The Honda Prologue is shaping as much as be one of many best-selling electrical vehicles of 2024. It is shortly profitable over Honda loyalists with its mixture of vary, pricing and specs.
Whereas it is a Normal Motors automotive beneath, it has a number of benefits these EVs do not have, 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 shoppers are satisfied that the Japanese automakers are those main the way in which on electrical automobiles. This, in fact, will not be true; whereas corporations like Toyota, Honda and Nissan pioneered hybrid automobiles and do very nicely there (the primary two, anyway) they’re now taking part in catch-up in the case of absolutely electrical vehicles.
However folks nonetheless consider these manufacturers as “inexperienced” and belief their usually wonderful reputations for reliability and high quality. Put merely, folks need good EVs from the Japanese automakers. And Honda is proving that to be true an increasing number of 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 via 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 unhealthy in any respect for a complete newcomer to the fashionable all-electric house.
Whereas Honda has had just a few U.S. EV choices right here and there just like the previous Match Electrical and Readability Electrical, the Prologue is Honda’s first actually critical entry into the house. The bottom model has nearly 300 miles of EPA vary, whereas the highest one has 273 miles resulting from its all-wheel-drive and larger wheels.
2024 Honda Prologue Elite
Beneath the pores and skin, the Honda Prologue is not even a Honda in any respect; it is a Normal 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—in contrast to most GM EVs—Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. If you cannot reside with out these issues, the Honda will be the one to get of the three.
In actual fact, 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 received in June is her nineteenth. “It’s not that I actually like electrical, it’s simply that I wished the brand new Honda to attempt it out,” Jones stated. “We drove it as quickly as (the seller) received 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 vehicles in September, based on Bloomberg Intelligence. In contrast to many EVs, the Prologue’s efficiency will set nobody’s hair on fireplace, but it surely does characteristic considerate and elevated particulars of the sort Honda evangelists have come to like. There’s an enormous storage bin underneath 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 patrons cite belief within the model adopted by worth, based on firm spokeswoman Natalie Kumaratne. What’s extra, nearly two-thirds of Prologue patrons have owned a Honda earlier than and practically 80% have by no means had an EV.
Different automotive corporations, take word: that is most likely 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 patrons on the market who simply need the identical vehicles they’ve all the time beloved, minus the necessity for stops at a fuel station. It is the way in which 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 carried out so nicely in sure months, particularly when extra-generous offers and incentives get entangled. 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 method.” Even when it is not the very best EV on the market, it is clearly delivering what Honda homeowners need.
And I might argue it is proving Toyota unsuitable proper now. The bZ4X—which is a automotive I truly get pleasure from driving—has super potential. Each time the InsideEVs workers exams 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 just a few different related choices on this house, it could be crushing it proper now. But mere days after an election that might decelerate the expansion of the U.S. electrical automobile house, Toyota’s executives are on the market throwing water on California’s EV objectives. Possibly in the event that they tried a bit tougher, this would not be a problem for them. (And perhaps a bit intensified competitors from Honda will get Toyota transferring.)
Picture by: Jeff Perez / Motor1
2024 Honda Prologue Overview
The purpose is that automakers have to satisfy folks the place they’re, and the Prologue’s steadily rising gross sales in its very first yr show that the patron may be extra “prepared” than some corporations assume they’re. This race is simply going to warmth up quickly; all of them have to be excited about whether or not they have the know-how to satisfy the second or not.
Contact the creator: patrick.george@insideevs.com
