Car buyers might be feeling the pinch of limited supply, but Honda’s sales figures show that demand for its lineup remains strong. Together with Acura, the group moved 105,097 vehicles in September, despite tighter inventories across popular models. The real standout was the Passport, which is having its best year ever. On the flip side, Acura’s ZDX, which was recently discontinued after just a single year on the market, struggled.

More: Should The Next Honda Ridgeline Look Like The New Passport?

Total Honda sales reached 95,391 for the month, which is virtually unchanged from last September at just 0.3 percent lower. Looking at the bigger picture, year-to-date deliveries are up 4.1 percent. Passport demand has been a major driver, with sales up 75.5 percent for the year and a striking 108.8 percent for September alone. Nearly 80 percent of buyers are choosing the rugged TrailSport trim, suggesting that Honda’s more adventurous positioning has struck a chord.

SUV Strength

The CR-V continued its domination with over 28,000 sales in September, more than half of which were hybrids, while the Pilot and HR-V chipped in another 20,000 sales combined. On the passenger car side, Honda sold almost 30,000 sedans and coupes in September.

Accord and Civic hybrids made up 47 percent and 36 percent respectively. Electrified models in general set a new monthly record (32,387), thanks in part to the rollout of the Prologue EV.

Acura’s Mixed Bag

Acura, meanwhile, moved 9,706 vehicles in the ninth month of the year. That’s actually a drop in sales year over year of 2.2 percent. The Integra held firm at sales of over 1,500 units. The MDX and RDX combined for over 4,800 deliveries, and the ADX is, according to the brand, “capturing a segment-leading nearly 30% of retail sales”.

On the downside, the ZDX continues to be the white elephant in the lineup, experiencing a 61.3 percent drop in September sales year over year. While that might sound excessive, in cold hard units, that’s a drop from 979 units in 2024 to just 395 this year.

Since the start of the year, Acura has delivered only 11,915 examples. To put that into perspective, Honda has already sold more than three times as many Prologues in the same period. With numbers that lopsided, it is not surprising production of the ZDX has already been cut short.

It’s official: Acura’s first all-electric SUV is dead. The brand chose to skip the 2025 model year after its joint venture with GM was cancelled in late 2023. Now, the Japanese automaker has confirmed to Carscoops that the ZDX will not return, with production ending immediately. The ZDX lasted just over a year, with assembly having kicked off in March 2024.

The decision also happens to line up with the federal $7,500 EV tax credit winding down in just a matter of days, and comes right after Nissan announced it would also scrap the Ariya EV.

More: Nissan Is Dropping The Ariya EV After 2025

“To better align our product portfolio with the needs of our customers and market conditions, as well as our long-term strategic goals, we can confirm the Acura ZDX has ended production,” an Acura spokesperson told Carscoops.

Setting the Stage for What’s Next

Although the model has reached the end of the road, Acura stressed that the ZDX still laid important groundwork for what comes next. “ZDX has played a valuable role for the Acura brand, and will provide a foundation we will build on next year with the arrival of the all-electric Acura RSX, which will be produced at the EV Hub in Ohio in the second half of 2026, as well as with hybrid-electric Acura models now in development,” the spokesman added.

Read: Acura Delays EV-Only Future, Considers Adding Hybrids

As for current owners, Acura promised that “customers will continue to receive full product support through our dealer network, including service, parts, and warranty coverage.”

The news first emerged earlier today through Car Dealership Guy News, which cited an internal memo distributed to Acura dealers. Until now, though, it had not been formally confirmed.

The ZDX was based on GM’s Ultium platform and shared bones with the Cadillac Lyriq and Chevrolet Blazer EV, as well as the Honda Prologue. Ultimately, it never really took off. Incentives topped $30,000 off MSRP at times and then, Acura skipped 2025 altogether. Suffice it to say, this news isn’t all that shocking.

When the partnership between GM and Honda ended in late 2023, the two brands said it was a mutual decision. “After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment we are ending development of an affordable EV,” said Toshihiro Mibe, CEO of Honda. Despite the death of the ZDX, the brand is clearly pushing forward on some of its EV plans. The all-electric RSX will arrive in the latter half of 2026.

What About The Prologue?

Carscoops can also confirm that the Honda Prologue will continue on. Essentially, it serves as Honda’s primary EV offering until its next-generation electric architecture arrives. The Prologue has enjoyed steadier demand and certainly plays a role in the brand’s long-term EV-only strategy.

Although electric vehicle sales continue to grow, they haven’t surged quite like some industry experts and automakers had expected. As such, a growing number of brands are turning their attention to hybrids, viewing them as an important stopgap between traditional ICEs and EVs. Acura is the latest carmaker to follow this trend.

While parent company Honda has several hybrid models in its family, Acura has long remained committed to ICEs and EVs, largely disregarding hybrid powertrains. Now, American Honda chief executive Kazuhiro Takizawa has acknowledged that due to “customer demand, it’s not realistic” to only focus on EVs moving forward.

Read: Honda’s Future Is Packed With New Models And It Isn’t All Electric

“We will max production of ICE and hybrid models to meet the needs of our customers in North America,” he told The Drive while speaking at Monterey Car Week. “This means extending key ICE models and adding hybrid products. Our strategy to invest in flexible production in our EV hub in Ohio is proving very smart. This will enable us to make ICE, hybrid, and EV models on the same production lines, and adjust production fluidly based on customer demands.”

Importantly, shoppers shouldn’t expect to see hybrids from Acura for quite some time. When asked why Acura doesn’t simply borrow the hybrid powertrain of the Civic for a car like the Integra, Takizawa-san noted it usually takes several years to overhaul a vehicle to this extent.

More Than An Engine Swap

“When you change the powertrain, with crash tests and all those things we have to start from scratch,” he said. “[Our engineers] say it’s quite difficult. But of course, it’s not impossible, and we have that technology, so it’s just a matter of lead time and development of the models. To have a new vehicle, we usually need four years or more. [With] this lead time, we need to wait. Once we made our decision, it still takes several years. So it’s just a matter of time.”

During a separate interview with Auto News, Acura senior managing director and chief officer of automotive operations at Honda Motor Co, Katsushi Inoue, said the hybrids have “always been an option, but now we are taking this option very seriously.”

He did not specify which Acura models could get hybrid power, but he indicated the automaker is looking at adding hybrids to existing models, as well as exploring potential all-new hybrid models.