It’s honest to say Honda’s been behind the ball in the case of electrical autos. 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 Individuals 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 plenty of Individuals 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 admittedly 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, certainly one of its executives advised InsideEVs in a media briefing this week. Prologue consumers report “belief within the Honda model” as the highest motive 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 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 shopper base that will have the probability to maneuver in that course,” he stated, which means in direction of all-electric vehicles. “We wished to make it possible for 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: Individuals 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 excellent gasoline financial system and but have been slowest to affect.
Woelfer stated he isn’t shocked at how shortly the Prologue took off final yr, 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 in opposition to fast uptake of EVs, apparently a good chunk assist this transition.)
Photograph 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 want an EV automobile,’” he stated. “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 also be coaching Honda’s sellers to promote and repair its future EVs, Woelfer stated in an electronic mail. They’re getting observe promoting to first-time EV consumers and explaining issues they’ve by no means needed to earlier than, like house charging choices, he stated. Hopefully, by the point Honda’s futuristic 0-Sequence EVs hit the market—vehicles which are rather 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 prospects 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 sensible. 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 consumers 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 life-style change, and it stands to motive that many consumers will wish to go together with what they know.
Photograph by: Honda
Research bear this out. A Yahoo Finance-Ipsos ballot from 2023 requested Individuals 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, 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 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, Individuals 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 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 yr 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 yr, Woelfer expects the Prologue to maintain chugging alongside and be a frontrunner within the phase, though he says there are “a couple of issues occurring now which are a bit of outdoors of our management which will have some affect.” Honda, like different automakers, says it’s protecting 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 might depress EV demand.
“Affordability is one thing that’s key, and that affect is one thing that we’ll have to handle because it comes ahead,” he stated.
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