Is the new electric Honda Prologue a Chevy Blazer EV With a Different Badge?
It’s not uncommon for manufacturers to collaborate to make cars and put different names on different vehicles for brands. The Chevy Silverado is the same truck as the GMC Sierra, for example. But as the new electric world converges in the automotive space, manufacturers are now sharing the engineering duty to make new EV platforms. Honda and GM teamed up on the Ultium electric vehicle platform, and that means that many of the new vehicles from the two could look the same, even the Blazer EV and Honda Prologue SUVs.
You can see the Chevy roots in the new electric Honda Prologue (or is it the other way around?)
Honda released the details and pics of its new Prologue EV SUV recently. GM launched its images of the new Blazer EV. Can you see the similarities? To this writer’s eye, the roots of the two aren’t well disguised. All of the glass, and the rake of the front end of the two look about the same.
Honda released the details and pics of its new Prologue EV SUV recently. GM launched its images of the new Blazer EV. Can you see the similarities? To this writer’s eye, the roots of the two aren’t well disguised. All of the glass, and the rake of the front end of the two look about the same.
About where you expect to see a Chevy bowtie badge on the front, you see a Honda H. The similarities go beyond their looks. The new Honda Prologue and the Chevy Blazer EV have the same wheelbase, at 121.8 inches. The blazer is slightly shorter, at 191.4 inches vs. 192 inches for the Honda Prologue. The Chevy is about two inches narrower, however. We’re not the only ones to see the similarities between the Prologue and Blazer, CNET saw something similar.
Designed in California, on an international platform
The Honda Design Studio in Los Angeles did the design fo the Prologue. Honda calls the design “Neo-Rugged,” and in somewhat echoes the new design of the 2023 CR-V, but it’s eight inches longer and five inches wider. Per Honda, The Prologue will be available in an exclusive North Shore Pearl exterior color which was inspired from the natural beauty and colors near Lake Tahoe in California.
Instead of the Honda H on the back, the Prologue will get a giant Honda script on the tailgate.
What is the Ultium platform?
General Motors has said it will phase out its fossil-fuel-powered cars by 2035. In 2020 it announced the Ultium electric vehicle platform that will be the basis for its cars and trucks like the new Sierra EV and GMC Hummer EV. In the Hummer EV, the platform is proving to be heavy but powerful, launching the 9,000-pound truck with so much force it’ll hit 60 mph in about 3.0 seconds.
GM achieves its modular abilities with its platform with modular batteries. Each pack can be stacked vertically or horizontally, which means that packaging can be optimized for each vehicle.
Honda has partnered with GM and will use the Ultium platform for some of its EVs, too.
Could the platform make more similar vehicles a possibility?
Manufacturers call it badge engineering, and there are dozens of examples of cars and trucks that are the same vehicle but with different names. Most of us are familiar with GM’s Chevys looking like their more expensive GMC, Buick and Cadillac counterparts. Same with Fords and Lincolns. The Mitsubishi 3000GT and the Dodge Stealth immediately come to mind, as do Toyota’s Supra and BMW’s Z4.
But with the new EV platforms, we’re expecting designers will be able to get a lot more creative with their designs. Since these platforms are simply battery packs with wheels, a designer can put a sports car, sedan, or even a truck on the platform, and make it look like anything they want.
