America Honda Motor Co. has a lot riding on the launch of the Prologue electric crossover.
As its name suggests, Honda’s first new-era EV marks the beginning of the automaker’s ambitious push to hit half a million EV sales in North America by 2030, and convert 100 per cent of its sales from gasoline engines to zero emissions by 2040.
Many have viewed Honda, the largest maker of internal combustion engine vehicles in the world, as being slow-moving on EVs, and some worried that the Japanese brand’s first volume entry in the growing market — a collaboration with General Motors that leverages the Ultium battery electric platform and is based on the Chevrolet Blazer EV — would not be “Honda” enough.
But now that the wraps are off, the Prologue appears to deliver a distinctively Honda experience, even though the automaker’s foray into the EV market depends on GM architecture.