The Acura Nexera Vision Concept Can Make Its Headlights and Taillights Disappear
The Acura Nexera Vision concept previews the brand’s new design language that will reach production first with the 2028 RDX Hybrid.The Nexera Vision is a sleek coupe with forged carbon-fiber accents and an acti...
- The Acura Nexera Vision concept previews the brand’s new design language that will reach production first with the 2028 RDX Hybrid.
- The Nexera Vision is a sleek coupe with forged carbon-fiber accents and an active rear spoiler.
- The headlights and taillights glow through the bodywork and disappear entirely when turned off.
At the start of 2026, Acura’s future looked set to be electric, with the RSX SUV—built on parent company Honda’s new 0-series platform—on the horizon. But a cooling EV market brought the premature death of the RSX, leaving Acura without a beacon to follow, and with a gaping hole in its lineup as it phased out the popular RDX without its electric replacement ready to take up the mantle. But now we have a new clue about the brand’s future, with Acura unveiling a new design language previewed by the Nexera Vision concept, which will inspire the look of future Acura models starting with the next-generation RDX.
Revealed ahead of its public debut tomorrow at The Quail, part of Monterey Car Week, the Nexera Vision is simply a design study and sadly has no chance at production. Penned at Acura’s studio in Los Angeles, it is the brainchild of Yasutake Tsuchida, who became Acura’s creative director in 2025. Acura didn’t mention a powertrain, but the Nexera doesn’t feature obvious exhaust pipes, and we saw it crawl slowly around the studio under electric power.
The Nexera Vision is a striking design, with an incredibly low-slung body and smooth, clean surfacing, emphasized by the Matte Titanium paint. The hallmarks of a wild supercar concept are present, from theatrical butterfly doors to the active rear spoiler and forged carbon-fiber trim on the bumpers and side sills. The Nexera appears to be canted rearwards, accentuated by the way the angle of the windshield matches the slope of the front end, making it look like it’s able to slice through the air with ease.
The real highlight is the “phantom lighting.” With the lights turned off, it looks as if the Nexera has eschewed headlights and taillights entirely, with only blank bodywork visible. Switch them on, and they appear suddenly, glowing through the bodywork. The effect is stunning in person, with zero hint of an outline in the bodywork as to where the lights are when they are off.
While that technology is still many years from reaching a production car—if ever—the lighting graphic itself will be on the road in just a couple of years. The lights consist of two LED lines that point inwards towards one another to create an arrow-like shape, meant to emulate Acura caliper-inspired “A” logo. Acura already demonstrated how this might look on a production-ready car with the Hybrid SUV prototype shown earlier this year, presumably a preview of the next-generation RDX.
Along with the active rear spoiler, Acura fitted a prominent rear diffuser, a thin vent behind the front wheels, and a pass-through in the front end that exits through the hood. This feature is highlighted by a two-piece LED spine, which appears again at the rear as the brake lights. The Nexera Vision also rides on the first centerlock wheels ever designed by Acura, 22-inch units which wear a matte anodized finish and carbon-fiber inserts.
Inside, the cabin takes on a driver-focused approach, with a clean dashboard and just a single curved screen ahead of the driver. The seats are integrated directly into the floor and fixed in place, creating an incredibly low seating position, with the steering wheel and pedals moving to adjust to the driver. Physical controls are kept to a minimum, with a couple of buttons on the steering wheel and center console.
The leather, Alcantara, and gloss-black trim is complemented by recycled aluminum pieces and subtle pink accents, which show up in the ambient lighting around the base of the seats and on the underside of the seatbelts. Pink also crops up in the luggage tray, which holds a series of cubes representing the materials used in the concept and a small model of the Nexera.
While Acura already showed its hand by revealing the Hybrid SUV prototype first, the Nexera still provides an encouraging look at the future of Acura design. While the next-generation RDX Hybrid, expected for the 2028 model year, will be the first to bring the Nexera’s vision to life, we hope to see the style appear on a future Integra or maybe even a next-generation NSX.
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Caleb Miller began blogging about cars at 13 years old, and he realized his dream of writing for a car magazine after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University and joining the Car and Driver team. He loves quirky and obscure autos, aiming to one day own something bizarre like a Nissan S-Cargo, and is an avid motorsports fan.