Honda posts first loss ever after EV pullback

[buster]

Honda can't get ICE right either these days.

Ridgeline and Passport are decent with the V6.

 

[JeffKeryk]

That’s saying it very nicely.

That car is an abomination and a slap in the face to the enthusiast that it was targeted to.

And it's flat-out too expensive. By a bunch. And waaaaaay to slow for what it is.
Just my 2 cents, but if they had built an EV with range and enough performance, they would have a vehicle that would sell well for years.

 

[PandaBear]

FWIW I see Prologues EVERYWHERE now. When I had mine I was one of the first in the area to have one, and I saw like one a month. Now I can't go on a drive without seeing one. I miss it, it was a beautiful vehicle.

And if you spend any time in Prologue Facebook groups, people are already asking "when my lease is up I definitely want another EV, but I will have to leave the Honda brand after many many years since they won't be making any EVs anymore." I usually just tell them... GM will happily sell you an Equinox EV or Blazer EV without the Honda badge on it... but people are brand loyal... until they're not.

All I'm trying to say is, I still believe Honda is making a huge mistake. Look at Toyota... they didn't think anyone wanted EVs. In fact, they made literally one of the ugliest, least competitive EVs out there... well here we are and the refreshed version is out two years later and is quickly climbing the sales charts.

And once someone gets an EV, they don't usually go back to gas unless it's for very specific, rare reasons. Even if they just renewed their GM partnership for a refreshed/gen2 Prologue and rebadged the Bolt. Give the Prologue a little more torque, an LFP battery so it can be charged to 100% every day, and upgrade the DCFC from 150kw to 250kw or something. Then take the new Bolt, put CarPlay back in it, and sell it as the Honda E-Fit or something, I don't know. Both of those hypothetical vehicles would sell very well! In fact if they made those two vehicles they'd probably be the best in the entire Honda lineup. The 1.5T engines are trash, the 2.0T is only "better" because there are less of them out there, there are rumors that the hybrid and non-turbo engine blocks have similar issues just less likely to fail, the Ridgeline is ancient, the Odyssey is ancient...

Honda and Toyota are 2 completely different kind of companies despite them both being car companies.

Toyota family and Mitsui family, basically they have unlimited financial backing and supply the entire industry with parts (Denso, Aisin, etc). Honda uses a lot of those parts so a lot of their reliability comes indirectly from Toyota as well. You can't build a Japanese car without some of Toyota's supply chain.

Honda was originally a motorcycle company that transform into car company, so they are really good at the small and high rpm engine cars with very good fuel economy and durability. This does not translate very well into EV as they aren't really a controlling company of an electronics company and can fund R&D that way then sell to others. I think this is why they aren't really doing too well with turbo either as their domain knowledge originates from the motorcycle world.

GM actually does very well in the EV world, and partnering with them initially makes sense. You can take a lot of risk and bet your farm on it but in the business world screwing up can be a huge problem, and Honda usually does not like to just dump their cars in the high risk low income market like Nissan and Mitsubishi did. So moving slow is actually the right move for them.