It is a kind of issues that appears like a half-baked joke you’d inform at a automobile meet. Basic Motors spends billions creating an electrical automobile platform, the Ultium structure, that is speculated 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 yr are in, they usually paint an image that needs to be making people in Detroit sweat. Regardless of having practically two thousand fewer dealerships, Honda managed to maneuver 16,317 Prologue EVs within the first half of this yr. 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, value and options. On common, Honda bought greater than thrice as many Prologues as Chevy bought Blazer EVs, per vendor.
However the bruising would 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 value classes which can be doing fairly properly. Chevy bought a whopping 27,749 of the cheaper, smaller Equinox EV, and Cadillac discovered properties for 4,940 of its new Optiq equal. Cadillac additionally has the massive three-row Vistiq, of which 1,744 had been moved in Q2 (and just one in Q1 when it first went on sale), and it bought 3,766 Escalade IQs this yr to date. In fact, there’s additionally the Chevy Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV and Hummer EV vans, which have all seen gross sales will increase this yr.
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 exhausting money and easy advertising. Take the “One Pay Lease” on the 2025 Honda Prologue. You could possibly 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 appears like a typo, the sort of supply that makes you scan the tremendous print for a clause about donating a kidney.
Acura, to not be outdone, is throwing a really obscene sum of money 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 affords, 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 folks what they need
Even when the costs had been an identical, Honda should still be successful. It comes right down to probably the most baffling, customer-hostile selections in latest 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 admittedly anticipated) techniques out of most of its Ultium EVs, forcing consumers to make use of its proprietary Google Constructed-in infotainment.
Honda exhibits fundamental frequent sense by holding wi-fi Apple CarPlay and Android Auto alongside the Google Constructed-In on their fashions. For a technology of consumers whose complete life exists on their cellphone, GM’s CarPlay purge is not a minor annoyance; it may very well be a deal-breaker, particularly when the apples-to-apples rival palms the function over without cost.
Past that colossal own-goal, the Prologue is only a extra Honda-like automobile. It has bodily knobs for the local weather management. And on the subject of the all-important vary query, impartial assessments by Automotive 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 engaging to consumers, and it is now working up the scoreboard.
