Best Electric Cars of 2023 and 2024

SPEAKER: Honda fans who have been waiting for an EV-- and yes, we know you've been waiting for a long time-- the good news is your watch has ended. This is the Honda Prologue, the company's first EV that they're going to sell in the United States. And as you can tell, it's an SUV. Now, Honda does sell another electric vehicle overseas, the tiny Honda E. And I kind of hoped that that would be the one to come here because look at how tiny and cute and adorable it is. But as they say, to sell in America, you have to go big. So we get instead an SUV. Now, the Prologue is going to compete against a very familiar list of competitors, like the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and, of course, the Tesla Model Y. Just like the Acura ZDX that my colleague and short king, Clint Simone, saw a couple of weeks ago, this Prologue also rides on a platform that's made by GM. So GM's Ultium platform underneath both the Prologue and the ZDX. But what you're seeing on top here, all Honda, including the exterior styling. Now, as you notice on the back here, the badge is a little bit different. It kind of has Honda spelled out in this bold font. And this is the first vehicle you're going to see this on here in the States. But you're also going to see this on all Honda EVs going forward, just to give them a little bit of differentiation. You also have this E badge here, just in case you forgot. That's designed to kind of look like a little plug. Very cute. As we move down the sides here, you can kind of tell that the Prologue really looks like an HR-V that's sort of been grabbed and stretched out. This wheelbase is really long. It pushes the wheels all the way up to the very corners of the vehicle. And fun fact, this wheelbase is actually longer than the one that you're going to find under the Honda Odyssey, which is a minivan. Here you have 21-inch wheels, and Honda says these are the largest wheels that they've ever put on a vehicle. And I think they look rather good, just like I think this whole vehicle actually looks pretty good. Even if the front here is a little bit boring, this definitely still looks like a Honda. And this color really, really pops as well. Very good job with the styling, I'd say. We're here with an elite model of the Prologue. This is the top of the Prologue's three trim levels, and it will also be offered with two different powertrains, a single-motor, front-wheel drive, and a dual-motor, all-wheel drive. Now, for the single-motor, front-wheel drive, we don't power specs. But Honda does say that you can expect about 300 miles of range with it. And for the dual-motor, we don't know range, but we do know that it will make 288 horsepower and 333 pound-feet of torque. Now for an EV, those are kind of modest power numbers. Even the dual-motor version of this vehicle makes less power than the single-motor version of the ZDX. But again, no judgments here until we get one in to test it to see how it does at our Edmunds test track and also put it on the Edmunds EV range loop to see those real-world range numbers. All the Prologues are going to come with the same 85-kilowatt-hour battery pack, and it will be able to DC fast-charge at rates of up to 155 kilowatts. Now, that's slower than the Blazer EV's 190 kilowatts. But with most public charging stations topping out at 150 kilowatts, you won't really notice much of a difference. Now like many other automakers, Honda has announced that they are going to move to the North America charging standard, a.k.a. the Tesla plug. And they say that owners who buy one of these with this, the CCS plug, will be able to purchase an adapter and then eventually charge on that network as well. All Prologue models are going to feature the Honda Sensing suite standard, which means you're going to get things like adaptive cruise control with lane keep assist standard on all these models. But the one thing you won't get is an equivalent to GM's Super Cruise. The ZDX is going to have a hands-free driving technology based on that GM system. But here in the Prologue, you're not going to get anything that advanced. Up front here, you're going to get these standard 11 and 11.3-inch screens on all of the Prologue models. This screen is going to be sourced from GM, but Honda says that the software is going to come all from them. And also coming in this vehicle, it will include Google built in. Now currently, that's only a system that you can get on the very top trim level of the Honda Accord. And it's been weird to us that Honda limited it there because we actually like it quite a bit and it works pretty well. But on all trim levels of the Prologue, you're going to get that. That's going to integrate Google into a lot of the vehicle's functions and allow you to talk to the car to control a lot of the vehicle's functions. So in the Accord, for example, you could just say, "Hey, Google, turn on the ventilated seats," and those would fire up right away. Much better than Honda's sort of based multimedia system, which we think already feels kind of old. Now, 11.3-inch screen, like we said before. And it comes with a few different features in the Google Maps that Honda says are unique to this vehicle. So for example, you'll be able to pull up fast-charging stations in Google Maps. It will give you updated ETAs, along with charging. And the other thing it can do, then, is precondition the battery. So if you enter in a DC fast-charging station as an intermediate destination or as a final destination, as you approach that, the vehicle will precondition the battery so that once you get there, it charges even faster. Now, the rest of the interior will be very familiar to other Honda products. And Honda says that's on purpose. They're kind of building this vehicle for people who may have a CR-V or a Pilot but are looking for an electric alternative. And this will sort of serve that function. So you get these kind of nice, chunky knobs here for the temperature. This center console area, also pretty smart. You have a vertical charging pad here for the phone, and that allows you to keep this area open for more storage. The other thing, these cup holders are very large. These are two 32-ounce water bottles. And as you can see, they fit right in here, no problem. And below here, a nice, open storage area that will fit a purse or a small bag. Earlier we mentioned the Prologue's very long wheelbase. And it's also pretty big on the inside as a result of that as well. This vehicle is actually about 10 inches longer than an Ioniq 5 and about six inches longer than a Model Y. So for everything else in this class, the Prologue is actually going to give you a bit more interior room. No official specs yet, but this seat is set up where I like to drive, and I'm almost six feet tall. And as you can see, tons and tons of legroom and very good headroom as well. Also, if you look up, a lot of these vehicles have fixed glass roofs. But Honda has put on a panoramic sunroof, which means that you can close the cover when it's too hot, and you don't have to worry about baking your head. Behind the rear seats, there's 25.2 cubic feet of cargo space, which expands to 57.7 cubic feet with this back seat folded down. Now underneath me, there's also this handy storage bin. And it's not just a little thing. It's actually big enough to even fit a backpack. So you can store some real items underneath there. And that's a good thing because up front, no frunk. That's kind of where all the HVAC controls and other things live. So all your storage in this vehicle is going to be found in the back. The Prologue is set to go on sale next year, and closer to its on-sale date is probably when we can expect details like range for those dual-motor models and power figures for the single-motor. But for all the updates on this vehicle and all of Honda's other vehicles, be sure to head over to edmunds.com. Honda says that the Prologue is going to start in the high $40,000s, which puts it at the expensive end of this segment. But again, this is a larger vehicle than most of its competitors, so you're going to get a bit more space and interior room. Now, one caveat with that on-sale date. This is, again, based on GM's Ultium platform, and GM has had some problems getting vehicles based on that platform out the door. The Blazer EV, with which the Prologue is closely related, that's been delayed. That was supposed to go on sale this summer. But most trim levels of that vehicle won't arrive till next year, and some of them have been dropped entirely. Honda says that they're hoping to sell between 30,000 and 40,000 Prologues next year. And our fingers are crossed that they don't run into the same supply issues that have plagued much of the industry and that we can look around in 2024 and see plenty of Prologues putting around the roads. Thanks for watching. [MUSIC PLAYING]