Honda’s first big EV bet in the US will be Prologue based on Ultium, an SUV built on top of General Motors technology. It’s due out in 2024, but we’ll get an earlier look at it today, as Honda has just revealed a small collection of exterior and interior.
“A team of young designers set out to create a modern and refreshing SUV,” Honda’s press release reads, “With a clean and simple surface. Neo-rugged is set as the design direction, bringing harmony of natural elements into the exterior and interior of the Prologue. ” Marketing jargon aside, I agree that “clean and simple surfaces” apply to what Honda has done here.
The prologue recalls the automaker’s design throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, before we had things like Accord Crosstour, 10th generation Civic and The last generation Acura TL. Attractive, right proportions, and not fussy to the point of being a bit forgettable. But on the good side! The kind of car you look at and think to yourself, “that’s smart. “Never try too hard to be great – that used to be Honda’s ethos.
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There’s nothing particularly distinctive about the Prologue’s exterior from the A-pillar back, but there’s also nothing you’d directly confuse for another brand’s work. The taillights do carry plenty of Range Rover Evoque influences, but Honda has put its own stamp on them – literally, with the new, futuristic Honda:e logo stretching out at the heart of the heckblende. The rear quadrant looks really good, though you just know that the window will look like it’s looking out of the mail slot.
Honda says the face of the Prologue was inspired by city tram, we sad can’t drive here, but only insofar as there is a glossy black plastic bar that bridges between the LEDs, where the grille would normally be. I am a bigger fan of the wheel. Yes, they’re comically large at a whopping 21 inches, but they look like they’ve come straight out of a concept car, not a production machine.
We get fewer pictures of the Prologue’s interior to see, but there’s also less to say. You can do it one of two ways with EVs: do what Toyota did, and differentiate them in ways that are disruptive or offensive to their own benefit; or create an ordinary car with reasonable ideas. Honda chose the second way and I think it is the right way. Note the blurred range and performance information to the left of the speedometer on the instrument cluster display. Honda still keeps those details close to its chest.
So that’s the Prologue, or at least all we can see about it at the moment. It looks like a perfectly reasonable sport utility EV, but as always with these early revelations, I have to wonder if today’s impressionists are still a year and a half from now, when these people actually started wandering the streets. What do you think? Turn off the sound in the comments.
