Honda has a history of dipping its toes into a segment before jumping all the way in. For example, when it wasn’t sure whether the SUV craze of the 1990s was going to stick, it marketed a rebadged Isuzu Rodeo as the Honda Passport. Honda is doing the same thing with electric crossovers. The Japanese brand’s first-ever electric crossover for sale in North America is the Honda Prologue, which is based on the GM BEV3 platform and built at GM’s Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico.
Despite being a GM design under its Honda skin, the Honda Prologue outsold every GM EV in 2024. Of course, all GM EVs combined outsold the Prologue and its luxury counterpart, the Acura ZDX, but it’s still a surprise that among all Ultium-based EVs for sale in the United States, the best-seller of the bunch was a Honda.
| Model | 2024 Sales |
|---|---|
| Honda Prologue | 33,017 |
| Chevy Equinox EV | 28,874 |
| Cadillac Lyriq | 28,402 |
| Chevy Blazer EV | 23,115 |
| GMC Hummer EV Pickup/SUV | 13,993 |
| Chevy Bolt EV/EUV | 8,627 |
| Chevy Silverado EV | 7,428 |
| Acura ZDX | 7,391 |
| GMC Sierra EV | 1,788 |
| BrightDrop Zevo | 1,529 |
| Cadillac Escalade IQ | 670 |
There are a few reasons that could explain why the Honda Prologue outsold the Chevy Blazer EV in 2024. As we highlighted last month, the Honda Prologue has the benefits of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, more aggressive incentives, better charging perks, and seemingly better reliability. It might seem like a little thing, but a conventional charge port door rather than the motorized one on the Chevy is another small advantage for the Honda.
Although the Honda Prologue outsold the Chevy Blazer EV, the Cadillac Lyriq drastically outsold its Honda cousin, the Acura ZDX, which was a new model for 2024. This is likely because the Lyriq, which has been on the market since 2022, has a higher marketplace awareness. Also, the Cadillac dealer network in the U.S. is substantially larger than Acura’s.
Comments
As a Chevy/Cadillac Dealer I can report that the Blazer EV doesn’t sell here. At all! We can’t give them away losing $3000 on each. I order the vehicles for the store and won’t order any more. We have 5 on the lot for over 300 days.
Equinox EV. We moved a few. There’s no reason for Chevy to have BOTH Blazer and Equinox EV. Hell, we can’t even sell Blazer ICE. I think we’ve only sold 7 of those in the last 3 years combined.
The Prologue has a significantly cheaper lease than the Blazer EV PLUS the advantage of a Honda customer-base that rarely ever steps foot in a Chevy store. No surprise they outsell the Blazer. I fully expected it.
Which are you in? I live in Northern NJ and I can attest to what you are saying. And where I live its EV playground as the demographics here love them. I am seeing a noticeable increase in Equinox EV sitings and Lyriqs of course but never see the Blazer. I figured it had more to do with the Blazer costing nearly as much as the Lyriq.
As for the electric charge door, this is ridiculous. GM needs to stop pretending to be like the Germans and over-engineer every nut and bolt. This is an unnecessary additional cost when these cars are already unpopular and overpriced as is.
Oh and I forgot to mention. The local Chevrolet by me had Blazers at nearly $5k off and that is not including the tax rebate.
Maybe you are the problem. The Equinox EV is flying off the lots elsewhere.
The ICE Blazer is definitely dead..,which is a shame because it’s an amazing SUV.
Hahahahahahhahaha
Women and beta males buy imports, especially Japanese. The women dislike men and the beta males bend the knee to women and don’t want to be categorized as WT. It seems the Corolla and the Matrix outsold the Prism and Vibe fairly easily, even though the Vibe was 10 times better looking. You could had Saturn owners into this camp, but it all fell apart when the media and eventually the consumer found out that Saturn was GM.
The problem with those cars you mention there is those cars aren’t the originals. The Toyotas are. Here, the GM platform is the original. Although I don’t think GM is fretting much. I’m sure for every Prologue and ZDX they sell GM gets a cut of it regardless.
Any guy who uses “beta” to describe car brand preference is compensating for a certain lack.
Take it easy, bud. It’s just a car, not an identity.
Looks like GM is selling about 115,000 EVs a year spread across nine different products and it’s 2025. Didn’t Barra claim GM would be selling one-million EVs by ’25 and have Tesla on the run? She wildly miscalculated and created the infrastructure to support her goal which is now going unused. The EV pickups look to be a total flop. GM thought they’d be selling 400,000 of those alone. Instead Orion is idle.
It seems that Ford may have the better approach with a much more limited investment and portfolio. As Tony B. said above, why did GM think they needed the Blazer EV and the very similar Equinox EV. Just one would have made much more sense and then there are the five Cadillac electric SUVs. Why? Who decided Cadillac needed five? Who thought GM needed three full-sized electric trucks that are all different.
Nobody ever gets fired in our world today for poor leadership. Instead it’s always the folks not in senior leadership who get the 5AM email that their job is no more but if things were fair, miscalculations of this magnitude would lead to new leadership.
You are missing the fact GM EV sales have more than doubled since the same quarter last year. The growth is happening, just a bit later than originally projected.
Unlike Ford, GM has likely achieved positive variable profitability.
Unlike Ford, GM is sold hundreds of thousands of EVs in China last year.
Unlike Ford, GM is now the top EV manufacturer in Canada.
Unlike Ford, GM’s flagship EV platform has achieved ~ 97% growth QoQ in North America for two years:
1Q23 970
2Q23 1395 (+46.3%)
3Q23 4257 (+205.2%)
4Q23 6918 (+62.5%)
1Q24 10122 (+46.3%)
2Q24 27453 (+171.2%)
3Q24 54243 (+97.5%)
4Q24 82534 (+52.2%)
The canceled Malibu outsold the top 3 of those EV’S combined
The Prologue is by far, better looking than the Blazer EV. In and out. Friendly, approachable vehicles still sell, imho.
The Equinox EV is also by far, better looking than the Blazer EV. The “crying clown” head and taillights on the blazer, along with the incongruous undulations down the side, and the intentional, pronounced stubby tail all work to sink it like it hit an iceberg.
At this point, if they want to salvage what’s left of the Blazer name, make it a BOF SUV based on the Colorado. Which is what it should have been instead of the moderately successful current gas Blazer.
Agreed. The Wrangler, Bronco, and now even the EV Scout have retained their identity as off-road vehicles. The Blazer is just another SUV (or station wagon).
That said, the Equinox EV is maintaining it’s identity as a affordable family hauler (well, at least closer to affordable)
No Car Play, no GM EV. Its that simple. GM is trying to play Tesla’s subscription game. This is shades of Roger Smith’s acquisition of EDS when he wanted to transform GM into an information systems enterprise making money by selling data. GM needs to stick to their knitting, and do a better job of that.
Five letters are making the difference. H. O. N. D. A. Not unlike what happened with the Chevy Nova built by NUMMI in the 1980s…Toyota couldn’t sell enough of them. Chevy couldn’t give them away. The Toyota Corolla had the magic name on it. The Chevy Nova didn’t. Same deal with the Honda Prologue
I agree with this. Just as most here are GM loyalists, there are Honda loyalists elsewhere. I’d venture to say many shopping the Prologue have no idea that it is GM architecture underneath the skin. And if they do, they simply don’t care as they prefer the Honda BECAUSE it’s a Honda.
Luckily GM changed their traditional slot machine start chime and Honda their traditional alarm clock chime. Otherwise this would have caused suspicion on someone more familiar with Hondas and maybe a history with a GM vehicle. I know when I heard it in the final gen SAAB 9-5 I was a bit perplexed. It could not have been any more obvious of its Buick Lacrosse roots.
But you are totally right. I knew a guy who swore he would never buy another Chrysler product after living with a problematic Grand Cherokee. He traded that car in for a Touareg which he swore by VW after that vehicle. The next vehicle he bought was a Routan (a Chrysler minivan). When my dad told him it was a rebadged Chrysler minivan, I kid you not, he sold it within two weeks after he found out. He landed up getting a Sienna in its place.
And Honda in a bad situation WITH Nissan and Mitsubishi hahahahah.
I think it’s all simpler than the previous comments suggest. GM builds the Prologue, books the sale (at a profit) to Honda, who then has to incentivize through it’s dealer network to sell the vehicle. GM probably makes more money kicking out Prologues vs. Blazers & Equinoxes, so why not meet all the demand Honda expects?
Didn’t the Chevy Malibu sell more than that?
As a retired 30 year GM Dealer owner
I leased a Prologue just because the deal was so crazy good like 295 0 down
And it’s better than the Blazer
Always felt GM couldn’t market their way out of a paper bag. Continually making dumb decisions Dealer profitability on electric vehicles is non existent
Completely abandoning sedans without going hybrid and wagon was foolish
Dealers are praying Hyundai doesn’t make a pickup and full size SUV
Tariffs the only hope. That and Mary and certain board members are tossed
GM is making some great EV’s and Honda realizes the benefits of a joint partnership in the development and assembly of their EV’s. The differences between their EV’s are subtle, but not to be overlooked. Obviously the two have different ways of executing marketing, sales, etc. The partnership makes each other accountable, which is a good thing! But, it also makes it easier to keep the plant running at full capacity. Large corporations and politicians have the same problem, they’re tone deaf! It’s not their money at risk. Ignoring obvious trends, they still get paid whether it is successful or not. Until shareholders hold companies accountable, there’s no reason for things to get better. Profits are the only barometer used to determine success. Large companies become unmanageable, if Honda and Nissan merge they will become the size of GM. It will be difficult to manage and that’s exactly what has happened to Toyota. Smaller manufacturers find it hard to compete in today’s market. The reliability has been replaced with ongoing recalls. Outsourcing different parts of the product allows for mistakes to be overlooked and passed on to consumers. At some point it’s difficult to maintain a quality product when outside suppliers are involved, it’s just easier to cope with the recalls. There is so much technology involved today, it’s surprising things turn out as well as they do. There’s a lot to learn, the supply chains became a huge issue during Covid. Global outsourcing will become a problem, not a benefit in the future. Partnerships are better off in the long run, mergers lead to other problems.