It’s 2003 again, y’all. The TikTok teens have discovered the goodness of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and now that Frutiger Aero original iMac energy has made an unexpected return. Now, the kids are wearing JNCO jeans and Juicy Couture tracksuits in earnest again, and Usher is back pop-locking shirtless on national TV to "U Got It Bad."
Maybe automakers are also subconsciously feeling that energy because General Motors and Honda partnered up for a car just like it’s 2003 when we got a Honda-powered Saturn crossover. The partnership even seems to have happened for similar reasons, although this time it’s not a tit-for-tat trade where Honda gets some diesel engines in exchange for its small cars.
No, this time the two partnered up for an electric car: the all-new 2024 Honda Prologue. Although the Prologue may share most of its guts with the Chevrolet Blazer EV and the troubled GM Ultium platform, it’s a surprisingly important vehicle within Honda’s growing electrification strategy.
I’m just not sure if the car itself is all that good. But if you want an Ultium-platform EV, this may in fact be the best one.
(Full Disclosure: Honda flew me from my home in Columbus, Ohio to wine country in Healdsburg, California. I spent an entire morning driving preproduction examples of the Prologue around the curvy roads of the Napa Valley area.)
| 2024 Honda Prologue | Quick Stats |
| Output | 212 hp/ 236 lb-ft (FWD), 288 hp/ 333 lb-ft (AWD) |
| Battery | 85 kWh |
| Max Charging Speed (DC) | 190 kW |
| Range | 296 miles (FWD)/ 281 miles (AWD)/ 273 miles (AWD Elite) |
|
Base Price
| $48,795 |
| As-Tested Price | $59,295 |
What Is It?
At its core, the Honda Prologue is similar in concept to damn near every other EV crossover on the market. It’s a five-passenger, five-door, midsize-ish electric family-hauler that will do just under 300 miles on a full charge, and sell for somewhere in the $45,000-65,000 range.
But in actuality, the car is much more important than that—at least to Honda. I chatted with multiple engineers and marketing folks who all revealed that the Prologue is at least partially influenced by the lessons learned from Honda’s EV past programs.
“We had a lot of satisfaction with the Fit EV and Clarity EV programs,” said Quincy Tam, a senior product planner at Honda. “Yet users of those models wanted more range and better charging [abilities],” he continued, elaborating on the growing desire from Honda’s clientele to purchase a competitive long-range EV.
But even Tam admitted that Honda isn’t currently equipped to give them that with its own homegrown product at this particular point in time. Like the rest of the Japanese auto industry, it's behind the curve on EVs—or getting ready to be right in time for their next big takeoff point, depending on who you ask.
Until then, the brand’s bigwigs thought deeply as to how they could get Honda’s foot in the door, appease Honda buyers who want an EV, and not get totally left behind in the EV revolution. Turns out, GM’s Ultium platform appeared to have just the right stuff.
So, think of the Prologue as sort of a store-bought EV snack before its own EV main course.
A store-bought snack doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be a yummy meal; one of my favorite dishes my mom ever made when I was a kid was “Strawberry Shortcake” which consisted of a Sara Lee storebought cake, Cool Whip that she might have juiced up with some extra vanilla extract, and cut-up strawberries macerated in sugar.
But barely two months ago, a Blazer EV left me stranded in rural Virginia after I attempted to fast-charge it during a road trip punctuated by infotainment system glitches. I would be lying if I didn’t fly into California wine country with the car journalist’s equivalent of an upset stomach.
Understanding Honda’s Chevy
The Honda Prologue is made at the same Ramos Arzipe, Mexico plant as the Blazer EV. It even uses the same motor and battery combinations (except in front-wheel-drive guise, where the Prologue has less power).
All Prologues we had available to test were the same dual-motor, all-wheel-drive units good for 288 horsepower. Those motors are fed by the same 85-kWh battery pack also found in the Blazer EV. In EX AWD and Touring AWD guise, the Prologue is good for 281 miles of range, an infinitesimally small difference between the 279 rating of the Blazer EV. It even has the same 11.5 kW AC charging speed. On paper, these cars are identical. In practice, I’d give the dynamic nudge to the Honda, which I'll explain in a moment.
Likewise, the Prologue’s max DC fast charging speed is only 150 kW, which isn't as fast as some competitors these days. Honda quotes a 35-minute 20-80% charge time, or adding 65 miles of range in 10 minutes. That's down slightly from the Blazer EV's claim of 69 miles of range in 10 minutes.
If anything, it's a simplified approach compared to the Blazer EV's complex lineup; there's no larger 102 kWh battery pack here (though the related Acura ZDX does get that) and there's no rear-wheel-drive variant available either. Just FWD and AWD, in typical Honda style.
At first glance, the Prologue looks almost nothing at all like its GM-related siblings. Whereas the Chevy Blazer EV and Equinox EV could be accused of looking kind of fussy but also at the same time remarkably pedestrian, Honda’s version is refreshingly clean. Like the other Ultium-based vehicles, the Prologue has a long wheelbase with comparatively short overhangs, leading to a fairly stretched appearance.
Honda resisted the urge to decorate the Prologue with random surface changes, body striations, awkward light clusters, and restrictive glass openings. Instead, the Prologue is neat and purposeful, appearing as if it’s a widescreen version of the handsome new Honda CR-V. In a sea of try-hard green EV designs, I could understand the Prologue’s appeal.
Inside, things kind of go off the rails. It’s not that the Prologue is a bad place to be, but the vibe is just kind of, well, faked. It’s clear the Honda designers and engineers wanted to make the Prologue slot into the rest of the Honda lineup, but the result is more of a GM product styled by Honda, rather than a Honda product that might use GM pieces and parts.
Like, pop open the door, and you’ll be greeted by the same door chime you’d find in a new Silverado. The Prologue’s interior design language is akin to the Civic or Accord, but the details don’t necessarily feel like something Honda would do. In the Civic and Accord, the vent design feels like it’s made of metal, whereas in the Prologue, it’s not-well-hidden plastic. All of the switches are out of the Blazer, and just as a whole it doesn’t feel like a Honda at all.
Software-wise, Honda claims that it uses a different version of the Android-based software that the Blazer EV (in)famously uses. Given how Honda's modern ICE offerings have started to also use an Android system, the Prologue's layout will appear strikingly familiar but perhaps just a tad off-model compared to a true Honda layout. For example, some of the more complicated software settings, like say the vehicle's courtesy lights are operated identically to a GM product, and not like a Honda. Otherwise, it's a straightforward interface, if not incredibly dull to look at and use.
Thankfully, if using the integrated software isn't your jam, you're free to use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which is included on the Prologue—unlike GM's new EVs.
Still, Honda engineers and designers did try and work with what they were given, imbuing as much of the Honda spirit in the interior, given the project’s parameters. Despite the Prologue’s squat windows, the layout in the Prologue is refreshingly airy compared to Blazer; that may feel like a large car in person, but its interior feels awkwardly claustrophobic compared to the level of interior space it has. Ironically, the Chevy is bigger than the Honda.
With the seats down, the Prologue is good for 57.7 cubic feet of interior room, compared to the 64.4 cubic feet of the Blazer. That’s a sizable and curious difference considering they both share the same 121.8-inch wheelbase and roughly 192-inch overall length.
Honda Tries To Make a Chevy Feel Like A Honda
Of course, platform-sharing isn’t new, even across seemingly unrelated brands. But that doesn’t mean two automakers can’t diverge completely on how they want their end product to feel. Like, the Fiat 124 Spider and Mazda Miata might be pretty similar under the skin, but Fiat’s insistence on using its own engine, and tuning the suspension different completely changed the character of the car.
Arguably things get trickier in the EV age when brands will opt to use the same motor, battery, and power electronics, but it’s not impossible. Honda’s representatives said its engineers went out of their way to impart the same feel of a Honda as the rest of the lineup.
And, it kind of worked.
Like the Blazer EV, the Prologue’s 288 horsepower seems low in an era where most EVs easily achieve early-2000s-era supercar levels of straight-line performance. By comparison, Tesla is coy about the official numbers of its non-Plaid vehicles, but it’s safe to say that the similarly-priced Model Y will dog-walk the Prologue in a straight line.
Yet, I can’t imagine the typical Prologue buyer caring all that much, because the Prologue feels swift enough for drivers of any given midsized or compact crossover, but not particularly fast – just like Honda’s current gas-powered offerings.
It’s also remarkably smooth in its power delivery, rolling on and off its torque, in a way that won’t make the passengers carsick if the driver quickly removes their foot from the throttle. Similarly, the Prologue’s regenerative braking and one-pedal driving features are just like GM’s—well executed, although the menu to adjust the settings on this feature isn’t that intuitive to access.
The real difference between the Blazer EV and Prologue is the ride and handling. See, I didn’t like the Blazer EV’s ride at all. However, the car failed catastrophically in my possession, and I wanted to make sure the car was in 100% good condition before I critiqued the vehicle outside of its failure. That might not be necessary though, deputy editor and fellow InsideEVs colleague Mack Hogan had also driven the Blazer EV and agreed that the car had an irritating, bouncy ride.
For me, the Chevy fooled me into thinking it had a firm, yet composed ride over small bumps. However, it bounced like hell over medium bumps, and then let harsh impacts echo throughout the structure, not befitting that of a nearly $60,000 EV.
There are still traces of that in Honda’s version, but as a whole, the car is more composed this time. Honda’s engineers worked explicitly on the suspension calibration and the steering, intending to make a sporty EV; but it’s not even the sportiest Ultium car when put in a contest with the Blazer EV. The Blazer EV rides poorly, but it does handle well; then again, who cares?
I’m not sure why we’re looking for outright driving engagement from a nearly 5,000-pound electric crossover. Importantly, the Prologue is a more comfortable option than the Chevy. It’s not my first choice in the segment for ride comfort, but this time around I can confidently say that the Honda is a comfortable car on the road.
The Best Ultium Car Is A Honda?
It’s funny. Back when I was in college, I’d often recommend the 2004-2007 Saturn VUE V6 to friends who wanted a reliable car on a budget. Yes, the Saturn VUE itself wasn’t so good, but the Honda J35 V6 was such a strong, reliable unit that you knew it could soldier on for miles with little fuss. Effectively, the best GM product wasn’t a GM at all; it was a Honda.
Twenty years later, in a weirdly poetic way GM’s best product, is once again a Honda. The Prologue is better-looking and better-driving. Also at a base price of $48,795, it dramatically undercuts the Blazer EV (2LT, AWD)’s $57,710 entry-level price. It also eschews the Blazer EV’s frustrating infotainment setup, allowing drivers to use the tried-and-true Apple CarPlay and Android Auto combination. (I also encountered none of the Blazer EV's software glitches, but I was also never given the chance to fast-charge it; we'll see how it holds up when we get one for a longer test.)
If you’re determined to buy an Ultium-based crossover, the Honda Prologue makes the most sense, even if it's not all that great.
Heck, my wardrobe now consists of baggy jeans, cargo pants, long-sleeve T-shirts, and Skechers. Too bad this thing doesn't have a CD player; all that's missing is my copy of 8701.
