It’s honest to say Honda’s been behind the ball relating to electrical autos. Chevrolet launched the Bolt EV in 2016, Ford launched the Mustang Mach-E in 2020 and Tesla’s been doing its factor for much longer than that. Except for compliance-car experiments just like the Honda Match EV, any Individuals who needed a battery-powered Honda needed to wait till final yr when the Prologue burst onto the scene.
And because it seems, there have been numerous Individuals ready for simply that. Honda moved over 33,000 Prologues final yr, touchdown it the No.7 spot among the many best-selling electrical fashions and No.4 amongst non-Teslas. This got here as a shock to most of us who watch this {industry} intently. In any case, the Prologue is admittedly a Common Motors EV beneath—hardly a critical electrical effort from Honda. And it did not even actually go on sale till the center of 2024.
Honda is now taking some classes from this example, certainly one of its executives informed InsideEVs in a media briefing this week. Prologue consumers report “belief within the Honda model” as the highest purpose for his or her purchases, American Honda vp of car gross sales Lance Woelfer mentioned.
It additionally helps that Honda consumers already affiliate the model with greener vehicles, Woelfer mentioned. Though the Toyota Prius has successfully develop into the iPhone of hybrids, it was really Honda that launched America’s first hybrid automotive in 1999, the Perception.
“We have had a hybrid technique for fairly a while to develop that client base that might have the chance to maneuver in that route,” he mentioned, which means in the direction of all-electric vehicles. “We needed to ensure that we had an choice for them. We do not need them going exterior the model.”
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So, the Prologue’s gangbusters success should not have been a shock in any respect. It additional proves one thing we already knew: Individuals are hungry for electrical vehicles from the Japanese manufacturers they know, belief and imagine to be dependable—the precise manufacturers that folks look to for nice gasoline financial system and but have been slowest to affect.
Woelfer mentioned he isn’t stunned at how rapidly the Prologue took off final yr, particularly since Honda sellers had been asking for an EV to promote. (Though America’s automotive sellers have been among the loudest voices pushing in opposition to speedy uptake of EVs, apparently a good chunk assist this transition.)
Picture by: Jeff Perez / Motor1
“One thing else that gave us confidence is the sellers have been letting us know they have been listening to from customers, ‘We want an EV car,’” he mentioned. “It actually sort of met the wants of these customers and the requests we have been getting from sellers to have an EV product.”
The Prologue can also be coaching Honda’s sellers to promote and repair its future EVs, Woelfer mentioned in an e-mail. They’re getting apply promoting to first-time EV consumers and explaining issues they’ve by no means needed to earlier than, like residence charging choices, he mentioned. Hopefully, by the point Honda’s futuristic 0-Collection EVs hit the market—vehicles which are way more superior than the Prologue, thoughts you—it will not be sellers’ first rodeo.
This goes to indicate the ability of branding within the EV transition. The shift to EVs has given aggressive early movers like Tesla and Hyundai-Kia a gap to steal prospects from rival manufacturers to a level they wouldn’t have been capable of in any other case. Many automakers say their EVs are successful extra “conquests,” industry-speak for patrons who are available in from different manufacturers. And that is sensible. As a result of electrical choices are nonetheless restricted, folks intent on ditching fuel could also be extra open to contemplating new makes.
But many automotive consumers nonetheless have a deep loyalty to, and robust associations with, sure manufacturers. They don’t need an EV from simply anyone. They need a Honda. Or a Toyota. Taking the plunge into an EV is a giant way of life change, and it stands to purpose that many consumers will need to go along with what they know.
Picture by: Honda
Research bear this out. A Yahoo Finance-Ipsos ballot from 2023 requested Individuals which automotive manufacturers they’d be most certainly to purchase an EV or a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) from. Honda got here in third place, regardless of not having any PHEVs or EVs on the U.S. market at the moment. Toyota claimed first, although it solely had one EV with quite lackluster specs, the bZ4X. Tesla, by far the highest vendor of EVs on this nation, wound up in second.
EV gross sales progress slowed within the U.S. in 2024. And a giant a part of which may be that EV-curious consumers simply don’t see sufficient choices available on the market that talk to them. The subsequent wave of EV adoption rests on common automotive consumers with sensible issues—not early adopters. In different phrases, Individuals who in all probability lean extra towards Toyota or Honda than Tesla.
Fortuitously for them, each automakers are getting their acts collectively. Toyota, which has stubbornly caught to hybrids and never put a lot firepower behind EVs, says it’s realized from the complaints folks had in regards to the bZ4X. A three-row Toyota EV is coming in 2026.
Picture by: InsideEVs
The Honda 0-Collection SUV and Saloon.
Honda’s subsequent EV, the Acura RSX, goes into manufacturing late this yr in Ohio, debuting the automaker’s next-generation {hardware} and software program. It’ll be adopted by Honda’s 0-Collection sedan and SUV, and the Sony Honda Afeela 1.
Within the coming yr, Woelfer expects the Prologue to maintain chugging alongside and be a frontrunner within the section, though he says there are “a number of issues occurring now which are just a little exterior of our management that will have some influence.” Honda, like different automakers, says it’s conserving a detailed eye on whether or not the incoming Trump administration will remove the $7,500 federal EV tax credit score, a transfer that might depress EV demand.
“Affordability is one thing that’s key, and that influence is one thing that we’ll have to handle because it comes ahead,” he mentioned.
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