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Although it seems like a very new technology, the American auto market is starting to adapt to all-electric vehicles.
According to data from Kelly Blue Book and Cox AutomotiveMore than 330,463 electric vehicles were sold in the second quarter of 2024, an increase of 11.3% compared to the same period in 2023.
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The data also shows that electric vehicles currently account for 8% of total car sales, which can be attributed to the wide range of entities that produce electric models. Trusted automakers like Ford, GM, Kia, and Hyundai, and startups like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, offer an abundance of electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes to today’s discerning customers.
However, 8% still represents a tiny fraction of the larger car market, and legendary Japanese automaker Honda (King Abdullah Medical Center) It represents a smaller part.
Honda is a new player in the electric vehicle space. Along with its diverse lineup of gas-powered compact cars, sedans, SUVs and hybrids, it sells just one electric vehicle: the Prologue SUV. According to KBB and Cox data, Honda sold just 1,516 Prologues in the last quarter, a significant improvement from just 19 in the first quarter.
The automaker is investing heavily in electric vehicle technology, dedicating tens of billions of dollars to building a robust, tax-exempt EV supply chain in North America. However, in a recent interview, two Honda executives explained the true state of the EV market and why the company isn’t taking a more aggressive stance toward its electric vehicles.
James Ochoa
“The customer is always right”
In an appearance during Monterey Car Week, First reported by The DriveHonda American President and CEO Kazuhiro Takizawa and Honda Global Executive Vice President Shinji Aoyama explained that while electric vehicle sales are growing, the slowdown in sales growth is due to the infrastructure to support electric vehicles not growing fast enough along with them.
Basically, customers won’t be attracted to electric cars, no matter how much discount automakers offer, if fast, convenient charging is a hassle to find near their home or workplace or leaves car owners waiting for vampires. “Cargo pigs.”
“You can’t force a customer to change their mind, really, and to some extent [you can incentivize] “But we can’t force people who live in the Midwest, for example, to not have charging stations,” Takizawa said. “Even with incentives, they’re not going to switch from internal combustion engines.” [Internal-Combustion Engine] To BEV [Bac. I believe it will be very difficult to force people to go for it. We need to prepare the ecosystem gradually and let them migrate little by little.
“It’s changing. We’re closely monitoring the number of [new] “It’s not a quick thing to charge weapons for every electric car, but it’s a gradual and steady increase.”
More electric car work:
- Waymo Invents a New Way to Bring Chaos to Quiet City Streets
- Gavin Newsom’s Electric Vehicle Mandate Threatened by U.S. Supreme Court
- BMW’s New Smart EV App Is a Privacy Nightmare
Supply and demand
Honda’s global executive vice president, Shinji Aoyama, said he expects the growth of electric vehicles to take some time and consist of several steps that will lead to widespread adoption of electric vehicles in the United States.
He believes that since the system that supplies cars with internal combustion engines with fuel has become entrenched in the minds of motorists as the only option, people will have to adopt electric cars at a time when charging is difficult to find in order to improve them.
“It’s not about internal combustion engines or electric cars, it’s about changing the ecosystem as electric cars become more widespread,” Oyama said. [already established] The ecosystem of the internal combustion engine starts with oil mining, refining, gas stations, and internal combustion engine cars. Meanwhile, electric vehicles have completely different ecosystems, so it’s a whole societal change and societal issues, so it may take some time to change.
“Battery electric vehicles are the most efficient way to reach carbon neutrality, so we will maintain our long-term view and expect this ecosystem to change step by step.”
RELATED: Your Local Car Dealer May Have This Horrific Opinion About Electric Cars
Where there are electric cars, there is better service.
The data shows that to encourage people to buy electric cars, a strong and reliable electric car charging network must be established, and dealers must be able to satisfy customers’ curiosity.
According to New Survey of 250 Agency Leaders Throughout the United States conducted by CDK Global (Same CDK Global that was Implicated in massive data breach Earlier this summer, 49% of dealers said their sales teams were “not at all excited about selling electric vehicles.”
Many of the dealers who responded positively were located in EV “hotbeds,” areas of the country where EV adoption is fairly high. In EV-friendly states on the West Coast like Washington, Oregon and California, 46% of dealers had sales staff who were “moderately” or “very” enthusiastic about selling EVs. At the other end of the country, 44% of dealers in New England reported that their sales staff felt the same way.
Conversely, many of those who responded poorly are in areas of the United States where dealers are the only sales and service departments for miles, and where the electric vehicle charging infrastructure is not as developed as it is on the coasts.
“We live in a rural area with large distances between cities… It’s just not a viable alternative to internal combustion engines,” one Montana dealer told CDK.
Additionally, one North Dakota dealer said the state’s notoriously cold winters would make electric cars unfriendly to the environment.
“It’s primarily a range issue, which is always at risk when the heater is running at full power,” they told CDK. “If someone has to stop on the highway because of bad weather, they’ll freeze to death at a rest stop.”
Honda Motor Co., which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol HMC, is up 1.81% since the opening bell, trading at $32.60 at the time of writing.
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