It looks like Acura might finally be axing the 2018 Acura ILX next year and will be replacing it with an EV.

The writing was on the wall for Acura’s subcompact executive car. According to Autoline Network on the latest video they dropped earlier last week (Dec. 12, 2017) they revealed that Acura would be stopping production of the ILX in Marysville, Ohio and would be replacing it with an EV of sorts.  If this rumor is true, this would mean the end of a five year run for Acura’s entry-level offering. Check out the video for yourself below and decide for yourself if this story is believable.

The video is admittedly scant with details and no source was actually cited but according to Autoline, production of the Acura ILX in Marysville was canceled (we don’t know exactly when it will be canceled.) In its place, Acura will supposedly replace the ILX with a battery electric in April of 2021.

First of all, we’ve only just begun to see early EV prototypes from Honda when it comes to EV’s. Honda’s Urban EV and sports concept were both just introduced just a couple of months ago at the Frankfurt Auto Show with plans to build both by 2020 which is in-line of its goals to have two-thirds of its fleet to be EV’s by 2030. To have some kind of insider information that points to an EV replacement for the ILX in as little as four years is a little hard to believe, but we’ll roll with it.

Acura has been slowly killing off the ILX and its ancient platform for quite some time. Back in 2014, Acura removed the ILX Hybrid and manual transmission as an option. And although the NSX has provided a little bump in sales for the Acura brand, sales of their cars have been lackluster at best, especially the poor selling ILX.

According to Car Sales Base, Acura only managed to move a little over 800 units in November. I’ll be surprised to see if the ILX top 1,000 units in December.

A quick look on LeaseHackr reveals that lease deals on ILX’s can be readily had for zero down and sub $300 payments a month.

It’s no secret that the ILX uses Honda’s 9th gen Civic as a platform which has already been eclipsed and outperformed by the much cheaper 10th gen Civic. It’s about time Acura killed the ILX, but this rumor of replacing it with an EV has yet to be seen.

1 COMMENT

  1. […] Last year I reported on a rumor that Acura was axing the ILX for 2019 but that rumor isn’t true. According to the latest ramblings from Auto News and confirmed through some patent drawings dug up by my good friends over at Car and Driver, it looks like the 2019 Acura ILX will get a much-needed refresh with Acura’s precision concept grill as predicted. Check out a couple of the patent drawings with the tell-tale grille below. […]

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