Restyled 2021 Honda Odyssey Starts at $31,790
The 2021 Honda Odyssey will go on sale on Aug. 3 with a fresh face, new safety features, upgraded technologies, and a starting price of $31,790, not including a $1,120 destination charge. The Odyssey is the best-selling retail minivan in America for the past decade, and with the 2021 refresh, it hopes to cement its place at the top.
First and foremost are the design changes. The grille, front bumper, and front lighting elements have all been revised to make the Odyssey seem more at home in the modern automotive landscape. The minivan is nicer inside as well, with restyled seats, new tri-color floor mats, and new piano black trim on the doors and dash.
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Many of the 2021 Odyssey’s new features center around passenger convenience and safety, which is not altogether surprising given its purpose as a family vehicle. For the first time, the Odyssey gets a new rear-seat reminder system, which can be integrated within the minivan’s existing CabinWatch child-viewing system.
In the past, front occupants could not use the Odyssey’s CabinWatch and CabinTalk features at the same time. Honda says they can now both be used simultaneously, and that the upgrade will be retroactively applied to Odysseys from the 2018-2020 model years.
The Honda Sensing suite of active safety and driver-assistive features has also gotten an upgrade. It’s now capable of following other cars at low speeds, emergency braking for pedestrians, and recognizing traffic signs.
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Additional minor updates were sprinkled throughout the Odyssey’s trim levels. For example, the Touring and Elite get a new USB charging port in the third row (adding up to five for the whole vehicle), and the center console has been redesigned to better accommodate smartphone charging cables. On the Elite trim, the dash now features an exclusive trim, and the first and second rows are now offered with perforated leather seats with contrast stitching.
The 2021 Honda Odyssey enters the market with a new Chrysler Pacifica and all-new Toyota Sienna as its rivals. It seems to have all the right tools to perform as well as it has over the last 10 years.
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.