- The Honda Prologue is shaping as much as be one of many best-selling electrical automobiles of 2024. It is shortly successful over Honda loyalists with its mixture of vary, pricing and specs.
- Whereas it is a Common Motors automobile beneath, it has a number of benefits these EVs haven’t got, together with Apple CarPlay.
- Toyota, take word: folks need nice EVs from the Japanese automakers.
One of many extra fascinating—even perhaps baffling—research that we have highlighted this yr is the one which indicated most customers are satisfied that the Japanese automakers are those main the way in which on electrical automobiles. This, in fact, just isn’t true; whereas firms like Toyota, Honda and Nissan pioneered hybrid automobiles and do very effectively there (the primary two, anyway) they’re now enjoying catch-up on the subject of absolutely electrical automobiles.
However folks nonetheless consider these manufacturers as “inexperienced” and belief their usually glorious reputations for reliability and high quality. Put merely, folks need good EVs from the Japanese automakers. And Honda is proving that to be true increasingly each month.
As we now have reported earlier than, the all-electric Honda Prologue is proving to be the sudden EV hit of 2024. The latest knowledge working by the top of October had the Prologue at 18,309 gross sales this yr; it outsold the Ford Mustang Mach-E that month and has already bested the Nissan Ariya and Toyota bZ4X with year-to-date gross sales. Not dangerous in any respect for a complete newcomer to the trendy all-electric area.
Whereas Honda has had a number of U.S. EV choices right here and there just like the outdated Match Electrical and Readability Electrical, the Prologue is Honda’s first actually critical entry into the area. The bottom model has virtually 300 miles of EPA vary, whereas the highest one has 273 miles because of its all-wheel-drive and greater wheels.
2024 Honda Prologue Elite
Below the pores and skin, the Honda Prologue is not even a Honda in any respect; it is a Common Motors Ultium EV, made at GM’s Ramos Arizpe, Mexico plant alongside its cousins the Chevy Blazer EV and Equinox EV. Then once more, who cares? The specs are good and the entire bundle has numerous Honda touches, together with its personal tackle the Android Automotive-based software program system and—not like most GM EVs—Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. If you cannot reside with out these issues, the Honda often is the one to get of the three.
Actually, the Prologue is the topic of a current Bloomberg story about how Honda is popping its model loyalists into EV followers for the primary time:
MeLissa Jones, a 45-year-old software program developer in Utah, isn’t overly involved about air high quality or local weather change, however she does love a Honda. The Pacific Blue Prologue that she bought in June is her nineteenth. “It’s not that I actually like electrical, it’s simply that I wished the brand new Honda to strive it out,” Jones stated. “We drove it as quickly as (the supplier) bought one in.”
[…] A lot of the Prologue’s draw lies in simply how unremarkable it’s. Its beginning value — earlier than incentives or fancier choices like all-wheel drive — is $47,400, simply $400 lower than the typical market worth of all US automobiles in September, in keeping with Bloomberg Intelligence. Not like many EVs, the Prologue’s efficiency will set nobody’s hair on fireplace, nevertheless it does function considerate and elevated particulars of the type Honda evangelists have come to like. There’s an enormous storage bin below the middle console, for instance, an enormous sunroof, a supersized smartphone charging pad and a rash of buttons and knobs to preclude a flatscreen hunt-and-peck typical of the Tesla driving expertise.
When requested why they selected a Prologue, Honda consumers cite belief within the model adopted by worth, in keeping with firm spokeswoman Natalie Kumaratne. What’s extra, virtually two-thirds of Prologue consumers have owned a Honda earlier than and practically 80% have by no means had an EV.
Different automobile firms, take word: that is in all probability how EVs crack extra mainstream adoption. Folks don’t need spaceships, they need good specs and inexpensive costs from manufacturers they belief. Whereas Hyundai and Kia used the EV revolution as an opportunity to hit reset on their model perceptions, there are tons of Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 consumers on the market who simply need the identical automobiles they’ve all the time liked, minus the necessity for stops at a fuel station. It is the approach to win over these mainstream, next-wave EV drivers.
2024 Honda Prologue Elite inside
I might argue that the above is why Toyota’s bZ4X has executed so effectively in sure months, particularly when extra-generous offers and incentives become involved. However all the pieces the bZ4X can do, the Prologue does higher: it has extra vary, higher fast-charging, higher software program and is, as Edmunds put it, “a greater automobile in each significant approach.” Even when it is not the most effective EV on the market, it is clearly delivering what Honda homeowners need.
And I might argue it is proving Toyota incorrect proper now. The bZ4X—which is a automobile I truly get pleasure from driving—has large potential. Each time the InsideEVs workers assessments the electrical Toyota, we get tons of excited questions from curious onlookers; often, it is some variation of “Toyota makes an electrical automobile?” Folks need EVs from manufacturers they know and belief. If Toyota upped the specs on the bZ4X or perhaps had a number of different related choices on this area, it might be crushing it proper now. But mere days after an election that would decelerate the expansion of the U.S. electrical automobile area, Toyota’s executives are on the market throwing water on California’s EV objectives. Possibly in the event that they tried slightly tougher, this would not be a problem for them. (And perhaps slightly intensified competitors from Honda will get Toyota transferring.)
Picture by: Jeff Perez / Motor1
2024 Honda Prologue Assessment
The purpose is that automakers have to fulfill folks the place they’re, and the Prologue’s steadily growing gross sales in its very first yr show that the patron may be extra “prepared” than some firms suppose they’re. This race is simply going to warmth up quickly; all of them should be enthusiastic about whether or not they have the know-how to fulfill the second or not.
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