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Comparison test: 2019 Acura RDX vs. compact luxury SUV competitors

Truth be told, if we were to compare the all-new 2019 Acura RDX with those compact luxury crossover SUVs it would most likely be cross-shopped against, you'd be looking at a different list. Even Acura admits that Lexus and Infiniti are the most likely bogies, but with the 2019 RDX, Honda's luxury brand is attempting to attract those customers who think as much with their hearts as with their heads. And for the most part, those folks have been buying from German brands: the Audi Q5, BMW X3 and Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class. So, to show how the new RDX compares to them, Acura actually provided examples of each during the recent press drive along with a Volvo XC60. All were determined to have greater emotional appeal than the last RDX, and we would certainly agree. For, as much as the previous-generation RDX made sense on paper, it was really hard to get excited about it. And when you're paying extra for a luxury vehicle, shouldn't you get a little excited? Well, as luck would have it, Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski and I were on hand in Whistler, British Columbia, for the press launch. We didn't have an abundance of time in each RDX competitor, but in conjunction with our usual comparison chart, our impressions should provide a good first taste of how the new RDX compares. Performance and fuel economy Contributing Editor James Riswick: On paper at least, the RDX is gutsier than its comparably powered European rivals. It also weighs the same or less, which logically should mean it'll be the quickest in a straight line. During my brief drives, though, I'm not sure it really stood taller than the three Germans. It at least matches them for smoothness, which is something that can't be said about the Volvo. Fuel economy is lower than them all when you consider all but the Mercedes come standard with all-wheel drive. It's also worth noting that all the competitors are available with engine upgrades, and unless Acura's forthcoming resurrection of Type S models includes the RDX, it should stay that way. Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski: Line 'em all up in a drag race, and I have a feeling the Acura would squirt away to victory. A good bit of that, though, would be due to its 10-speed automatic transmission, which offers a huge spread of ratios and fires off extremely quick shifts. In the real world, I'd guess fuel economy will be similar across the board, so I'm willing to call that category a draw.

2015 BMW Alpina B6 xDrive Gran Coupe

Alpina has been lovingly modifying BMWs for half a century, but as we learned during a tour of the company's HQ in Buchloe, Germany, Alpina has been in the wine distribution business for nearly as long. The company has an estimated million bottles on reserve in two warehouses and a beautiful wine cellar/tasting room on property in western Bavaria, just yards from where its 1,500 hand-crafted automobiles per year are produced.
What does that have to do with the new B6 Gran Coupe? Well, it may help make sense of the overall character of Alpina's automobiles, especially vis-à-vis the similarly priced, similarly powerful M Cars that BMW sells in far greater numbers. Alpinas are built by wine connoisseurs for wine connoisseurs, or wine connoisseur types; they are not rip-snortin' racecars for the road - that's M's domain. Alpinas are esoteric, rich in character and nuanced. But make no mistake: they are very, very fast.
Our brief first drive of the B6 Gran Coupe - the only 6 Series-based Alpina we'll get in the US for 2015 - took place on German autobahns and Austrian alpine roads, where the car is more at home than anywhere in the world, both literally and figuratively. With 540 horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque on tap from its twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 and xDrive all-wheel drive, the B6 is said to be able to hit 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds on its way to a top speed of 198 mph, a massive 43 mph faster than the M6, which is electronically limited to 155 mph. Yet even at insane speeds - we saw an indicated 190 mph on one particularly lonely stretch of Autobahn - the B6 feels more luxurious than sporty, taking the countenance of a low-slung Bentley Continental GT or an Aston Martin Rapide S, not a knife-edged supercar. It doesn't feel scintillating like a Porsche 911 GT2; rather it feels rock steady, like the 4,780-pound luxury sedan it is.

YouTube viewers prefer BMW

BMW owners sometimes get a bad rap as being snobbish, rude drivers, but according to a new study by the online marketing company ZEFR, Bimmer aficionados also have a close relationship with the brand's vehicles. With well over 4 billion YouTube views, the German automaker is the industry's king of the road online. Making the popularity even sweeter for marketers, 95 percent of those clicks are for fan videos, which represents loads of free advertising. BMW isn't the only automaker with such an extensive following. Honda comes in a close second with around 4 billion views, and Mercedes-Benz is just a little behind it. Among all brands, it's the norm for fan-made videos rather than the official ones to get the lion's share of the clicks, generally 95 percent or more. "YouTube has become a treasure trove for connecting with the right people for automakers," Dave Rosner, ZEFR marketing boss, said to Automotive News. Beyond just a popularity contest among brands, automotive videos are big business on YouTube, according to ZEFR's research. Enthusiasts are leading the way, too. Racing is by far the most-watched category with 895,000 clips generating a staggering 8.2 billion views. Classic cars are also a very hot topic with 305,000 videos getting 1.6 billion clicks. Surprisingly, when it comes to watching auto videos, sedans are most popular on YouTube with over 9 billion views, according to Automotive News. Meanwhile, SUVs, performance vehicles, and pickups were each around 3 billion or less. You can check out the full study for yourself, as a PDF, here. Related Video: