EX-L 4dr Front-Wheel Drive
2020 Honda Passport

Sometimes great success comes with minimal effort. Most cars and SUVs share their mechanical underpinnings with various other vehicles from within their brand, but they look so different that you'd have to be a car geek like us to know. The 2020 Honda Passport, on the other hand, is quite obviously a Honda Pilot with a pair of seats and a bunch of length removed, plus a new grille, big black wheels and extra ground clearance. Interior design? It's the same. Engine, transmission, general driving experience? Ditto. On one hand, you could accuse Honda of laziness. On the other, you could look at the end result and see what is arguably the most competitive vehicle in Honda's midsize crossover family (the Ridgeline pickup is similarly chipped off the ol' Pilot block). The Passport's huge, spacious-efficient cabin is tops among midsize two-row crossovers. Its ride and handling are well-balanced for comfort and control. Feature content is generous and pricing is reasonable. For those looking for an SUV to take on family adventures, it's a terrific, well-rounded choice. That Honda sort of whipped it together doesn't really matter.   What's new for 2020? After being introduced last year, the Passport receives no changes for 2020. What's the interior and in-car technology like? If you've seen the inside of a Honda Pilot, you'll be right at home in the Passport, as the first two rows are virtually identical. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Both share a common look that's clean and functional, but hardly as visually interesting as what you'd find in a Chevy Blazer or Hyundai Santa Fe. Material quality is very strong for this segment and everything is put together exceedingly well. One difference with the Pilot is that every Passport comes with Honda's controversial push-button transmission selector (rather than just top trim levels). It's confusing at first to use, and then never as intuitive to use as a traditional shifter. It's different just to be different. On the plus side, there's no shortage of places to store your stuff. There are multiple door bins, two cupholders in each rear door, two areas to store a smartphone up front, and the giant center bin is big enough to hide a purse under its flat rolling cover. There are even more underneath the cargo floor. Interior tech is less impressive. There is a lot of it standard, true, but the means in which it is controlled can frustrate. There are insufficient menu buttons, no tuning knob and/or direct tune function, and the process for going between Honda and Apple/Android interfaces is excessively annoying. Many of these issues were corrected for the vastly improved system in the Accord and Odyssey (even the Civic now has physical menu buttons), but the Pilot/Passport/Ridgeline family soldier on with ye olde interface. If there's a reason to ponder something other than the Passport, this would certainly be it. How big is it? For a midsize two-row crossover, the Passport provides an enormous, space-efficient interior. Nothing really comes …
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