LOS ANGELES — Honda has chosen a forward-looking name for the battery-electric crossover that it is developing with General Motors for the 2024 model year: Prologue.
The Honda crossover will use GM's Ultium platform and batteries, but Honda will develop the vehicle's body style and interior. The Honda-GM venture also will develop a battery-electric Acura crossover in the 2024 calendar year, the company said.
The Prologue is expected to go on sale in early 2024, the company said.
"Our first volume Honda BEV will begin our transition to electrification and the name Honda Prologue signals the role it will play in leading to our zero-emission future," Dave Gardner, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., said in a statement.
Honda already makes a small EV for the Japan and European markets, marketed simply as the "e." But that vehicle is considered a niche product, while Honda expects the Prologue to be its first volume EV.
Gardner said during a media presentation that Honda will use its own e:Architecture platform in the second half of the decade to create a series of new EVs. He declined to say how that would affect the the company's EV collaboration with GM.
Gardner also declined to say where the Prologue and the coming Acura EV will be manufactured, or offer vehicle specifications. A slide included as part of the media presentation suggested the Honda EV would be smaller than the Acura EV.
