It’s truthful to say Honda’s been behind the ball in the case 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. Other than compliance-car experiments just like the Honda Match EV, any People who needed 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 loads 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 Common 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 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 stated.
It additionally helps that Honda consumers already affiliate the model with greener vehicles, Woelfer stated. Though the Toyota Prius has successfully turn into the iPhone of hybrids, it was truly 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 shopper base that might have the chance to maneuver in that course,” he stated, which means in the direction of all-electric vehicles. “We needed 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 vehicles from the Japanese manufacturers they know, belief and consider to be dependable—the precise manufacturers that folks look to for nice gasoline economic system and but have been slowest to affect.
Woelfer stated he isn’t stunned 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 automobile sellers have been a few of the loudest voices pushing towards fast 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 want an EV car,’” he stated. “It actually form of met the wants of these customers and the requests we had been getting from sellers to have an EV product.”
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 clients from rival manufacturers to a level they wouldn’t have been in a position to 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 smart. 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 automobile 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 an enormous life-style change, and it stands to purpose that many consumers will need 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 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, though 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 progress slowed within the U.S. in 2024. And an enormous a part of that could 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 automobile consumers with sensible issues—not early adopters. In different phrases, People who most likely 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 discovered 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-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 section, though he says there are “a number of issues occurring now which are somewhat outdoors of our management that will have some impression.” Honda, like different automakers, says it’s retaining a detailed eye on whether or not the incoming Trump administration will remove 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 handle because it comes ahead,” he stated.
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