Honda isn’t new to the electric-vehicle (EV) market. In the past, it has sold a Fit EV and a Clarity Electric, but neither was particularly competitive. That changes with the new 2024 Honda Prologue, a roomy five-passenger crossover SUV offering nearly 300 miles of driving range. But there is a twist to the story. The 2024 Prologue isn’t a Honda.
Photo: Christian Wardlaw
Honda partnered with General Motors (GM) to speed the Prologue to market. That’s why it uses GM’s Ultium EV platform, battery, and motors wrapped in Honda-penned bodywork. The Prologue’s interior is an extravaganza of GM materials, display screens, and switchgear. It even smells like a Chevy inside.
When you buy a new Honda Prologue, you can choose from EX, Touring, and Elite trim levels. The EX and Touring have a single-motor, front-wheel-drive (FWD) layout while the Elite gets a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive (AWD) system that is optional for the others.
Prices range from $48,795 to $59,295, including the destination charge but not the federal EV income tax credit. According to Honda, 2024 Prologues built after February 26, 2024, qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit for a purchase or a lease.
For this review of the 2024 Prologue, Honda provided a test vehicle equipped with Elite trim and extra-cost Pacific Blue paint. The test vehicle’s price was $59,750, including the $1,395 destination charge to ship the EV from the assembly plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, to your local dealership.
Photo: Christian Wardlaw
The Honda Prologue sits high off the ground and has large door openings, so getting in and out requires little effort. However, the door-hinge detents are so weak that you must take extra care, especially on hills.
Clean, contemporary, and quirky, the Prologue’s interior features intuitive technology and plenty of storage space, but also several oddities.
For example, you operate the transmission using a flimsy stalk jutting from the steering column. You choose the Sport driving mode by trying to find the correct button low on the left side of the dashboard. You activate the hazard flashers by looking at the roof and carefully avoiding the SOS emergency call button. And I never did find a totally satisfying configuration for the digital gauges and infotainment display.
Classic GM plastic is evident everywhere, and that’s not a compliment. Fortunately, the Prologue Elite has decent leather and ambient lighting to improve the cabin’s look and feel.
Every Prologue has a 10-way power-adjustable driver’s seat, and it’s comfortable even after hours behind the wheel. Passengers get six-way manual adjustment in the Prologue EX, upgraded to six-way power in the Touring and Elite. Heated front seats are standard, with Elites providing ventilated front seats and a heated steering wheel.
Rear passengers seeking lots of legroom will be happy with that metric in the Prologue, but headroom is tight in models with the panoramic sunroof. Also, the rear seat isn’t comfortable and lacks lateral, leg, and back support. It’s like a park bench wrapped in leather.
Photo: Christian Wardlaw
Honda equips the Prologue with a touchscreen infotainment system featuring Google Built-in and HondaLink Connected by OnStar. Pulled from the GM parts bin, it is better than any of Honda’s homegrown technologies.
Standard features include:
This infotainment system is excellent. Simply laid out, intuitive to use, and easy to live with, the only thing missing is a tuning knob. There’s plenty of room for one, so its omission is glaring.
I had no trouble pairing an iPhone and using Apple CarPlay. Switching back to the native Google environment is effortless, and aside from minor stumbles, the Google Assistant digital voice assistant turned in an impressive performance. The Prologue’s standard wireless smartphone charger is a slot on the center console, and while it doesn’t take up much space, it will likely be hard to clean.
Honda equips the Prologue Touring and Elite with a 12-speaker Bose premium sound system. Usually, that audio brand doesn’t impress me, but it sounds good in the Prologue.
Photo: Christian Wardlaw
Single-motor FWD Prologues provide 212 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque, which isn’t much considering this EV’s 4,932-pound base curb weight. However, that electric drive system is your ticket to the maximum driving range of 296 miles.
Upgrade to the dual-motor AWD electric drivetrain, and the Prologue has a more satisfying 288 hp and 333 pound-feet of torque. Range drops to 281 miles with EX and Touring trim, while the Elite’s standard 21-inch wheels take a bigger aerodynamic bite at 273 miles. Every Elite gets the dual-motor setup as standard equipment.
Honda says the Prologue is compatible with 150-kilowatt (kW) DC fast chargers and can add up to 65 miles of range in 10 minutes. It takes 35 minutes to bring the battery from 20 to 80 percent. Plug in using a Level 2 public or home charging station, and the Prologue adds about 34 miles for every hour it charges.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Prologue Elite earns an efficiency rating of 37 kWh per 100 miles of driving. The test vehicle averaged 2.7 miles per kWh on my mountainous evaluation loop. Do the math, and my observed result matches the EPA rating.
Acceleration with the dual-motor AWD electric drive is satisfying, but if you’ve heard EVs are fast, the Prologue may disappoint you. I’ve never driven a Prologue FWD, but I suspect the single-motor setup is merely adequate.
Thanks to a sizable 85-kWh battery housed under the Prologue’s floor and two electric motors, this SUV has a lot of weight nestled low in the chassis. On flawless pavement, you don’t notice it. As soon as you encounter dips, rises, wiggles, and waggles in the surface, the Prologue reacts by rocking and rolling in every direction.
Fortunately, Honda (GM?) tuned the suspension to suppress excess motions quickly. You’ll feel them, but only momentarily. Still, the ride is anything but smooth, perhaps due partly to the Elite’s oversized 21-inch wheels. Busy at best and choppy at worst, the ride quality continually informs you of the state of American infrastructure today.
Unlike the ride, the Prologue’s steering is smooth, displaying a refined fluidity. It also feels like it builds resistance the further you turn the wheel, and when driving at highway speeds, it demonstrates a secure on-center stability that makes the EV easier and more pleasurable to drive.
Four levels of regenerative braking are available using a paddle on the steering wheel. The most aggressive one supplies one-pedal driving capability with significant braking response the moment you lift your foot off the accelerator pedal. It takes some getting used to, and you’ll want to be careful when someone is tailgating you.
You might not notice a closely following motorist, however. The Prologue’s back window is tiny, and the wiper sweeps clear little of the glass. Aside from windowless cargo vans, if ever a vehicle deserved a standard rearview camera mirror, the Prologue is it.
Overall, the Prologue is a capable city, suburban, and highway cruiser. It isn’t much fun to drive on a twisty mountain road though—yet another signal that this EV isn’t really a Honda.
Photo: Christian Wardlaw
Every 2024 Prologue has Honda Sensing, a collection of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that includes:
Upgrade to Touring trim, and the Prologue adds front parking sensors. The Elite also equips the SUV with rear pedestrian detection and a surround-view camera. Notably, the Prologue does not offer lane-centering assistance, so it lacks a Level 2 hands-on highway driving-assistance system.
Overall, the Honda Sensing technologies worked as expected. However, the rear automatic braking system is far too sensitive.
My driveway is slightly angled in relation to my street. When rear automatic braking systems first came out, some test cars with the tech began slamming on the brakes at the bottom of the driveway as I reversed onto the street. However, none has ever proven so ornery as the Prologue.
After several attempts to exit my driveway, the Honda refused to budge, no matter how slowly I reversed. So, I had to pull back up to the house, turn the system off, and leave it off for the entire week of testing.
Photo: Christian Wardlaw
The Prologue has plenty of room for people, but the cargo space aligns with most of its rivals in the electric two-row SUV segment.
With the EX version, you get 25.2 cubic feet of volume behind the back seat and 57.7 cubic feet with the rear seat folded down. The Touring and Elite give up some space to accommodate their standard panoramic sunroof, providing 23.7 and 54.5 cubic feet, respectively.
Unlike many EVs, the Prologue has no front trunk (frunk). There’s not even a storage box under there. However, you’ll find some added space for odds and ends beneath the cargo load floor, including the charging cord.
In my opinion, the magic number for an acceptable range in a modern EV is 300 miles. The Prologue single-motor comes close at 296, followed by dual-motor EX and Touring models at 281. My Prologue Elite’s official rating is 273 miles.
During the evaluation, I found the Prologue’s trip computer optimistic. It told me I had 285 miles of range with a full charge. However, as I drove, that proved untrue. After 101.6 miles of driving, the trip computer told me I could travel another 168 miles, putting the original estimate off by 15.4 miles.
Ultimately, the Prologue met efficiency expectations. Despite traveling some mountainous terrain, the test vehicle consumed electricity at 2.7 miles/kWh, which converts to the EPA estimate of 37 kWh/100 miles.
As of this writing, neither the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) nor the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has performed crash tests on the Honda Prologue. That means I cannot definitively answer this question. However, the long list of standard ADAS should help you to avoid a collision in the first place.
Base prices for the 2024 Prologue range from $47,400 (EX) and $51,700 (Touring) to $57,900 (Elite). In addition, there is a destination charge of $1,395.
The Ford Mustang Mach-E ranks highest among mass-market battery-electric vehicles in the JD Power 2024 Electric Vehicle Ownership Study*. The Kia EV6 and Nissan Ariya are the next highest-ranked models (in a tie). Other 2024 Prologue competitors include the Chevrolet Blazer EV, Hyundai Ioniq 5, and Volkswagen ID.4.
Photo: Christian Wardlaw
The Honda Prologue is a likable electric crossover SUV. The exterior styling is compelling, the front seats are comfortable, and the technology is familiar and approachable. In addition, as of this writing, the lease deals are almost too good to be true.
However, it also seems like the stopgap product that it is. The interior materials don’t meet expectations, the back seat is uncomfortable, and the Prologue lacks the light, responsive, effortless driving character typical to all Hondas. Odd control placements and obvious feature omissions don’t help.
Ultimately, the Prologue is a mid-pack effort, better than some rivals and worse than others. Honda should have expected that. After all, this isn’t its first rodeo working with another car company to rush a product to market.
*Due to its late on-sale date, the Honda Prologue was not rank-eligible in this study.
Christian Wardlaw is a veteran automotive journalist with 30 years of experience in the field and has held automotive editorial leadership positions at Edmunds, JD Power, and The New York Daily News. Today, Chris owns a content agency called Speedy Daddy Media, and in addition to JDPower.com, his work appears on Capital One Auto Navigator, CarGurus, and Edmunds.
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