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?
Any car enthusiast with two brain cells to rub together SHOULD be rooting for better public transport, because that equals less cars on the road which makes driving better for those that choose to do so.
Last June: Hiawatha to Chicago, Lincoln Service from Chicago to St. Louis. Beautiful ride and convenient compared to the hassle of the airport.
However, the Lincoln service was on the new Amtrak Airo cars. They’re terrible. They narrowed the seats to make the full aisle wheelchair accessible. The new seats are also thin with hard padding and don’t really recline.
I spent an hour wondering what the recline button did and then I realized it allowed the car to go from a normal angle to extra-uncomfortable 90 degrees. The elderly couple next to me, who also couldn’t figure out their seats, burst out laughing when I figured it out, “If we wanted seats like this we would’ve flown spirit!” They said.
“we ask for your patience and understanding.”
All I can think of is that hilarious scene where George Costanza is trying to get his car:
George:. “All right , just give me my car and let me get the hell out of here.”
Attendant: “Well that’s going to be a problem”
George: “Why?”
Attendant: “It’s all the way in the back. Can’t get it out for a couple of days.”
George: “What are you talking about.. I WANT MY CAR!!”
Attendant: “We ask that you please bear with us.”
George: “Bear with you! This is a parking lot PEOPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO GET
THEIR CARS!!!”
Attendant: “Ideally..”
I took Amtrak from Benson AZ to El Paso TX when I was a kid. It could be done in 3 hours by car but took all day by train because we stopped at what seems like hours in the middle of the desert for no reason that I could figure out as a kid. I enjoyed it anyway just because my dad let me keep getting sodas from the galley and mixing them together to make weird concoctions and having a sugar/caffeine high the whole way.
I don’t thing that the Prologue is anywhere near the most important EV of the year. It is selling so well because Honda is practically giving them away. Honda has to give them away for a couple of reasons.
#1 They have nothing else to give them ZEV credits since they haven’t given us a PHEV since the short lived Accord PHEV of several years ago. So if they want to sell their other vehicles they have to move some Prologues.
#2 Since the partnership with GM was started several years ago when people thought that EVs were about to explode in popularity there is a big chance that as part of the contract they agreed to buy a minimum of “XX,000” per year. So they are likely in a sell them or eat them situation as they can’t cut back on the number they are going to receive.
Those 2 items combined also mean that it is very likely that Honda is either tying allocations for other vehicles to the number of Prologues the dealer takes, or they are giving them hefty bonuses on the back end for every Prologue they get out the door.
Yes I’m sure some people are buying them because they know that that big H on the hood means that they will get some great Honda, er I mean GM reliability. But I bet a lot of them are going with the Prologue since right now it is the cheapest vehicle to lease from Honda and one of the cheapest leases out there.
Meanwhile GM can control how many Blazers it cranks out and is trying hard to sell them at a profit since they are sitting just fine on ZEV credits. Which of course is why they aren’t doing fire sale pricing.
Well in the great white north (MN), checking 2 of the largest dealer networks… Luther Honda in Brooklyn Park has 17 and I have to give them my info and then a dealer will contact me to give me a price.
Walzer in Burnsville has two on hand and both are listed $55k+
All for a GM product Patagonia hat, likely with LG pouch hv batteries, you know the battery supplier known for most of ‘thermal runaway’ events in the US!?!
No thanks
My last train trip of more than four hours was back in the spring on our honeymoon in Europe, during which we traveled by rail betweeen London, Paris, Marseille and Nice. The Eurostar and France’s TGV network made those trips relatively painless, and made me wish Amtrak’s Acela was deployed outside the Northeast corridor.
Traunch –> tranche
(French for “slice”)
First long Amtrak trip was to get my first car. 2007 At the ripe age of 15 years and 3 days, my father and I flew from Portland Oregon to Minneapolis where we loaded onto an overnight train to Devil’s Lake North Dakota where our eBay motors purchase was waiting for me. Little red Ford Ranger, clean and low miles. I learned to drive over the next 3 days on ND freeways and through Yellowstone on the way back home.
We were extremely close to booking a family trip via Amtrak from Milwaukee to Seattle for January but the travel times didn’t end up working for us. We are flying instead. I did the same trip as a kid and really want to do it again. Hopefully we can make it happen in 2025.
My parents are taking the Amtrak from Chicago to New Orleans this spring and then river boating it back up to Memphis before flying home to MI.
“The Most Important Electric Car Of 2024 Is Selling Like Hotcakes”
Do hotcakes actually sell well? In my view as far as breakfast foods go… they’re crap.
And many McD’s in many places stopped selling them:
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-McDonalds-stop-serving-their-traditional-hotcakes
And why did they do that? Probably because people realized they’re crap compared to other better things you can get.
So ‘selling like hotcakes’ doesn’t mean what you think it means anymore.
In the UK we say “selling like hot cakes”, which makes more sense?
Who eats hot cake? The frosting would melt off!
True, and even if it’s not a frosted cake (Dundee cake?), are cakes the food that comes to mind as selling fast when they’re hot?
The Most Important Electric Car Of 2024 Is Selling Like Hot Toasted Sandwiches
No question, that’s a fast-selling electric car.
Hot bagels. Buying the freshest possible bagels is a singular treat. If I’m buying a dozen, one of the pumpernickel ones is going into my gullet shortly after I get back in the car.
I would eat a hot cake… just put it in a bowl and in a soup of melted frosting!
Melted frosting soup cake!!!
MMmmmmmm…
Homemade are the only way to go with pancakes (the better term).
Mine are extraordinary, btw.
What is with you dipstix? Selling like hotcakes is an EXPRESSION. The in depth analysis of hotcakes wasn’t that useful. It’s an expression for crying out loud. Another expression. I was a finalist in a cooking contest with 18,000 entries and my recipe was apple pancakes. So stick that in your cake hole.
“Selling like hotcakes is an EXPRESSION.”
Technically it’s an IDIOM.
” The in depth analysis of hotcakes wasn’t that useful.”
I disagree. I think it’s very useful.
“ I was a finalist in a cooking contest with 18,000 entries and my recipe was apple pancakes”
And since I’ve never heard of ‘Jeffrey Antman’s Apple Pancakes’ for sale anywhere (let alone people buying them), I’d say your hotcakes aren’t doing so hot!!!
Thus, it reinforces my point about ‘selling like hotcakes’ actually means it’s not selling all that well these days!
heh heh heh
So if someone says “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” you pop up “well ackshually, at minimum a horse weighs over 100 pounds and the most a person can eat is around 20 pounds”?
Yes.
I’ve always appreciated your honesty at the very least. I could learn a pedantic thing or two that’s for sure.
Four days across Canada on VIA Rail from Vancouver to Toronto, more than 40 years ago when I was a broke yoof, so it was in an ordinary passenger car. No bed, no shower and, which will not surprise Canadians, a whole day late with broken AC for the last two days. This was in August, so we arrived in Toronto unaware that we stank like an elephant enclosure until the friend of my travelling companion who picked us up at the station suddenly interrupted the conversation to tell us so.
When was the last time you took a passenger train trip of more than 4 hours? Where? In America?
Does it count if its a 1 hr trip that adds an unexpected 3 hour stop and bus ride?
Amtrak in the NE Corridor is pretty great. They really need to just give up on the vast majority of the rest of it. Long-distance rail in this country just makes no sense at all, absent somehow spending a trillion dollars or so on a dedicated high-speed passenger network. Which is a non-starter due to distance and population density, never mind the shear insanity of the cost and the NIMBYs. Just IMAGINE the NIMBYs…
I’m more talking about the rest of the country. But can you even *imagine* what it would cost to just acquire the land in the NE to build a whole new TGV-style high-speed railroad? The whole problem with the NE Corridor to start with is that the right of way is ANCIENT, and so simply not suited for modern 200mph high-speed rail. And you really need that to compete with airplanes. Well, and Metro North. But bypassing MetroNorth alone means building through some of the most densely populated, wealthiest, and most expensive land in the country.
The high-speed line from LA to SF is basically through the middle of nowhere and the opposition to it has been insane, as have the costs.
Brightline MIGHT manage it from “LA” (sort of) to Vegas across the desert, but I will believe it when it’s done.
I’ve taken the DownEaster from Portland (ME) to Boston a few times. It makes sense if you are heading to the North Station area. It’s fine, but a good bit more expensive and slower than the excellent Concord Trailways buses that go direct to Logan Airport and South Station where all the rest of the Amtrak trains are if that is where you are going. Sadly, the rail connection between the two stations that was supposed to be part of the Big Dig didn’t happen.
I took Acela from Boston to DC once because work was paying and I was working next to Capitol Hill, so why not? Nope, totally NOT worth it vs. flying. Takes FAR too long, costs FAR too much, and the airports at each end are too conveniently located, Boston and DC both being blessed with airports that are basically right next to downtown with great transit options. If you are going along the I-95 corridor in-between though, the Regional trains make a lot of sense. I have taken the train to CT to buy a car, and home from PA after selling and delivering one. Worked out great. Train to Boston, bus to Portland. The Northeast corridor is pretty well suited for trains from a distance and population density perspective. Much of the rest of this sprawling land, not-so-much other than various city pairs and trios here and there. Not enough people, too much distance – and too many freight trains in the way.
Finally, I took the AutoTrain from FL to VA a few years back due to selling a car that I didn’t trust would make it to it’s new home in DC without being annoying. Also added onto a work trip to Baltimore, so work paid – cost was a wash with flying since I didn’t have to rent a car while I was there. But it’s expensive for an uncomfortable overnight in coach or STUPID expensive for a roomette. I was in coach. Never again.
I’m ver intrigued by the AutoTrain. I wish they ran one on the Empire Builder out west.
If you can afford a roomette, it wouldn’t be a bad ride. Coach sucks and you can’t use the dining car if you are in coach, which also sucks, as the cafe food is terrible.
It does cut out driving the WORST part of the trip from FL to the Northeast. Those southern states on I-95 are incredibly boring, tons of traffic, and much of it is still only two lanes each way, so it’s SLOW with all the truck traffic and construction.
Yeah the one big train trip I’ve done (Chicago-> Seattle -> San Diego -> Chicago) we had either bedrooms or family rooms. I couldn’t imagine trying to sleep multiple nights in a coach seat. I can barely sleep on a redeye flight.
I experienced a spectacular cross country trip as a kid, so I insisted our first family trip to Disney World (From Philly) would be by car.
After we arrived, I was disappointed by the ordeal it was; 95 south from Richmond to Orlando seemed like the same 20 mile stretch over and over again.
I am in no hurry to make another trip south, but if I had to, I would fly.
I do it from Maine to SW FL and back almost every year (and twice a couple of years), and it’s awful. Be glad when I don’t have to anymore, but between getting life balanced out between two homes, selling cars from down here up there, and it being easier to work on cars in my big garage up north with a lift, I have done it about nine times in the past eight years since I bought a winter place in FL. But the big garage for down south is underway, and thinking about selling my place up north, which will be the end of it.
My dad loves the AutoTrain! He takes it every time he’s gotta visit his family in Florida.
I leased a Prologue last month, and so far love it. I really wanted to wait for an R2, but with the tax credit being in limbo, we decided to lease now. The Prologue/Blazer were the only mass market EV’s available that fit the bill. We were coming from a RAV4 and needed a little more room, which ruled out the Mach E, EV6, Ioniq 5, etc. The bz4x/Solterra are too small and too half baked in my opinion. That left us to choose between the Prologue and Blazer. Overall the Honda name, more subtle styling both inside and out won us over. We never even went to see a Blazer as we didn’t like the looks and lack of carplay.
Same here. Drove them both. The Blazer AWD LT maybe even had a slightly richer feature set for a lower price vs a Prologue Touring AWD … apart from CarPlay and the key feature of having the Honda name / dealer network behind it. So we leased the Prologue.
So far so good!
My wife has a Mach E. I really like the styling of the Prologue. Is it much bigger than the Mach E?
Seems a lot bigger when inside and I think while driving too. Here are the specs via google.
The Honda Prologue is generally larger than the Ford Mustang Mach-E, with more interior space and a longer length:
Honda Prologue
Length
192 in
Interior Space
136.9 cubic ft.
Cargo Space
25–58 cubic ft.
Ford Mustang Mach-E
Length
185.6 in
Interior space
101.1 cubic ft.
Cargo space
Nearly 10 cubic ft. less than the Prologue
>When was the last time you took a passenger train trip of more than 4 hours? Where? In America?
San Antonio to Dallas about 6-7 years ago. 5h by car, 12h by train.
My last train ride over 4 hours was Vienna to Munich in maybe 2009. I’ve taken some shorter trips in the US. My last long train ride in the US was between Rochester and NYC, way back in 1998.
The only train I’ve ever ridden on is the Verde Valley Railroad Wilderness Route in Clarkdale, Arizona.While a cool experience, I wish I’ve been on more traditional ones.