In order to reach even 50% vehicle electrification in the United States we need a lot of normies to buy electric cars. The first- and second-adopters have already purchased an EV. The buy-curious have taken the plunge. Now, the extremely average consumers need to start replacing their Honda CR-Vs with electric cars.
My guess in a Morning Dump earlier this year was that the Honda Prologue was going to be a great way for us to test if that third-adopter class was just waiting for one of America’s most trusted brands to finally put out an electric car. It seems that’s what is happening.
Honda, of course, has a robust ICE and hybrid portfolio to fall back on, so it’s not fatal for the company if the Prlogue flops. Nissan, on the other hand, is dealing with one flop after another and is having to beg its dealers to not freak out over the company’s performance. Volkswagen is past begging its workers to help it out, and now flat-out saying it needs more from them.
That’s kind of bleak. Let’s end this Morning Dump with some good news: Trains are back, baby!
Prologue Sales Are Going Up, Up, Up
There’s the great Arrested Development bit where analyst/therapist-turned-actor Tobias Fünke tries to drum up interest in what he’s doing by hanging around the water cooler saying things like “That Fünke is some kinda something” and “I’m tired of hearing how genius that Fünke is.”
Why is the Honda Prologue the ‘most important electric car of 2024’ and why isn’t the Cybertruck or the Daytona or anything else? Mostly because I called it that:
I think GM and Ford have worked hard trying to push their EVs, but the next traunch of people most inclined to buy the current generation of EVs and hybrids are probably looking to buy something from either Toyota or Honda. Toyota has great hybrids but a mediocre EV. Honda has good hybrids and now, it seems, a decent EV.
I’m really curious to watch Prologue sales. Given the current projections, it’s not likely that Honda will sell more than 50,000 of these in 2024, which puts it in the Mach-E territory. That’ll help juice the market, but it isn’t an overwhelming number. But if Honda can be a success with a perfectly fine EV I think it’ll show where the demand is. If it fails and spurs more hybrid growth, it’ll also show where the market is.
Either way, the Prologue is maybe the most important electric car of 2024.
I said “maybe” because I gotta keep a little wiggle room, right?
So far this year, Prologue sales have done a little better than my rosy projections. Honda saw a 14.5% increase in sales in November, led by a big increase in hybrids. The CR-V Hybrid, for instance, now represents a total of 54% of all CR-Vs, just as that model heads for a record year.
And the Prologue? A total of 6,823 were delivered last month, outselling the Odyssey minivan, the Passport SUV, and the Honda Ridgeline. The Prologue has now been on sale for a few months and the company has already moved 25,132 of them. The brand should easily top 30,000 sales this year (well, mostly leases I’m guessing).
Lacking more than quarterly reports it’s hard to say exactly where Honda will end up, but my guess is that the company will deliver more EVs with one single model than Cadillac, Polestar, Toyota, Subaru, Lexus, Genesis, or Audi individually.
A lot of this is because of aggressive leasing, but that’s true of almost every electric car. A more interesting comparison for me is the Chevy Blazer EV, which is built by GM on the same Ultium platform and is comparably priced. In Q3, GM sold roughly 8,000 Blazer EVs for a rate of about 2,700 a month. Even if you add in the cheaper Equinox EV, the selling rate in Q3 for the Blazer EV and Equinox EV combined was about where the Prologue is.
My guess is that sales of the Blazer EV and Equinox EV were up in October and November, so this is one of the comparisons I’ll be watching in January when we finally get everyone’s full-year sales reports.
Overall, this makes me think that the market isn’t quite as soft as everyone tends to think. There are still EV buyers out there. It’s been obvious for some time that pricing is important but, it seems, branding is also important.
Nissan North American Boss To Dealers: ‘We Ask For Your Patience And Understanding’
Nissan is in bad shape. It would arguably be better if it were just a part of Honda. Even if my vision of a combined Nissan-Honda came true, that wouldn’t help the unprofitable dealers stuck with unattractive supply.
The company seems aware things are going poorly and sent off a Thanksgiving memo to dealers, seen by Automotive News:
“We are working diligently to implement turnaround actions and the stability and future value they will bring to valued business partners like you is a high priority for us,” Nissan Americas Chairperson Jeremie Papin said in the Nov. 30 message viewed by Automotive News. ”We are working hard to deliver more details on these action plans. In the meantime, we ask for your patience and understanding.”
In the short- and midterm, Papin said Nissan will focus on three areas: reinforcing the product lineup, stabilizing and rightsizing the business, and driving growth.
“We recognize the actions designed to increase product competitiveness, the core of our business, are highly important to bring Nissan back on the growth track,” he wrote.
Rightsizing the business means reducing production because the only thing worse than 10 Rogues that no one wants to pay MSRP for is 10,000 Rogues that no one wants to pay MSRP for.
VW And Workers Don’t Seem Close To An Agreement
While I don’t think Volkswagen’s troubles are as existential as Nissan’s, the scope of VW’s issues is way more immense. It’s the difference between having one NV200 that’s puking oil onto your driveway and having 60 Jettas all with flat tires.
It’s been assumed that VW is going to have to close plants and lay off workers, which is something the company’s union and works councils have been trying to avoid. The negotiations do not seem to be going well, with VW CEO Oliver Blume and Works Council head Daniela Cavallo seemingly quite far apart:
Cavallo warned of the damage to Volkswagen’s image that the management’s tough approach and constant references to negative scenarios are threatening. “The board is damaging our brand with its behavior,” she said. “I am seriously concerned about the way the board is portraying our company in the press.” With its actions, it is offering a perfect opportunity for ridicule and mockery: “This is causing us massive damage.”
And:
Blume has now announced that he will continue to negotiate and work on “measurable and, above all, sustainable solutions.” At the same time, he emphasized the company’s difficult situation. New competitors are entering the market “with unprecedented force” and often with higher margins. At the same time, the car market in Europe is shrinking. At VW, labor costs must therefore be reduced and capacities adjusted. “We are also streamlining our organizations and creating synergies across the Group,” he said.
This is Cake-levels of distance between the two positions.’
Amtrak Will Have A Record Year
Amtrak has reached a record 32.8 million passenger trips this fiscal year (September-to-September), up 15% over 2023. Hell yeah. I was at least a couple of those trips. The nation’s main passenger rail service has seen a lot of improvements in recent years and is doing this with less capacity.
Amtrak achieved an all-time ridership record in Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), welcoming a historic 32.8 million customers as demand for passenger rail service continues to grow in markets across the nation. Amtrak also invested an unprecedented $4.5 billion into major infrastructure and fleet projects – creating the largest boom in rail construction in Amtrak’s history, putting thousands of skilled Americans to work and jump-starting American manufacturing. Amtrak is seizing the opportunity of strong customer interest and leveraging investments to improve all aspects of the travel experience.
“Breaking our ridership record is just the beginning,” said Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner. “This record ridership shows that travelers throughout the U.S. want efficient travel options, and we are committed to meeting that demand. Through bold investments, strong partnerships with states and host railroads, and dedicated planning, we are doubling down on our vision to connect more people and communities like never before.”
The federal rail company also only lost $705 million, which is pretty good for Amtrak.
I get this is a car site and we’re enthusiastically pro-car, but trains are cool and it’s better for everyone if we replace a lot of inefficient regional car trips with train travel. A lot of the growth and a lot of improvements are coming in the denser Northeast Corridor because anything beats driving on I-95 or the NJ Turnpike.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
There’s a good TV On The Radio video with cars in it, which I’ll probably share some day, but I woke up in a very “Return to Cookie Mountain” mood this morning, so please enjoy “I Was A Lover.”
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
When was the last time you took a passenger train trip of more than 4 hours? Where? In America?
I leased a Prologue in August. My first EV, and I was well aware of its GM origins. I wasn’t really looking for a new car, wasn’t trying to save the whales or achieve net-zero emissions. There was one reason and one reason alone that I took the plunge – I couldn’t deny the economics. With federal and state (MA) rebates, Honda incentives and dealer discounts, I’m paying under $250/mo and paid $700 out of pocket. I work from home, and have an L2 charger in my garage. And, it turns out, the Prologue is easy to live with, practical, fun to drive and I love the styling. Even the GM bits inside don’t bother me, they’re actually not too bad and the overall quality is very good. Not surprised Honda is moving these.
I bought an Ev6 cause I was putting about 600$cnd in gas every month in my forester. I gave 35000$ down and now paying 550$ to Kia for 5 years and about 50$ in electricity
I was in the same situation (and state – from your name possibly very close to you) when I leased my Ioniq 5 a few months ago. It was just a very good deal that got me to lease a car sooner than I really needed to.
Not as good a deal as you got on the Prologue, though.
Nice, I absolutely love the 5. Would’ve been my second choice. I’m on the South Shore btw.
Very far from you, then. My clams are dug where the fried clam was born.
I know that area well, have family in Essex. Clamming is good down here too though!
I rode Amtrak for the first time earlier this year. My trip was Baltimore to Philadelphia and back. It was comfortable, convenient, cheap, and travel time was less than the drive time would have been. I definitely see it as a viable option for regional transport now.
when I was 16 (long ago) I biked from Calgary AB to Revelstoke BC and then rode the Canadian Railways from Revelstoke BC to Vancouver BC. The Train ride was over 24 hours.
Prologue: Has Apple CarPlay
Blazer/Equinox/Lyriq: Doesn’t have Apple CarPlay
I know it’s an old line, but I’ve read enough posts and talked to a few folks who considered the Honda over the GM options thanks to this. So maybe it’s the most important vehicle for GM’s In-Car Entertainment division?
Yeah, I’d be fascinated to have the numbers on that.
The Lyriq actually does have CarPlay and Android Auto surprisingly enough. But yeah, if I was in the market for a Prologue/Blazer, it’d be easy to get the Prologue over the Blazer for that reason alone. I mean, I think it also looks nicer and the lease deals are somehow better on top of that.
Personally, I’d take the Lyriq over the ZDX, but the Prologue over the Blazer.
I forgot the Lyriq still has it, for now. I agree with you, the ZDX is blasê versus the more exciting Lyriq.
Prologue being a Honda and the others being GM products would far trump CarPlay for me if it was the other way around, and I don’t even like Hondas.
But picking one car over another because it can do screen sharing doesn’t register with me at all, as much as I find GM’s decision here to be typically GM short-sighted stupidity.
I mean the Prologue is built by GM… but I get what ya mean.
Forgot about that – in that case my choice would be neither of them.
Fair enough. I’d trust Ultium over what ever, from the ground up option that any Japanese maker can come with at this point. If you’re not on the train, it’s going to be hard to catch up.
Back in a previous century, my Cub Scout pack took the train from NYC to Orlando to spend a week camping at Disney World. It was 24 hours on the train and I still have fond memories of that trip.
This was before the era of super lightweight nylon tents, so walking through Penn Station with long tent poles and canvas tents got us lots of looks.
Dear Carlos Gohsn san
All is forgiven, please come back.
You will not even need a speaker case, we will pick you up in Beirut in a Nissan plane.
There is another Carlos who keeps ringing for job, Portuguese guy.
Do you know him?
Your friends at Nissan.
The Prologue sales are very interesting to me in that I believe it suffers from the same thing I ripped the Freestyle for in a previous article, it is so generic. It just looks like an AI output of “midsize electric crossover” with no significant character. But perhaps, that is why it is selling….people don’t want the “out there” takes on EV crossovers (Mustang, Tesla, Toyabaru ugly thing) and instead are more apt to pull the trigger when it just looks like a car.
Side note, even with all its flaws, I think the Toyabaru Soltlettersomethingnumberletter would have been very successful if they didn’t make it a weird overly plastic clad thing on wheels. Toyota customers love acceptable and Subaru-outdoorsy-lifestyle folks (like myself) would love a Subaru EV option if it didn’t look like butt.
BusyForks is what I believe it is called.
I would 100% agree. We went with the Prologue over the Blazer because of the more subtle design and car play. And as a former diehard ford guy, I couldn’t stomach a Chevy in the driveway. At least now its in a Honda wrapper. The the Toyaburu was too small, too ugly and very much a compliance feeling car.
Back in the day as a bored teenager we would sometimes hop a freight train headed to the Naval Air Station. We would ride for a few miles and jump off when it slows for a road crossing. Not 4 hours but fun and dangerous. Looking back it seems crazy.
Hell yeah, Amtrak. I was responsible for a double digit number of those trips because I took my oldest to Boston once and the whole family to DC once, plus several trips for work. I went all the way from Philadelphia to Raleigh on one of those and while yes it took longer than flying, it was way, way more pleasant. I just sat there and worked using Amtrak wifi.
Best part of Amtrak is that you can get up and pee or get a snack whenever you want.
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPAs are currently $8.50. Snacks are still microwaved.
I’m not saying the snacks are a great deal, but you don’t have to stop progress to get them. Anyways the bathroom thing is the best part.
Don’t think it was 4 hours, but I took Deustche Bahn for a few hour trip on vacation. It was a nice way to travel. In the US, only subways and commuter rail. I’d like to take a train trip someday, but need to be on retired time to make that work.
I do think the Honda name helps some people make the leap. Even if they know the Prologue has GM guts. It is a decent looking car, decent specs, decent price I guess. Apparently has CarPlay unlike the Equinox/Blazer EV.
I’m someone who shops Toyota/Honda first, but for my household, we aren’t buying an EV as a primary car and I am not spending $50k on a commuter car that is likely to have disastrous depreciation.
So for me, a EV has to be cheap to be in consideration. So either something like a used Chevy Bolt or a scorching cheap lease deal is the extent of it.
And for a lease, I don’t care if it is a Honda, Chevy, or even a Nissan (Ariya not Leaf) although I want CarPlay.
The closest Amtrak station to Las Vegas is in Needles, California, over 100 miles away. You can buy an Amtrak ticket with a Las Vegas origin, but the first leg is a coach bus ride to Needles. I’ll pass.
I hate framing government run, public assets as running at a “loss” (especially post office and Amtrak). My local public works department had a few million-dollar loss this year and all I got was these nicely paved roads and water mains that don’t break.
People want to privatize those water mains too.
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/04/privatization-poverty-threaten-water-affordability
Yeah my water is already privatized and it’s…not great! Think a monthly water and sewer bill of $150 for two people.
Amtrak is structured as a corporation, the government owns all the preferred shares and has the bulk of the voting rights, but there are 4 private companies that hold the common shares – American Financial Group, Berkshire Hathaway, Canadian National Railway, and Canadian Pacific Kansas City. The original idea in the 1970s was for it to be under only temporary government control and be privatized again after returning to stability, but that proved elusive. Others speculate that Nixon never really intended that at all and was more interested in a controlled, orderly wind-down of intercity passenger rail over several years instead of a complete collapse, and never committed to a proper turnaround plan as a result
Amtrak was one of two federally created railroad companies formed around the same time to salvage bankrupt or nearly bankrupt private operations. The other being Conrail, which was the equivalent of Amtrak for Northeast freight operations, and was ultimately turned around and privatized as originally envisioned
Same! It just shows what a hyper-capitalistic society we live in, where everything has to generate some sort of “profit”. Except the military, they can lose 1B a year and no one bats an eye.
1B? I wish that is all they lost; that’s just a rounding error when it comes to military spending.
Right, I meant 1T.
I think one of the reasons Amtrak is a whipping boy is that it primarily benefits a population in the Northeast that have so many other advantages in terms of opportunity and culture. A random person in Nebraska is probably never going to take an Amtrak and may resent paying for it.
Of course, the Northeast Corridor provides a tremendous portion of the country’s GDP, also.
So maybe they should pay for their own trains?
Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor actually turns a significant operating profit. It’s services to the rest of the country that put it in the red (link goes to an Amtrak report):
white-paper-amtrak-long-distance-financial-performance.pdf
That is great to hear. It’s almost like the service is only viable in dense urban areas.
That’s basically true for any service, which is why rural services are so heavily subsidized.
Also, the Northeastern states generally punch well above their weight in taxes sent to the Feds, and New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Delaware actually contribute more in taxes than the federal government spends there.
So maybe Nebraskans should pay for their own farm insurance.
Yes maybe they should. I bet some of their corn ends up in Pennsylvania though.
I contend that Federal taxes should not be used for state and local problems, except in case of natural disasters. Boston tunnel, California train, Nebraska schools or parks, Atlanta airport – do the cost/benefit analysis and then raise the money to benefit your own citizens. That’s kinda what states are for.
OK but Amtrak mostly provides interstate transport. And some states, like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, pay them for additional service.
That is a fair argument but outside of the Northeast corridor, very few people use Amtrak for cost/time-effective travel. It feels like we collectively are funding the cross-country Amtrak as a living museum/national park/nostalgia trip while calling it a transportation service. Trains in other countries (Japan, China, Italy, France,…) are legitimate people transport, cost/time comparable, and a pleasure to use. Amtrak is just not a serious service and as such, not worthy of Federal support as “interstate commerce”. BTW, I wish that were different and I do understand why it is this way but it is not going to change.
Okay, but again outside urban areas almost no modern service is cost-effective. Hospitals, the postal service, internet service…
IDK – whenever you start picking at these threads it can become apparent that things actually work … pretty well all things considered. And there is a ton of room for improvement. But governing and running a safe sanitary society is extremely difficult. Anyhow, the St. Louis to Chicago and Chicago to Milwaukee lines as well as I am sure many others are heavily traveled and depended upon by many…
If the Postal Service was permitted to drop serving Nebraska and other states with tiny populations, imagine the savings to the rest of us. It works both ways you know.
Eh, Nebraska gets its farm subsidies. I’m never going to get a farm subsidy.
Once, in high school I skipped school, hopped a freight train and rode from outside Boston to upstate New York to visit a girlfriend who’d recently moved there. Bit of hitching involved, too. Does that count?
Yes!
I took a train trip from Syracuse, NY to Manhattan. It took about an hour longer than the drive because of all the stops and was much more expensive than the gas, but it was nice to just be able ot read a book and I didn’t have to pay for parkin or tolls.
honda also seems to be producing a good number of these! im in alabama and they have 10 on the lot. prices on evs are still in insanity land. My wife would be the perfect candidate for an electric vehicle but it is just cheaper for her to drive a prius.
This is completely subjective, but I’m definitely seeing a lot of Prologues these days. The wife and I were just in the triangle in NC for Thanksgiving and a few extra days and they were everywhere. I’m also seeing plenty in DC. I think a lot of people trust Honda and don’t know enough to realize it’s a GM product….although it does seem like a perfectly cromulent vehicle and the Honda versions have proven less problematic than the Blazer so far.
And has that sweet, sweet CarPlay that all the kids are hot for these days.
“You know that feature everyone uses and wants? Lets throw it out the window and create our own, worse version!”-GM
Wasn’t Apple CarPlay listed as the #1 most desired feature by new car shoppers for a few years?
Lol, I studied GM in business school in 2006 (cough cough Delphi). They’ve always been a mess.
TBF “studied” does not not necessarily mean as a positive example.
I’m in NE WI and I haven’t seen a single one yet. Or maybe they just blend in to well/I mistake them for the HR-V. Seeing a decent amount of Equinox EV lately though.
You see lots of them in Seattle.
They are kind of generic but good looking. Its a design that will age well.
Amtrak, yeah that’s nice, now watch as federal investment in passenger rail goes into the fucking toilet. Does anybody really think this crop of yahoos coming in is gonna do anything to make Amtrak better? After they bent over for oil industry money?
Tell Musk he can make them electric, self-driving, and slap a SpaceX rocket on it for speed or something idk.
No, that’s not helping burn more oil. Not on the agenda.
The train electric grid can be fed by oil burning power plants.
But it doesn’t have to be. All we have to do is change.
Is that all? What are we even waiting for?
Some folks are fearful of change. I can’t say I’m one of them.
I assume you’re referring to using oil to produce energy, and not for lubrication.
The factories run on electricity, not oil. If you provide electricity through other means (like wind, solar, nuclear) then you don’t need any oil for energy production.
So, all we need to do is produce more of our electricity using wind and solar, instead of oil, coal, and NG. But only if the people standing in our way age out and move on.
Name tags? Seriously?
They’re made of oil because WE LET THEM BE. As soon as we stop doing that, they won’t be any more. They’ll be made of something else. Cotton works really well.
You’re making the transparently silly argument that just because an energy source is used for something now, substitution is impossible.
See, you’re switching the focus. This conversation started out talking about burning petroleum. Absolutely, replacing its use in materials would be a lot harder.
Your proof that replacing fossil fuels (note, not chemical feedstocks) is a “hustle” is that plastic is made from oil? That’s barely a step above the Chewbacca defense.
Electric harvester equipment? Running on batteries?
Why not? You keep insisting that “this is the way things are”. But why can’t we just change the way things are?
I get it, change is scary for some people. You might be upset if you hear that some billionaire has to settle for a 70-foot yacht instead of a 90-foot yacht. You might be used to the powers that “be” running the show. You might even BE one of those powers.
But change is coming, drastic, extreme change. When will it be here? When Gens Y&Z constitute a majority of the electorate.
baa-dee, baa-dee, baa-dee, that’s all folks.
Okay. We use today’s energy supply to make the machines which will produce and use the future’s energy supply. We can choose which machines to make, which affects how much of what energy sources we will use in the future.
Like, you realize the energy source mix of our economy has changed substantially in the last 50 years, right?
I’ve never taken a train trip but really want to. The biggest obstacle is their stations and routes being so far out of the way. A grassroots proposal for commuter rail in my region gained news coverage last year but unfortunately no real political interest.
It ain’t easy being a hobo these days.
Oh, hell: the CEO used the ‘syn’ word: that’s not good!
I feel for VW’s workers.
I saw a Prologue in person in May and was shocked at the $60K MSRP for a Honda that looked super cheap to me. So imagine my surprise to hear they are “selling” well. Until I googled “prologue lease deal,” which cleared that right up.
I used to take the Amtrak from Chicago to Detroit when I was young and poor. Those trains can spend 4 hours just sitting on the tracks in Indiana, waiting for the freight trains to go by.
I’m still waiting for a hybrid/EV convertible. Why is EVERY hybrid/EV basically the same car. 4 door hatchback or pickup. Can somebody please take a risk.
Wrangler, Hummer, Roadster. A Porsche EV convertible is supposedly coming.
Most vehicles in the US are CUVs, SUVs, or pickups. There aren’t a lot of convertibles period.
Corvette E Ray is a convertible hybrid too, albeit not efficiency focused.
thank you, why do people keep forgetting the E-Ray?
To be fair, it costs $110,000 and gets 19 combined mpg, so it’s maybe not the first thing people imagine when they think “hybrid”.
That’s too bad. The first car that comes to my mind when someone says “hybrid” is the AMG ONE.
The longest train ride I’ve ever had was DC to BWI.
Right now if I wanted to ride an Amtrak would be a trip to Chicago or New York which depart Cincinnati to NY on W, F, Su at 3:29 AM, or to Chicago M, Th, Sa at 1:10 AM, they are potentially going to have useable routs in Ohio, maybe, in like 10 years, possibly.
If the prologue wins over the Blazer and Equinox EV, that’s just marketing/brand perception right? GM should be able to sell these at a much more attractive price, since Honda is basically doing a buy-and-resell on the Prologue. And honestly even with how crappy GM service tends to be, I’d rather have this serviced at a dealer selling GM vehicles.
lease deals I think at this point.
I did shop both, the leases were within $10 a month of each other. The Blazer was technically a better deal as it had leather, heated steering wheel and pano roof. But we didn’t like the overly aggressive styling and lack of carplay. Also our local Chevy dealer is terrible and although I could buy elsewhere I didn’t want to deal with them when it came time for warranty work.
I think it also has something to do with the fact that Honda and Toyota buyers are fiercely loyal to the brand, with only really some cross-pollination between the two and their luxury arms, but not to domestic or German marques. When the Toyota Busy-forks is such an awful product in comparison, those Honda/Toyota and to a lesser extent Subaru buyers want an EV, they end up with Prologues simply because its a decent EV from a brand they trust. Lease deals seem somewhat better on the Prologue than Blazer, but not enough to account for the difference.
My other theory is that a lot of dyed in the wool Domestic vehicle only buyers tend to be more old-school and change resistant compared to German and Japanese die-hard buyers, so it’s a tougher sell to get them into EVs than it would be someone with a CRV or Rav4 Hybrid.
It may turn out to be a referendum on GM ditching CarPlay, too.
Back when Honda sold an Isuzu as the first generation of the Passport, I didn’t think there was difference between the two models. In this case, there may be a significant difference.
I have never taken a train trip of 4 hours or more.
The longest is the Paris-London trip (under 3 hours if I remember right) a couple of times.
I remain curious about the newly upgraded Amtrak service from Chicago to St Paul and hopeful that they will add express runs and/or bypasses of Milwaukee to cut the time down. Right now there’s no overall time savings vs driving (when you count getting into the downtowns of both cities) but if there were it would be a real option for me.
I’m in Milwaukee and am curious about that line too as I’d love to take it to the Twin Cities. I don’t think it’s the Milwaukee stop that makes it take so long, it’s all the other small stops along the way where no one/one or two people get on/off. There’s a few of those between Chicago and Milwaukee and I’ve heard there’s a ton of them between Milwaukee and St. Paul.
Yes I’ve heard the same.
Obviously for my purposes it’s easier and faster to go directly from Chicago to MSP rather than take the longer route through Milwaukee but an express of any kind with only major stops would be a big improvement.
I wonder if all those Prologue buyers know it’s really just a rebranded Chevy Blazer EV? If I wanted a GM EV, I’d just buy a GM EV. If I buy a Honda, I want it to be a Honda.
Honest question, what would make it “a Honda”?
Electric motors and batteries basically come off the shelf. The interior shares some parts but seems like a Honda design more or less. This isn’t like buying a “Civic” with an Iron Duke or something.
This is my conclusion as well. Generally, a bad EV is bad due to reasons apart from powertrain. An EV battery and powertrain is just the skateboard the rest of the vehicle is built on. It doesn’t really matter. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if GM managed to find a way to inject some good ol’ GM reliability into it.
I think in this case, it would be using common Honda parts. Honda engineers did a lot of suspension and chassis tuning for the Prologue, but the entire interior is made up of GM switchgear and common components, only placed by Hondas engineers to match their ergonomic ideology. Similarly I’d argue to be a Honda means there’s going to be a continued stream of parts managed by Honda. In the case of the Prologue, in 10 years you’ll be going to a GM dealer for service for anything more than cabin air filters and alignments.
Otherwise your argument about them being the same to drive holds true, the powertrain no longer really defines the vehicle, it’s a list of specs on charging time, range, and the packaging of your choosing that decide what makes sense more than the brand. That and the reputation and longevity of the battery manufacturer at most.
I hate being this guy, but any source for this claim? Do Pontiac Vibe owners need to go to Toyota dealers now? Do BRZ/86 owners go to different dealers depending on if they need engine work vs other work? How about Supra owners?
If a dealer sells a model new, service and support of the vehicle is implicit (explicit up to a certain amount of time). That isn’t changed by the fact that some components are shared with other manufacturers. And it completely misunderstands the profit motive of the dealership itself once the warranty has expired.
The Honda dealer is going to be happy to keep installing parts and doing service on a Prologue for as long as a customer wants to bring it in.
That’s a very fair couterargument, and no I don’t have any sort of proof, it is widely speculation. That said I will give my reasoning as to the specilation. The Honda/GM tie-up has already collapsed and there is no more joint development happening, and this will be the only Ultium Honda EV. With that in mind, given pretty much every single component of this car was only built at a GM plant.
This is unlike the Vibe/Matrix (a combined effort vehicle at a plant owned/operated by both companies) and the BRZ/FRS/86 (also a combined engineering project, and in this case a relationship which continues). Both companies on those examples had engineering buy-in and ownership of the parts shared between them. In the case of the Prologue, all of the interior parts like switches, screens, and most other things are GM parts that Honda owns no part of in the parts supply chain. This means whenever any sort of deal between Honda and GM expires to supply XYZ PN to Honda for spare parts, Honda won’t be able to source them.
Like I said, it’s speculation, and obviously nobody outside the companies knows the exact terms, but this is a lot closer to a contract manufacturing job that Honda has paid GM to do, than one it has true IP and manufacturing chain ownership of. Honda will do what they can to turn a profit on parts, but if a customer needs something that only comes from a GM plant, then they might have to take a trip to a Chevy dealer.
I obviously don’t know the contract terms either, but I think Honda would have had to be very foolish not to secure a source of parts and a way to service the software/hardware of the vehicle for its expected lifespan.
Honda basically had GM (Isuzu) build the first Passport for them under contract. The situation would seem to be pretty similar now.
Worst case, I’m sure GM would sell Honda the parts at retail to mark up in its own dealers lol.
Everyone knows Vibes don’t break.
At least 10 years ago, the GM dealer was happy to sell me Vibe parts for my roommates 1st gen Vibe. I don’t see why Honda wouldn’t be happy to sell Prologue parts.
Honestly for powertrain and chassis for an appliance type vehicle, GM tends to do just fine, even in reliability.
If I can get that with an interior made by Honda that looks decent, made of better materials and doesn’t fall apart in 5 years? Yeah, that seems like a winning combo, even not counting the bone-headed CarPlay differences that sell the appliance cars.
Aren’t the motors GM used on the BEV3 products GM designed and built? And the batteries are from the JV between LG and GM and manufactured by that JV? It’s not like GM simply went to a supplier and bought off the shelf motor and batteries that any other OEM could buy and integrate into their own model; kinda like a ZF transmission or Bosch EPS system might be on a lot of ICE vehicles today. It really isn’t a Honda in my mind, it’s 100% a rebadged GM with a GM powertrain. I’m not saying it’s bad even, but I could see why a Honda fanboy might not like it.
I think you underestimate how unknowledgeable the average moron is in this country. Most people don’t even know Lexus is a luxury arm of Toyota.
It will be the 2nd or 3rd owners that are made very aware the Prologue is not a real Honda when the dealers inevitably refuse to work on them in the future.
I’m guessing GM footed most of the bill here designing this platform, so Honda has it pretty good right now if I’m correct. If I was in the market for a car like this and I happened to stumble upon the fact that it shares a platform with the Blazer, I’d still get the Honda on looks alone. The Blazer is a ridiculous looking car, and the Honda interior (at least in photos) looks way better.
Plus, the Honda runs CarPlay, which in itself isn’t nothing.
GM actually followed through and nixed carplay? I assumed they would walk that back after blowback from everyone imaginable.
They are steadfast in their boneheadedness
Wow. I buy cars as a budget-minded enthusiast, and even I wouldn’t even consider a new vehicle lacking Android Auto and Apple Carplay. How much more an average consumer looking for an appliance?
The Blazer does look pretty weird. Someone at work has an Equinox EV that I see in the parking lot. I gotta say, it looks pretty good, better than the ICE version for whatever reason.
100%. I just leased a Prologue and went for it over the Blazer mostly on the design alone.
It would be interesting to see current owner registration data to know if they’re conquesting other brands or if it’s more loyal Honda owners. Maybe the leases are cheap enough that it’s a risk even an anti-GM buyer is willing to take.
IIRC Honda said they’d offer some kind of promo for CR-V hybrid lessees to get into a Prologue, but it’s within the current gen that the hybrid makes up such a great share of CR-V sales; I don’t think the prior hybrid CR-V accounted for enough share to make up all the Prologue’s they’ve moved so far.
We traded in a RAV4 non hybrid for our Prologue. They offered an additional $1,000 to Toyota, Ford, GM and other owners.
I did and would have preferred a true Honda, but chose the Prologue due to its less aggressive styling and carplay. Its just the vehicle that fit the bill & we liked more.