- The Honda Prologue is shaping as much as be one of many best-selling electrical vehicles of 2024. It is rapidly 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 do not have, together with Apple CarPlay.
- Toyota, take be aware: folks need nice EVs from the Japanese automakers.
One of many extra fascinating—maybe even 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 autos. This, after all, just isn’t true; whereas corporations like Toyota, Honda and Nissan pioneered hybrid autos and do very effectively there (the primary two, anyway) they’re now enjoying catch-up on the subject of absolutely electrical vehicles.
However folks nonetheless consider these manufacturers as “inexperienced” and belief their typically 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 increasingly each month.
As we’ve got reported earlier than, the all-electric Honda Prologue is proving to be the surprising EV hit of 2024. The newest knowledge operating by way of the tip 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 fashionable all-electric house.
Whereas Honda has had a number of U.S. EV choices right here and there just like the outdated Match Electrical and Readability Electrical, the Prologue is Honda’s first actually critical entry into the house. The bottom model has nearly 300 miles of EPA vary, whereas the highest one has 273 miles attributable to 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 will be the one to get of the three.
The truth is, 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 attempt it out,” Jones stated. “We drove it as quickly as (the vendor) 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 vehicles in September, in response to Bloomberg Intelligence. In contrast to many EVs, the Prologue’s efficiency will set nobody’s hair on hearth, 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 response to firm spokeswoman Natalie Kumaratne. What’s extra, nearly two-thirds of Prologue consumers have owned a Honda earlier than and practically 80% have by no means had an EV.
Different automobile corporations, take be aware: that is in all probability how EVs crack extra mainstream adoption. Folks don’t desire 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 vehicles they’ve at all times cherished, minus the necessity for stops at a fuel station. It is the technique to win over these mainstream, next-wave EV drivers.
2024 Honda Prologue Elite inside
I would 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 one of the best EV on the market, it is clearly delivering what Honda house owners need.
And I would argue it is proving Toyota flawed proper now. The bZ4X—which is a automobile I really 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; normally, 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 house, it might be crushing it proper now. But mere days after an election that would decelerate the expansion of the U.S. electrical automobile house, Toyota’s executives are on the market throwing water on California’s EV targets. 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.)
Photograph by: Jeff Perez / Motor1
2024 Honda Prologue Evaluation
The purpose is that automakers have to satisfy 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 corporations suppose they’re. This race is simply going to warmth up quickly; all of them should be fascinated with whether or not they have the expertise to satisfy the second or not.
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