Honda Prologue EV Will Feature Built-In Google Infotainment Tech
When the all-new 2024 Prologue launches later this year, it will be Honda’s first dedicated electric SUV — and so far, the automaker is keeping details fairly close to the chest. However, it did recently reveal a bit about the Prologue’s infotainment system.
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The Honda Prologue will have standard wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well as standard Google Built-In, which is essentially a whole separate infotainment system — a little like putting a smartphone in your car if you don’t already have one to connect to it. So even without using Android Auto, you can still access Google Maps, YouTube Music, Google Assistant, and download even more apps via Google Play, such as Spotify and NPR.
These technologies will run on an 11.3-inch center touch-screen display and an 11-inch digital driver instrument display. Honda also says the Prologue will feature its first “pocket type” wireless smartphone charger, and that a 7×3-inch head-up display and 12-speaker Bose sound system will be offered as options.
The future of infotainment
Nearly seven years ago, I wrote about how Apple CarPlay and Android Auto were bailing automakers out of making proper infotainment systems. After all, why use something like the HondaLink infotainment system when you can just connect your phone and instantly have access to all your apps and contacts via a superior interface? Even if HondaLink is a good system, it will never be as good as the smartphone tech developed by Apple or Google, and that goes for every automaker. They’d always be playing catchup.
Today, just about every new car on the market featured CarPlay and Android Auto, and with Google Built-In, they’re going one step further. Users no longer need a smartphone to connect to the car, which was probably the only thing keeping automakers from entirely abandoning their own infotainment systems. Now, HondaLink doesn’t need to exist. A car’s multimedia cans imply be powered by Google, and it’s a win-win for everybody: users get a better user experience and automakers saves cost on development.
Shared platforms
Speaking of cost savings through technology sharing…the Prologue may be Honda’s first volume EV, but it won’t be a pure Honda. That’s because it will ride on General Motors’ Ultium architecture, and will thus share many components with other GM vehicles, particularly the Chevrolet Blazer EV. Honda’s design studios are handling the interior and exterior, but under the hood, the car will largely be a Blazer.
If that gives you the feeling that the Prologue is all-too appropriately named, you’re probably not alone. Indeed, the all-electric SUV is just a prologue of something greater to come, as Honda plans to debut its own electric architecture in 2026. It will be called “e:Architecture EV,” which I recommend Honda change to…anything else, really. The Japanese automaker will undoubtedly ignore me though, as well as continue to collaborate with GM through 2027 — but with over 30 EVs planned for global launch by 2030, many of them are likely to be fully-fledged Hondas.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.