2024 Honda Prologue Early Review | Consumer Reports

This is the review of the 2024 Honda Prologue, which is Honda's first mainstream electric vehicle in the US. Now, it's a joint project between General Motors and Honda, so it does share some mechanical aspects with the Chevrolet Blazer EV. The Prologue is a mid-sized two-row SUV, and it's available in either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. Both versions share an 85-kilowatt-hour battery pack. Front-wheel drive models have 212 horsepower, and all-wheel drive dual-motor versions have 288 horsepower, like the one we have here. So that's the powertrain, but the big question with the EVs is, what's the driving range? And actually, it's not too bad for the Prologue. Front-wheel drive models have an EPA-estimated driving range of 296 miles, and all-wheel drive models range between 273 to 281 miles, depending on the trim. Of note, we will be sending the Prologue through our 70-mile-per-hour highway range test, as we now do with all EVs that go through our test program. Of course, the other big question with EVs is, how long does it take to recharge them? Honda says that the Prologue can charge at speeds of up to 150 kilowatts at public DC fast chargers. That's on the lower side. Honda says it gains 65 miles of range in about 10 minutes, which is okay, but not class-leading. We bought a 2024 Honda Prologue Touring all-wheel drive. The Touring is the mid-level trim. Now, we only got one option on the car, which is this bright Pacific blue paint. And along with the $1,395 destination charge, the total cost of our test vehicle is $56,550. You know, a lot of EVs are styled kind of futuristically, but if you look at this Prologue, it's kind of a little bit on the bland side, other than the, you know, bright blue paint. But sometimes, bland is okay. For instance, it doesn't have the pop-out door handles that we see on so many EVs, just has regular traditional door handles that you pull on it, and it opens. So, let's hop in. Kind of similar to the outside, the inside doesn't shock you with a bunch of futuristic styling. It doesn't have a giant screen that goes across a dash. It isn't filled with a whole bunch of touch controls. Instead, Honda has these really nice physical climate controls, physical temperature knobs. You know, we really like when climate controls are physical in buttons and knobs rather than on a touch panel, which is much harder to press while you're driving. But there are some GM parts bin pieces. For instance, this steering wheel seems the same as the Chevrolet Blazer EV. These stalks, the gear selector, and the windshield wipers, and the turn signals are all right from the GM parts bin. So, some of the interior materials come across a little on the cheap side, whether you're looking at it from a $56,000 vehicle standpoint or for a Honda. Like, take the center console. It's just flat black plastic, has no texturing, no soft pieces, no stitching, and in general, there isn't a lot of stitching throughout the cabin whatsoever. There's a little bit here on the center armrest. And then, speaking of the center armrest, it's just kind of a little bit flimsy in the way it feels, and there's no lining inside whatsoever. Same thing with the glove box. It's totally unlined. But then, on the other hand, we really appreciate just how nicely done these climate controls are. When you turn these temp knobs, they have wonderful detents, so it's very easy to turn just one degree. Same thing when you press on these buttons, whether it's for the fan speed or the seat heaters, they just have a really nice damped feel to them that feels of high quality. So, the Prologue has an 11-inch digital driver's instrument screen as well as an 11.3-inch infotainment touchscreen. And this touchscreen is pretty easy to use. You can see it has pretty large icons, so we really appreciate that. And it has a Google-based software, which is kind of neat because you can have Google Maps on either the touchscreen infotainment system or you can have it over here on the driver's screen, which is helpful when you're trying to navigate to the next charging location. So, we're a little disappointed with the front seats. You know, Honda usually makes pretty good seats, but this one, it's very flat, so it just doesn't, like, you feel like you sit more on it than you sit in it. And especially the bottom cushion really lacks any side support, so it means your legs kind of feel like there's nothing, you know, no bolstering keeping them from splaying out to the sides. You do have bottom cushion leading edge tilt ability, so at least you can kind of dial in that leg support a little bit. And the seats aren't uncomfortable. We just wish that they hugged us a little more. Kind of like the seats up front, the seats in the rear are, again, very flat, so they just don't offer that much support. Headroom is actually kind of tight, but that's in part because the touring trim that we got comes standard with a giant sunroof, which typically does cut down on headroom. Leg support isn't too bad, but the seat would benefit from being a little higher off the floor and maybe a little more rearward rake of the bottom cushion. There's a decent amount of space behind the second row seats, and we appreciate that it has a flush load floor, which really makes it much easier when you're taking items back out of the car. There's a fair amount of space underneath the cargo floor, including a really deep well here that you can store some stuff, so we like seeing that. Obviously, it's an SUV, so you can drop the second row seats down, but keep in mind, it's not a fully flat load floor like we often see in SUVs. There's a little bit of a ramping up toward the front seats, which is just gonna compromise how tall of items you can put all the way in. So let's hit the road and see what the Honda Prologue is all about. So the Prologue handles well from the perspective of the suspension. The suspension is firm, it's hot, and it really does a good job keeping the car leaning over a lot through turns, so it keeps it cornering nice and flat, which is good. The Prologue suspension is reasonably compliant most of the time. It's benefiting partially from the fact that it has reasonably sized wheels and tires. They're just 19 inches. On the highway, you will feel some tenseness in situations that you might not in other vehicles, but it's still pretty good for the most part. When you hit the rougher roads, yeah, it's still good, but you are gonna feel some sharp impacts on occasion punched through. We're very happy to see that the Prologue comes standard with a full suite of active safety systems. That includes automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, automatic emergency braking that operates at highway speeds, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic warning, and reverse automatic emergency braking, all standard across the board. As an EV, the Prologue works pretty well, especially when you take into account its long driving range and the smoothness of its powertrain. But there are some aspects of the interior and the driving experience that may not come across as Honda enough for some loyal buyers. For more on EVs, check out consumerreports.org.