America’s aversion toward sedans claims another victim: the Acura TLX.
It’s a story we’ve seen time and again over the past several years, and we’re seeing it play out once again here. As automakers eliminate four-door sedans from their lineups in favor of SUVs, so too will Acura drop the long-running TLX (formerly the TL) after the 2025 model year. With the NSX already out of the picture as of 2022, this decision leaves the Integra as Acura’s only remaining car on sale, with the ADX, RDX, MDX, ZDX and soon the RSX SUVs filling out the range.
You could argue it’s been a long time coming. In the first half of 2025, Acura sold nearly 40,000 RDX and MDX SUVs combined. Do you want to know how many TLXs dealers sold? Just 3,634 — a 13.7% drop year-over-year. Last month, the automaker clocked up just 706 sales, which is a dramatic 47% improvement on June 2024…but still not a gobsmacking figure, by any stretch. It’s also a far cry from 2015, when the TLX sold 47,080 units (2024, by comparison, saw just 7,748 sales).
The model’s recent performance caps off a slow decline, then, and a relatively quiet end to the model’s 30-year lineage that started with the original TL in 1995. Moving forward, the new RSX will effectively replace the TLX on Acura’s Marysville, Ohio production line — built at its new EV hub — as the automaker brings its new in-house EV platform to fruition in the coming months.
Nevertheless, this particular death is a sad one for me, as I consider the Type S to be one of the best-handling sports sedans in current production, bar none. It helps that the current-gen TLX is a looker, too, both inside and out.
While European automakers are still keen to hang onto long-standing four-door models, the TLX’s departure joins a growing list of dead sedans. Acura discontinued the larger RLX in 2020, for example, and the ILX followed in 2022. The Volvo S60 is gone and the S90 will be soon, Infiniti dropped the Q50, and the Lexus IS appears to be living on borrowed time as well.
At least we still have the Integra and its manual transmission…but pour one out for the Acura TLX (and particularly the Type S).
