Honda’s EV Plans Certainly Aren’t Hasty

• Honda aims for 70,000 annual sales of Prologue electric SUV, due stateside in 2024 with GM underpinnings.

• The automaker partially hedges EV plans in the US on EV incentives, which the White House is trying to tie largely to union-build, American-made EVs.

• Honda will introduce its own EV platform, dubbed e:Architecture, in the second half of the decade, aiming for 500,000 EV sales by 2030.

This week Honda has detailed its EV plans for the US market, a few years ahead of the arrival of its next electric vehicle—the Honda Prologue. The battery electric SUV is set to arrive on sale 2024 with the automaker indicating that it has set a sales target of 70,000 units for the new model, ahead of the arrival of others based on a platform to be developed by Honda, targeting 500,000 annual sales by 2030.

"Launching our first volume BEV in 2024 is the start of an exciting new direction for Honda," said Dave Gardner, executive vice president of National Operations at American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "We are working with our dealers to plan the transition from sales of primarily gasoline-powered vehicles to selling 100-percent electric vehicles by 2040."

However, even with the Prologue Honda is still planning to focus on so-called ZEV states: California, Florida, and Texas. The automaker says that it anticipates that the bulk of sales will come from these regions due to regulatory requirements and higher EV adoption rates.

More importantly for those who have been waiting to buy a Honda EV, the automaker goes as far as saying that initially the Prologue will be sold regionally, which means that it will be confined to just a few states.

"As EV infrastructure expands and customer interest grows nationwide, the company will rapidly expand sales and marketing efforts to other areas of the country," Honda adds.

The automaker has also referenced recent efforts by the White House to largely confine EV incentives for consumers to union-made, American-made vehicles, efforts that Honda along with Toyota have pushed back against in recent weeks. Honda now appears to be partially hedging its EV plans for the US on wider availability of those incentives.