2024 Honda Prologue: Does slow and steady win the race?

2024 Honda Prologue AWD Elite: Honda finally jumps into the EV race.

Price: Though a window sticker was not available, the Elite AWD trim starts at $57,900. All Prologues built after Feb. 26 are eligible for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, not a given these days.

Conventional wisdom: Car and Driver likes the “good driving range, competitive charging speeds, spacious interior,” but not the “bland road manners, poky acceleration for an EV, awkward interior controls.”

Marketer’s pitch: “Adventure ready.”

Reality: Pretty good things come to those who wait, but, oh, the price premium.

What’s new: The whole thing. Finally, it’s the EV from Honda, designed to compete with the rest of the offerings; this model was developed in conjunction with General Motors, but unlike the Toyota — er, I mean, Subaru Solterra, it seemed all Honda. (It’s the Chevy Blazer EV’s Honda version.)

Competition: And there are many offerings: Chevrolet Equinox EV, Chevrolet Blazer EV, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Nissan Ariya, Toyota bZ4X, Volkswagen ID.4.

Up to speed: Here’s a lesson in not believing everything you Google. I did my usual search for acceleration times for the Prologue, and there in huge letters came the first result — 4.0 seconds. What? My eyes bugged out. That’s not far off for many EVs, but the Prologue was about the pokiest I’d tested. Occasionally vehicles are faster (or slower) than they seem, but that number was way off.

Alas, further investigation revealed Car and Driver found the 288-horsepower all-wheel-drive model hit 60 in 5.9 seconds, which I still found a little optimistic. The Prologue just seemed uninspired and unmotivated. I’d said an Ariya “roars in Sport mode” with a 5.6-second 0-60, so that’s what I mean by some feeling faster and some not.

It didn’t help that the Sport mode button — which added scant little sportiness to the experience — was hidden away to the left of the steering wheel and that the inscrutable icon on the dash was so tiny that I never felt confident I had it in Sport mode.

A 212-horsepower front-wheel-drive version is also available, and expect it to be slower.

Shiftless: The gear selector resides on the steering column, à la Mercedes Benz. While Hyundai and Kia have begun using this space as well, their big silver twisty knob resides near and below the wiper stalk.

The Prologue sits alone in a thin, wiper-like stalk, and so I did manage to shift the EV into Neutral once while trying to wash the windows in highway traffic.

On the road: Most EVs offer competent handling with some responsiveness in varying degrees. The Prologue’s degree, though, is among the lowest. Even in Sport mode, the vehicle seems distant and the handling mediocre at best. When I think back to the EV6 and the Ioniq 5, I am sad.

Highway riding is quite nice, though, as a trip to King of Prussia was comfortable and smooth.

Driver’s Seat: The perch is roomy and comfortable, with lots of space and nice variation among driving heights.

The seat material is sort of rubbery, but I only noticed this when I touched it with my hands while searching for something. It seemed comfortable enough when seated.

The dashboard is heavy on the tech, with digitized gauges, but still clear and easy to follow.

Honda touts its best-in-class passenger volume and I’d have to agree; the Prologue feels like a fairly large vehicle, especially compared to the competition, but not so much that it’s ungainly or hard to handle.

Friends and stuff: The space in the rear of the Prologue is cavernous. There’s abundant leg, foot, and headroom, and the floor is flat so the middle seat only must face a bit of console intrusiveness.

The seat back has two settings, although the lower setting is so weirdly angled as to be useless. Good if you have a sinus issue, I suppose.

The seat itself is firm and flattish, nothing to particularly recommend it.

Cargo space is 23.77 cubic feet behind the second row and 54.57 when it’s folded.

In and out: Older drivers who have trouble getting in and out of some vehicles should find the Prologue as easy to live with as its fellow EVs. The height that seems to be just right for aerodynamics also serves people well.

Play some tunes: The stereo in the Prologue provides acceptable sound, about a B+ or so. There’s not a lot coming through that’s not available from other music units.

Only a volume knob sits outside the touchscreen. Most of the screen is fairly user friendly, but let’s hope you like the sound settings because they are nested inside six clicks.

Steering wheel audio controls are now triggers à la Stellantis, which I’ve always found a great idea.

Keeping warm and cool: The Prologue kicks it old school when it comes to HVAC controls, with the row of toggles one finds in most other Honda vehicles, not some fancy touchscreen-based confusion like many EVs (rhymes with Vespa). It’s fairly easy to operate, although the typeface is a little small.

The unit operates without much intrusion; I never felt like it was blowing on me or too hot or cold, so the automatic setting must have really done the job.

Charging: The front-wheel-drive model boasts 296 miles of standard range. The all-wheel-drive version tested offers 282 miles of range, still a pretty solid number.

The 58 kWh battery allows charging from 10% to 80% in about 60 minutes, slower than many of the competitors.

The charging port door was especially fussy, uncooperative about opening and closing.

Where it’s built: Ramos, Mexico

How it’s built: The Prologue gets a predicted reliability of 2 out of 5 from Consumer Reports.

In the end: Here’s an EV that doesn’t astound with crazy acceleration or handling. But it’s roomy and has a superb range, so it gets my vote, certainly over the mid-range Toyota and super-short-range Lexus at this point.

Still, the Kia and Hyundai are much more fun to operate, and the Honda requires a $10,000 premium over vehicles with similar range.