It’s truthful 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 a number 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} carefully. In spite of everything, the Prologue is basically a Basic 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, one in every of its executives advised InsideEVs in a media briefing this week. Prologue patrons report “belief within the Honda model” as the highest motive for his or her purchases, American Honda vice chairman of vehicle gross sales Lance Woelfer mentioned.
It additionally helps that Honda patrons already affiliate the model with greener vehicles, Woelfer mentioned. Though the Toyota Prius has successfully grow to be the iPhone of hybrids, it was really Honda that launched America’s first hybrid automobile 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 path,” he mentioned, that means in direction of all-electric vehicles. “We wished to ensure that we had an choice for them. We do not need them going exterior the model.”
38
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 individuals look to for excellent gas financial system and but have been slowest to affect.
Woelfer mentioned he isn’t stunned at how shortly the Prologue took off final 12 months, particularly since Honda sellers had been asking for an EV to promote. (Though America’s automobile sellers have been among the loudest voices pushing in opposition to speedy uptake of EVs, apparently an honest 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’d like an EV automobile,’” he mentioned. “It actually form 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 mentioned in an e mail. They’re getting follow promoting to first-time EV patrons and explaining issues they’ve by no means needed to earlier than, like dwelling charging choices, he mentioned. Optimistically, by the point Honda’s futuristic 0-Sequence EVs hit the market—vehicles which are far more superior than the Prologue, thoughts you—it will not be sellers’ first rodeo.
This goes to point out 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 clients 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 purchasers who are available in from different manufacturers. And that is smart. As a result of electrical choices are nonetheless restricted, folks intent on ditching gasoline could also be extra open to contemplating new makes.
But many automobile 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 a giant life-style change, and it stands to motive 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 automobile 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, despite the fact that it solely had one EV with relatively 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 available on the market that talk to them. The subsequent wave of EV adoption rests on common automobile 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 discovered from the complaints folks had concerning the bZ4X. A three-row Toyota EV is coming in 2026.
Photograph by: InsideEVs
The Honda 0-Sequence 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-Sequence 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 just a little exterior of our management which will have some impression.” Honda, like different automakers, says it’s protecting an in depth 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 impression is one thing that we’ll have to handle because it comes ahead,” he mentioned.
Contact the writer: [email protected]
