The 2024 Honda Prologue—a dependable but somewhat dull EV

Enlarge / Honda's homegrown EVs won't be ready for another couple of years, but this is its Prologue. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Electric vehicles aren't quite as hot as they were when Honda first showed us the Prologue in 2022. Designed around General Motors' new platform of Ultium batteries and motors, it was planned to be the first in a series of EVs to benefit from this platform-sharing with GM. But late last year, that plan was shelved. Instead, Honda will focus on a homegrown family of EVs, investing $11 billion on North American production alone. That makes the Prologue rather accurately named, but it's also something of a dead end, as it's built on an underlying architecture that won't be seen again wearing the Honda wings.

The Prologue is a midsize SUV, so it's larger than a CR-V. It's identical in size to the Chevrolet Blazer, and the twin-motor all-wheel drive powertrain in our test Prologue Elite generates the same 288 hp (214 kW) and 333 lb-ft (451 Nm), fed by the same 85 kWh capacity Ultium battery pack.

That shouldn't be too surprising—the Prologue comes from the same GM factory in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, as the Blazer EV. But Honda was responsible for signing off on the ride and handling and, as with the more upmarket Acura ZDX, also took charge of the car's UI/UX. And the result is an EV that does not feel like a Blazer EV to drive, nor to sit in, mostly.