the 1990s with the Acura Integra Type R (Type S nameplate predecessor), a nimble, Honda Civic-based driver-centric pocket rocket that turned heads in town and turned on a dime on country roads.\u00a0Forty years later and Honda-Acura is on a new mission to go all-electric \u2014 dovetailing with government mandates that will ban new internal combustion car sales here in California by 2035.<\/p>\n

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The distinctive, black greenhouse of the 2024 Acura ZDX Type S. Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/em><\/div>\n

But EVs have flipped Acura\u2019s marketing script. The giant 102 kWh battery the ZDX Type S requires to give you goosebumps carries an equally giant price tag. So Acura\u2019s first performance EV \u2014 unlike its first performance ICE \u2014 is aimed at the upper-crust LA suburbs, not gritty LA parking lots where Acura tuners gather for weekend autocrosses in their Integra gas-burners.<\/p>\n

The ZDX is more muscle car than pocket rocket.<\/p>\n

Tipping the scales at over 6,000 pounds (nearly 1,600 pounds more than a similarly sized Dodge Charger R\/T Scat Pack, and 1,200 pounds more than a gas MDX Type S SUV), ZDX is a rocket ship in a straight line like a Charger. The grunt suits Acura\u2019s performance vibe, and Type S is a very different animal than the more domesticated 85-kWh battery Honda Prologue EV.<\/p>\n

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The 2024 Acura ZDX Type S boasts AWD and an impressive 544 pound-feet of torque. Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

That muscle-car girth makes this a different Type S than the icons before it. Not far from Santa Barbara last year, I tested the Integra Type S and wrung its neck through the spaghetti roads of Oija, leaving sport bikes in the dust. We laid rubber marks across the landscape like Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.<\/p>\n