Acura takes dead aim... at mediocrity.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

(Posted 12/12, 5:00 p.m.) Detroit. Thirteen months ago I wrote a column (“That’s all you got, Mr. Ito?” - 11/10/2010) about the future of Acura. Flailing and failing, Acura had totally lost its mojo and its raison d’etre, and its leader, Takanobu Ito, pretty much had nothing to offer other than this: “We are having a lot of discussions about Acura and which way it should be going. And what we confirmed is that the brand direction should be smart premium, not top tier… We agreed that smart premium is what we should be targeting with Acura, not the upper-segment vehicles such as Lexus or Mercedes-Benz. We must apply advanced technologies which make our vehicle more fun to drive, achieve a more comfortable drive and high environmental performance. "

Last week, Acura executives took the media under the tent ahead of the upcoming Detroit Auto Show, confirming Ito’s leanings from a year ago. Mark Rechtin, reporting for Automotive News, says Acura will settle for offering mid-level premium vehicles that favor fuel economy over performance, even though the company plans on unveiling an environmentally friendly successor to the NSX sports car in Detroit.

To justify their position, Acura executives went on to mock modern day luxury cars as being examples of technical overkill. And much is revealed in the following quotes.

Mike Accavitti, the former head of Dodge who became American Honda's vice president of marketing in August, describes the current luxury market as "too much machine and not enough humanity. Our overweight bodies require overweight engines and more safety systems to protect them. Some of these cars the average driver just can't control. We have been increasing performance beyond the ability of the driver, or we have complicated the driving process."

Gary Evert, division director for advanced automotive planning at Acura R&D, said, "Technology is only as good as the driver. The vehicle almost always has more capability than the driver can handle. Anything outside the customer's understanding is waste."

Sales chief Jeff Conrad insisted that Acura was returning to its original product philosophy, as reported by Rechtin, which revolves around elegant engineering and class-leading fuel economy. And that they would no longer pursue the best-in-class entries from the top-tier automakers.

And Vicki Poponi, American Honda assistant vice president for product planning, added, "Our engineering ego was getting in the way."

Really? That’s hard to fathom because I don’t think anyone in this business would actually accuse Acura of having some sort of engineering ego. Acura has been so far off the radar screen of the “great cars” discussion for so long that the company occupies a strange existence in a netherworld between irrelevance and inconsequence. How can you possibly cultivate an ego around that?

I’m sure the new NSX concept set to be revealed in Detroit will be cool and buzz worthy, but Acura executives are already telegraphing the fact that they view enthusiasts as inconsequential and not really what they’re aiming for, so why bother? Since fewer than 20 percent of Acura’s target buyers in generation Y care about high performance, according to its internal research, why indeed?

Showing a zoomy concept when you plan on backing it up with “smart luxury” as Acura executives are referring to it is a fool’s errand, at best.

Everything these Acura executives are saying indicates to me that the sickness that seems to have swallowed Honda whole over the last half decade or so has completely obliterated any hope for Acura. Dismissing technical excellence as “waste” suggests to me that the executives within Honda assigned to Acura not only have the disease, they’ve had their brains reprogrammed as well.

I wonder if a PA announcement comes over the loudspeaker at Acura headquarters every morning with the following: “Ladies and gentlemen, we don’t care what the powers that be in the automotive world are achieving or aspiring to, because we only aspire to be good enough. After all, it’s much easier to succeed when the target is set low enough. So get to work.”

Calculated mediocrity will never win in this business. Ever. And for Honda and Acura executives to come out – with guns blazing, no less – suggesting that this is their path to righteousness and success is an insult to everyone out their busting their guts to do the best and be the best.

Here is a car company announcing to the world that good enough is indeed good enough, in an automotive world where “good enough” was forever made obsolete with the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler.

This would all be laughable if it weren’t so patently absurd and pathetic.

As I said a year ago, I’m not looking for Honda to build over-the-top and overpriced offerings for Acura at every turn. I am, however, looking for each and every Acura model that hits the street to offer a level of distinctive driving differentiation and appeal that you just can’t get in the Honda showroom, or anywhere else, for that matter.

And the message I’m hearing from Acura executives is that’s notgonnahappen. It’s not even close to happening, in fact.

Showing up and being present and accounted for isn’t going to cut it for Acura, but that’s exactly what they’re hell-bent on doing. And I don’t get it. Mediocrity isn’t bliss. And there are legions of car executives and car companies that have learned that painful lesson the hardest way possible.

Acura - and Honda - need to make us believe that they actually have a pulse instead of confirming our suspicions that they’re receding into a black hole while becoming something unrecognizable and unfathomable, akin to a mewling morass of mediocrity masquerading as a real car company.

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.