Honda wished to get into the EV sport shortly, so it turned to an odd associate – General Motors. The Prologue EV is the primary fruit of this partnership, driving on GM’s Ultium battery platform. On paper, it seems to be a twin of Chevrolet’s new Blazer EV, driving on the identical 121.8-inch wheelbase and sharing an 85.0-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack. But this isn’t merely a badge-engineering job.  

“Basically, the frame rails, the floor, the front and rear suspension subframes, those are common obviously,” says John Hwang, chief engineer for the Prologue. “GM when we started shared those hard points where the sheetmetal has to attach, and then they said, ‘Go for it.’” 

Hwang provides that the pedal field, steering column mounting, the bottom of the windshield, and firewall are additionally shared between Blazer and Prologue. 

“When those are common, it opens up a lot of flexibility and efficiency, but it still gives enough freedom for the designers,” he says.  

So, the physique panels are totally different, and whereas the Prologue has an analogous low, large stance because the Blazer, it doesn’t look similar. Merely associated. 

One key distinction is tuning. 

“We had meetings with General Motors and said, ‘Our cars feel like this, we want to have this kind of an expression,’” Hwang tells us. “So, we brought some Honda cars and some other cars and benchmarked them and drove them together. And based on that we said, ‘Let’s focus on these areas to tune.’” 

The Prologue makes use of distinctive springs and dampers, and Hwang says the steering calibration is sort of a bit totally different than the Blazer’s. Without driving them back-to-back, it’s powerful to inform the precise distinction, however I’m instructed the Prologue has a softer suspension setup and the steering is an efficient bit lighter too. 

Inside the Prologue, issues are totally different, too. Whereas the Blazer inside has a sporty look, the Prologue’s cabin is extra subdued, in typical Honda type. Switchgear comes from GM’s huge components bin, however Hwang says Honda designers and engineers got here up with a novel feel and look for the Prologue’s inside. The button and change places are distinctive too, finished to Honda’s design requirements. Honda additionally eschews the massive, curved infotainment show of the Blazer in favor of a smaller touchscreen. 

It’s instance of how automobiles can share a lot beneath however feel and look fairly totally different. The Prologue appears like a Honda, regardless of its GM roots.