Comment by Denatonium
7 days ago
Calling the Prologue "Honda's EV" feels like a huge stretch. The Prologue was a rebadged GM vehicle that served strictly as a compliance car for meeting CAFE standards. Now that the CAFE standards have been rendered toothless, there's no longer a need for that deal.
It was "Honda's EV" in the sense that it was the only EV with a Honda badge you could actually buy. The three canned models mentioned in the article never even made it into the market.
Europeans and the Japanese were able to buy the Honda e for a few years - this article wrongly states another unreleased model as Honda's first ground up EV.
There's a few other EVs Honda produced in 90s as well, but e probably in running for first ground up new EV platform that made it to market as mass produced Honda product.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_e
The Honda e was a massively compromised vehicle due to the tiny ~29 kWh net battery and high energy consumption. It was released in 2020 but in terms of utility it's really much more like an early 2010s EV.
> Calling the Prologue "Honda's EV" feels like a huge stretch. The Prologue was a rebadged GM vehicle …
I don't see the OP article call the Prologue "Honda's EV"? Instead, the OP article explicitly says the Prologue was both "designed and entirely built by GM."
That's separate from where the OP article first states that Honda killed three other specific models "that were the company’s first ground-up EVs".
There'll be a need to maintain sales if gas prices stay high.
>Now that the CAFE standards have been rendered toothless
Can you elaborate on this? I'd love to have a cheap small truck like they used to make, but CAFE largely killed those.
OBBB removed any fines for violating CAFE standards. They still exist technically, but it'd be like getting a speeding ticket but the fine is always $0...
CAFE killed small trucks in part, tariffs in another part, but US manufacturers are the real reason small trucks are dead.
US manufacturers want margins, and they're not getting margins on little, efficient cars. They get enormous margins on gigantic trucks that start at $55,000. Have you noticed that all the sub $20k cars went away from all the manufacturers around COVID?
Ford makes the Maverick, which is a small truck. They were priced very reasonably at release, at $19,000 or so. However, Ford didn't make very many of them, and the ones they did make got up to $15,000 over MSRP from the dealers, who scalped them. Why would Ford want to cannibalize their pricy gigantic trucks when they know that they can get their $50k asking price because there's nowhere else for people to go?
>Why would Ford want to cannibalize their pricy gigantic trucks when they know that they can get their $50k asking price because there's nowhere else for people to go?
Why isn't Ford worried that Chevrolet, Toyota, Ram, or Nissan will bring back a small and cheap U.S. built pickup? Is that because all manufacturers are afraid of cannibalizing their more expensive offerings? Are they all colluding? Or do not many people want small pickups? I guess if the Slate becomes a breakout hit, we'll know that people really want the smaller pickups.
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I got a new Maverick last year for $24.5k.
Cheap small trucks were killed by the chicken tax, not CAFE.
The Chicken tax didn't kill the domestically manufactured Ranger and turn the Colorado into the huge thing it is today.
CAFE killed them too. You can't have a small vehicle that gets fuck all MPG because it's built like a tank to do work. You gotta have a bigger one that gets slightly worse MPG but has a way huger footprint in order to make the math math.
This didn't just kill compact pickups for 20yr. It also killed the Chevy Astro (the most "fullsize work van" of the minivans) and why you'll never see a car with a giant overhanging cargo area again.
That’s not really sufficient explanation due to vehicles manufactured in the USA, CA or MX being exempt, and yet there are no small vehicles being made and sold in the USA in any large volume (despite clear demand).
My understanding is that this is due to fuel regulations being enacted by size and weight where it’s simply easier to make bigger vehicles.