Honda Comes From Nowhere & Scores Big EV Sales In USA

I’ve covered the US EV sales results of several auto companies this month as 3rd quarter sales data have come out. Several companies have seen soaring EV sales growth, while others have seen big drops in EV sales. And, even within companies, some models are up a lot while others are down a lot. However, there was one company that surprised me a bit but I didn’t know what to make of it, so I held off a bit before writing about it. That company, of course, is Honda.

Ford EV sales grew 12% in the third quarter (Q3), especially backed by Ford F-150 Lightning sales growing 105%, to 7,162 sales. The Ford Mustang Mach-E saw a slight decline in sales, but it was still the highest selling non-Tesla EV in the country, with 13,392 sales in the third quarter. But here’s the wild news: the Honda Prologue came out of nowhere to almost take that title from the Mustang Mach-E. The Honda Prologue scored 12,644 sales in the third quarter.

Part of what surprises me is that the Prologue is quite fresh on the market. Just 19 units were delivered in the first quarter, then 1,516 were delivered in the second quarter, and then — boom — 12,644 deliveries! That’s a fast jump from nowhere through meh to wow!

Another thing that surprises me about it is that Honda has been seen as a huge EV laggard for several years. It avoided developing an electric car for a decade. It sullied its name among many EV fans and followers. Nonetheless, apparently, its much longer reputation as a leader in fuel efficiency and hybrids made it an easy sell to get customers into its first serious full electric vehicle. And I know there are also those kinds of buyers who specifically waited for their favorite brand (and Honda is that for many people) to get into the EV game. Maybe what this result shows is just how strong the Honda brand is still with less gas-guzzling-minded buyers. (That said, given the size of Honda, we should hope for continued fast growth of EV sales and a much higher percentage of its sales coming from EVs.)

But there’s one more reason this high sales result surprises me a bit. Our own Kyle Field drove and reviewed the Honda Prologue earlier this year. In March, Kyle wrote, “The Prologue EV is built on top of GM’s Ultium platform and utilizes a ton of GM’s battery and powertrain components, to the point that it feels like a GM vehicle with a Honda shell on top. Honda opted to to partner with GM on the Prologue EV to accelerate the time to market for its first production-scale electric vehicle. This also gives Honda the ability to learn from General Motors’ technology to see what aspects of the electric vehicle experience resonate with Honda as a brand and Honda’s customers at the same time.” In other words, really, the Prologue is not a Honda at its core and is nothing special. You may as well buy a Chevy Equinox — but it turns out about 3,000 more people bought a Honda Prologue than a Chevy Equinox!

There are a couple more matters as well. For one, perhaps Honda just had enough demand built up for an EV that it had a long list of people who jumped on the Prologue once it was available to them and sales will fall off in the future. (I don’t really think that’s the case, and hope it’s not, but it’s one possibility.) Another thing is that I’ve heard Honda’s pushing some great deals on the Prologue, and I’ve seen many ads for it myself. Perhaps Honda is genuinely trying hard to get sales of the Prologue flowing and wants to quickly become an EV leader in the country.

Perhaps Honda just knows how to package a car at a competitive cost and market it to customers. Maybe Honda’s just better at selling cars, and that includes the somewhat mediocre Prologue. I guess I haven’t really hidden my opinion on the Prologue, but I’ll be honest, it’s just not one of the top EVs I’d recommend to someone looking to get into an electric car for the first time. There are several others I’d recommend ahead of it. But maybe I should put the Prologue higher up the list. After already becoming the 5th best selling electric car in the country, there’s a solid chance it rises to 4th or even 3rd in the next quarter. We’ll see. Either way, though, it’s likely to remain in the top 10. We’ll see where it goes from here.