Acura TL

Our Acura is for the well dressed wealthy driver who enters it in front of what appears to be a modern mansion. We have arrived. We have our house; we are impeccably dressed, and we have our Acura. Once inside, we issue a command, "Call office." At that point, in case we are not a middle aged, wealthy, white male, we have a montage of other drivers, female, African-American, Asian, young, and blond -- all attractive, all well dressed and all talking to thin air. Then we fade out to a well modulated (too well) male voice proclaiming that "...of all its abilities, listening may be its most impressive -- the voice activated Acura TL"

OK, my old pickup truck listens. It listens quite well; it just doesn't respond. We are to infer that the Acura responds in some appropriate manner to this series of demands. The phone, the radio, the temperatire control, and the GPS map are implicated and we are also to infer, recognize such one word utterances as "Chinese" or "Italian" and then direct you to a restaurant (of whose choice?) featuring foods of that description. Presumably other commands activate the phone or change stations and loudness of the radio. We are left to infer all of this from 29 seconds of smiling people, talking to their cars. The only hint of how your Acura responds to such demands as "Italian" is a glimpse of a map on the dashboard, a map that can, apparently, "zoom in" or "zoom out."

It's slick; it's smooth (practically oily when you hear the voiceover); it's attractive, and it drips wealth and sophistication, but does it make you want to run out to buy an Acura? Frankly,I don't think so. Personally, I would have appreciated more of a notion of what the car actually does when you issue these commands, how you teach it to do that, and what the range of commands is. How many of the cars features are voice activated? I could have done with fewer pretty people repeating the same words to their cars.

I will admit to some curiosity that was aroused by this glimpse of life in the loud lane, but not enough to actually drive an Acura in order to find out. I was more frustrated by the ad than intrigued. Is Acura the only conversant car? Does it listen 'better' than other cars? Can you control other features, such as the lights? Does the designation "TL" mean that this model comes equipped with this feature or is it an option? Perhaps this ad will make some prospective car buyers feel wealthy, pretty, and smug if they buy Acuras, but not me. I think I would feel manipulated if I even test drove one in response to this ad.