It’s truthful to say Honda’s been behind the ball relating to electrical automobiles. 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. Apart from compliance-car experiments just like the Honda Match EV, any People who wished 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 People 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} carefully. In spite of everything, the Prologue is basically a Normal Motors EV beneath—hardly a severe 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 case, one in every of its executives instructed InsideEVs in a media briefing this week. Prologue patrons report “belief within the Honda model” as the highest purpose for his or her purchases, American Honda vp of car gross sales Lance Woelfer stated.
It additionally helps that Honda patrons already affiliate the model with greener vehicles, Woelfer stated. Though the Toyota Prius has successfully change into the iPhone of hybrids, it was truly 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 will have the chance to maneuver in that route,” he stated, that means in direction of all-electric vehicles. “We wished to make it possible for we had an possibility for them. We do not need them going outdoors 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: People 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 excellent gas financial system and but have been slowest to impress.
Woelfer stated he isn’t stunned at how shortly 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 towards fast uptake of EVs, apparently a good chunk help this transition.)
Photograph by: Jeff Perez / Motor1
“One thing else that gave us confidence is the sellers had been letting us know they had been listening to from customers, ‘We want an EV car,’” he stated. “It actually type of met the wants of these customers and the requests we had 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 stated in an e-mail. They’re getting apply promoting to first-time EV patrons and explaining issues they’ve by no means needed to earlier than, like dwelling charging choices, he stated. Optimistically, by the point Honda’s futuristic 0-Collection EVs hit the market—vehicles which can be 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 profitable extra “conquests,” industry-speak for patrons who are available from different manufacturers. And that is sensible. As a result of electrical choices are nonetheless restricted, individuals intent on ditching gasoline could also be extra open to contemplating new makes.
But many automotive patrons 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 patrons will wish to go together with what they know.
Photograph by: Honda
Research bear this out. A Yahoo Finance-Ipsos ballot from 2023 requested People which automotive manufacturers they’d be almost definitely 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 slightly lackluster specs, the bZ4X. Tesla, by far the highest vendor of EVs on this nation, wound up in second.
EV gross sales development slowed within the U.S. in 2024. And a giant a part of which may be that EV-curious patrons simply don’t see sufficient choices in the marketplace that talk to them. The subsequent wave of EV adoption rests on common automotive patrons with sensible issues—not early adopters. In different phrases, People who most likely lean extra towards Toyota or Honda than Tesla.
Thankfully 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 individuals had in regards to the bZ4X. A three-row Toyota EV is coming in 2026.
Photograph 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 couple of issues happening now which can be just a little outdoors of our management which will have some affect.” Honda, like different automakers, says it’s maintaining an in depth eye on whether or not the incoming Trump administration will get rid of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit score, a transfer that might depress EV demand.
“Affordability is one thing that’s key, and that affect is one thing that we’ll have to deal with because it comes ahead,” he stated.
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