- 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 Basic Motors automotive beneath, it has a number of benefits these EVs haven’t got, together with Apple CarPlay.
- Toyota, take observe: individuals need nice EVs from the Japanese automakers.
One of many extra attention-grabbing—maybe even baffling—research that we have highlighted this 12 months is the one which indicated most customers are satisfied that the Japanese automakers are those main the way in which on electrical automobiles. This, after all, isn’t true; whereas firms 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 on the subject of totally electrical automobiles.
However individuals nonetheless consider these manufacturers as “inexperienced” and belief their typically wonderful reputations for reliability and high quality. Put merely, individuals need good EVs from the Japanese automakers. And Honda is proving that to be true increasingly more each month.
As now we have reported earlier than, the all-electric Honda Prologue is proving to be the surprising EV hit of 2024. The latest information working by means of the top of October had the Prologue at 18,309 gross sales this 12 months; 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 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 area. The bottom model has virtually 300 miles of EPA vary, whereas the highest one has 273 miles attributable to its all-wheel-drive and larger wheels.
2024 Honda Prologue Elite
Underneath the pores and skin, the Honda Prologue is not even a Honda in any respect; it is a Basic 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 package deal 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 stay with out these issues, the Honda would be 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 acquired in June is her nineteenth. “It’s not that I actually like electrical, it’s simply that I needed the brand new Honda to attempt it out,” Jones mentioned. “We drove it as quickly as (the vendor) acquired 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 common market worth of all US automobiles in September, in accordance with Bloomberg Intelligence. Not like many EVs, the Prologue’s efficiency will set nobody’s hair on hearth, but it surely does characteristic considerate and elevated particulars of the type Honda evangelists have come to like. There’s an enormous storage bin beneath the middle console, for instance, a large 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 accordance 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 automotive firms, take observe: that is most likely how EVs crack extra mainstream adoption. Folks don’t need spaceships, they need good specs and reasonably priced 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 beloved, 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 might argue that the above is why Toyota’s bZ4X has completed so nicely in sure months, particularly when extra-generous offers and incentives become involved. However every thing 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 manner.” Even when it isn’t one of the best EV on the market, it is clearly delivering what Honda house owners need.
And I might argue it is proving Toyota incorrect proper now. The bZ4X—which is a automotive I truly get pleasure from driving—has great potential. Each time the InsideEVs employees checks 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 possibly had just a few different related choices on this area, it could 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 a bit of tougher, this would not be a problem for them. (And possibly a bit of 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 individuals the place they’re, and the Prologue’s steadily growing gross sales in its very first 12 months show that the patron could be extra “prepared” than some firms assume they’re. This race is simply going to warmth up quickly; all of them must be fascinated with whether or not they have the expertise to satisfy the second or not.
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