It’s honest to say Honda’s been behind the ball in terms of 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 a lot longer than that. Except for compliance-car experiments just like the Honda Match EV, any People who wished a battery-powered Honda needed to wait till final 12 months when the Prologue burst onto the scene.
And because it seems, there have been plenty of People ready for simply that. Honda moved over 33,000 Prologues final 12 months, 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 de facto a Basic 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 among its executives instructed InsideEVs in a media briefing this week. Prologue patrons report “belief within the Honda model” as the highest cause for his or her purchases, American Honda vice chairman of car gross sales Lance Woelfer mentioned.
It additionally helps that Honda patrons already affiliate the model with greener automobiles, Woelfer mentioned. Though the Toyota Prius has successfully develop 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 shopper base that might have the probability to maneuver in that course,” he mentioned, that means in direction of all-electric automobiles. “We wished to guarantee that we had an choice 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 automobiles from the Japanese manufacturers they know, belief and consider to be dependable—the precise manufacturers that folks look to for nice gas financial system and but have been slowest to impress.
Woelfer mentioned he isn’t shocked at how rapidly the Prologue took off final 12 months, particularly since Honda sellers had been asking for an EV to promote. (Though America’s automotive sellers have been a few of the loudest voices pushing in opposition to fast 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 shoppers, ‘We’d like an EV car,’” he mentioned. “It actually form of met the wants of these shoppers and the requests we have been getting from sellers to have an EV product.”
The Prologue can be coaching Honda’s sellers to promote and repair its future EVs, Woelfer mentioned in an e mail. They’re getting observe promoting to first-time EV patrons 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—automobiles which are rather more superior than the Prologue, thoughts you—it will not be sellers’ first rodeo.
This goes to indicate the facility 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 purchasers who are available in from different manufacturers. And that is sensible. As a result of electrical choices are nonetheless restricted, individuals intent on ditching fuel could also be extra open to contemplating new makes.
But many automotive patrons nonetheless have a deep loyalty to, and powerful 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 an enormous way of life change, and it stands to cause that many patrons will wish to go together with what they know.
Picture by: Honda
Research bear this out. A Yahoo Finance-Ipsos ballot from 2023 requested People which automotive manufacturers they’d be most probably 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 reasonably 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 an enormous 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 in all probability lean extra towards Toyota or Honda than Tesla.
Happily 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.
Picture by: InsideEVs
The Honda 0-Collection SUV and Saloon.
Honda’s subsequent EV, the Acura RSX, goes into manufacturing late this 12 months 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 12 months, Woelfer expects the Prologue to maintain chugging alongside and be a frontrunner within the phase, though he says there are “just a few issues happening now which are a bit of outdoors of our management that will have some impression.” Honda, like different automakers, says it’s retaining an in depth eye on whether or not the incoming Trump administration will eradicate the $7,500 federal EV tax credit score, a transfer that would depress EV demand.
“Affordability is one thing that’s key, and that impression is one thing that we’ll have to deal with because it comes ahead,” he mentioned.
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