It is a kind of issues that feels like a half-baked joke you’d inform at a automobile meet. Basic Motors spends billions growing an electrical car platform, the Ultium structure, that is purported to be the bedrock of its EV future. Then, in a partnership deal that appeared like a win-win, it lets Honda borrow the flowery new tech for a few SUVs.
What does Honda do? It proceeds to beat GM at promoting its personal {hardware} — no punchline right here, simply the weird actuality of the 2025 auto market. The gross sales numbers for the primary half of the 12 months are in, they usually paint an image that needs to be making people in Detroit sweat. Regardless of having almost two thousand fewer dealerships, Honda managed to maneuver 16,317 Prologue EVs within the first half of this 12 months. In the meantime, Chevrolet’s large vendor military bought 12,736 of the Blazer EV, the Ultium EV that is closest to the Prologue in dimension, worth and options. On common, Honda bought greater than 3 times as many Prologues as Chevy bought Blazer EVs, per vendor.
However the bruising does not cease there. Within the premium lane, Acura moved 10,335 ZDXs, which is the Prologue’s fancier sibling. That is a thousand extra models than Cadillac bought of the Lyriq, its equally sized and priced providing, and Acura did so with simply 276 dealership shops to Cadillac’s 589.
Now, GM does promote Ultium EVs of different sizes and worth classes which are doing fairly nicely. Chevy bought a whopping 27,749 of the cheaper, smaller Equinox EV, and Cadillac discovered houses for 4,940 of its new Optiq equal. Cadillac additionally has the big three-row Vistiq, of which 1,744 had been moved in Q2 (and only one in Q1 when it first went on sale), and it bought 3,766 Escalade IQs this 12 months thus far. In fact, there’s additionally the Chevy Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV and Hummer EV vehicles, which have all seen gross sales will increase this 12 months.
Let’s make a deal
The key sauce to Honda’s runaway success is not some magical engineering tweak or a secret handshake — it is chilly arduous money and easy advertising and marketing. Take the “One Pay Lease” on the 2025 Honda Prologue. You can get a brand-new electrical SUV with a single upfront fee of $4,800 (in some markets). That works out to an efficient month-to-month price of about $200 over the lease, with no month-to-month funds after. It is a deal so good it feels like a typo, the type of provide that makes you scan the high-quality print for a clause about donating a kidney.
Acura, to not be outdone, is throwing a very obscene amount of cash on the hood of the ZDX, providing a staggering $30,650 in lease money in some states. This drops the efficient price of the 500-horsepower premium EV to lower than that of an entry-level Integra. Wild.
GM’s presents, in the meantime, are a complicated mess of conditional rebates and opaque math. As of this text, GM has no lease incentive for the Blazer EV. And, sure, we’re particularly talking to leasing. GM does have some incentives, like on the Blazer EV for 0% APR for however-many months. However, do you actually wish to purchase an EV as a substitute of lease it?
Give the individuals what they need
Even when the costs had been equivalent, Honda should still be successful. It comes all the way down to probably the most baffling, customer-hostile choices in current automotive historical past: GM’s pivot away from Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. In a transfer that also makes zero sense, personally, GM ripped these confirmed (and albeit anticipated) methods out of most of its Ultium EVs, forcing patrons to make use of its proprietary Google Constructed-in infotainment.
Honda reveals fundamental frequent sense by preserving wi-fi Apple CarPlay and Android Auto alongside the Google Constructed-In on their fashions. For a technology of patrons whose total life exists on their telephone, GM’s CarPlay purge is not a minor annoyance; it might be a deal-breaker, particularly when the apples-to-apples rival arms the function over without spending a dime.
Past that colossal own-goal, the Prologue is only a extra Honda-like car. It has bodily knobs for the local weather management. And in terms of the all-important vary query, unbiased assessments by Automobile and Driver discovered the AWD Prologue went 30 miles farther on a cost than the equal Blazer EV. Honda took GM’s platform and easily made it higher and extra attractive to patrons, and it is now working up the scoreboard.