Review QuickTakes:
Among midsize SUVs with a five-passenger seating capacity, the 2022 Honda Passport is arguably one of the roomiest around. That’s because it is based on the three-row Honda Pilot but is shorter in length and equipped with different exterior styling. The 2022 Passport offers 41.2 cubic feet of cargo space, expanding to 77.7 cu.-ft. with the rear seats folded down. Maximum towing capacity measures 5,000 pounds when the Passport is properly equipped, and it supplies up to 8.1 inches of ground clearance.
What’s New for the 2022 Honda Passport?
For the 2022 model year, the new Honda Passport gets upgrades intended to increase its appeal to outdoorsy, adventurous types. The SUV adopts new styling forward of the windshield, and a new TrailSport trim level debuts with rugged-style design details, standard all-wheel drive (AWD), and sport-terrain tire tread.
Otherwise, the Passport carries over from 2021, but with just three well-equipped trim levels and lots of extra standard equipment. Honda also adds a new rear-seat reminder system to encourage drivers to check the back seat before locking and leaving their Passports.
How Much is a Honda Passport?
This year, 2022 Honda Passport prices range from the low $40,000s to the high $40,000s, including the destination charge to ship the SUV from the Lincoln, Alabama factory that builds it to your local dealership.
2022 Honda Passport Trim Levels and Configurations
Honda offers the 2022 Passport as a five-passenger, midsize, crossover SUV in three trim levels. Highlights of each are as follows:
Honda Passport EX-L – Honda makes the Passport EX-L the new base trim level for 2022. That means the most affordable version of this SUV is nicely equipped with 20-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, heated side mirrors, a power rear liftgate, a walk-away automatic locking system, and front and rear parking sensors.
The interior features leather upholstery, heated front seats, tri-zone automatic climate control, and a power sunroof. An 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system offers Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and satellite radio, and wireless smartphone charging is standard.
The Honda Sensing collection of driver-assist and collision-avoidance technologies features adaptive cruise control, forward-collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist, and lane-centering assist. Additionally, every Passport has blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and automatic high-beam headlights.
Honda Passport TrailSport – Though TrailSport is mainly a cosmetic treatment, it signals Honda’s intention to improve its off-roading game in the future. For now, the TrailSport adds standard AWD, LED fog lights, robust roof rails, power-folding side mirrors, and a heated windshield wiper rest zone. The SUV also sits on unique 18-inch wheels wrapped in all-season tires with more pronounced tread designs and has silver-painted simulated skid plates on its bumpers.
Inside, the Passport TrailSport features all-season floor mats, orange interior stitching, amber ambient cabin lighting, a 115-volt power outlet, and lots of TrailSport emblems. It also gets a standard navigation system.
Honda Passport Elite – Choose the Passport Elite, and you’ll get a set of 20-inch alloy wheels with a machined surface, rain-sensing wipers, and a hands-free power liftgate. Additional acoustic glass makes the interior quieter on the highway, and Elite trim equips the SUV with white ambient cabin lighting, a heated steering wheel, perforated leather upholstery with contrast stitching, ventilated front seats, and heated rear seats. Second-row passengers get their own climate controls and smartphone storage pockets, while the infotainment system adds HondaLink connected services with Wi-Fi access and a premium sound system with ten speakers.
Christian Wardlaw
2022 Honda Passport Review and Test Drive
Test Drive QuickTakes:
Have you noticed the overlanding trend with SUV owners? Typical modifications include suspension lifts, all-terrain tires, large roof racks, extra exterior lighting, and other changes that give everything from a Chevy Tahoe to a Subaru Crosstrek a more purposeful and capable appearance. Whether these people are driving into the wilderness to set up camp and engage in an adventure is debatable, but the overlanding look sure is popular.
Hoping to cash in on the trend toward more rugged and capable vehicles, Honda is on a quest to convince consumers that its SUVs qualify for consideration. Enter the new TrailSport nameplate, which debuts on the refreshed 2022 Honda Passport. For now, TrailSport is mainly about cosmetics instead of increased capability, but Honda says that will change in the future.
Christian Wardlaw
To give the new Passport TrailSport its best shot at success, Honda restyles the midsize SUV. Forward of the windshield, the Passport is now almost identical to the Honda Ridgeline pickup truck. Around the back, more prominent exhaust outlets give the SUV a sportier look. TrailSport trim also adds unique wheels with a tire design that suggests added traction in the mud and muck, along with the usual rugged SUV design cues like simulated front and rear skid plates.
Since the new 2022 Passport TrailSport is all about adventure, Honda loaned me one to take on a road trip from Los Angeles to California’s central coast. It arrived wearing extra-cost Sonic Gray Pearl paint and a price tag of $44,095, including the $1,225 destination charge.
Christian Wardlaw
2022 Honda Passport Review: The Design
Honda doesn’t want to hear this, but I liked the styling of last year’s Passport just fine. The new front-end is nearly identical to what Honda added to the Ridgeline pickup in 2021, and while it works well on the truck, I’m less convinced of its appeal on this SUV. However, design is a highly subjective matter, so if you like the way the 2022 Passport looks, then you simply need to decide if you like the rest of this SUV.
From a quality standpoint, the Passport is hard to fault, especially at its base price. This SUV isn’t fancy inside, but it is screwed together with care and precision, and for the most part, the materials don’t look or feel cheap. There is a sense of robustness to the Passport, which imparts confidence that it will last a long time.
Christian Wardlaw
Controls are located where you expect to find them, are clearly labeled, and work intuitively. However, the collection of buttons and switches for the transmission takes some getting used to, and it would be nice if Honda provided a tuning knob for the radio. Otherwise, I have no complaints about the Passport’s control layout.
Honda installs comfortable seats in the Passport. Up front, they are wide and shaped to provide good thigh support, while rear-seat occupants enjoy plenty of legroom and headroom and a slightly elevated position. In addition, large windows help to make the Passport feel airy, and my road-trip passengers commented several times about how much they liked riding in the roomy Passport compared to most vehicles.
Christian Wardlaw
Speaking of road trips, the Passport is more accommodating than most midsize SUVs regarding storage room and cargo space. For example, the front door panels have shelves in addition to a lower bin, and the rear door panels include cupholders placed within easy reach of children. Notably, our TrailSport featured rear side window sunshades.
Cargo space behind the back seat measures 41.2 cubic feet, a generous amount of room. Fold the rear seat down, and the Passport offers up to 77.7 cu-ft of cargo capacity.
Christian Wardlaw
2022 Honda Passport Review: The Technology
From a fundamental functionality standpoint, the Passport’s standard 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system is simple enough to use. However, don’t expect it to impress you with wireless smartphone integration, conversational voice recognition, satellite imagery for the navigation system, or even a radio tuning knob. You can subscribe to a Wi-Fi data plan through HondaLink connected services, but this is available only with Elite trim.
Christian Wardlaw
Honda makes up for this lack of technological sophistication by including standard wireless smartphone charging on all Passports, as well as wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and SiriusXM satellite radio. On my road trip, I used Siri Eyes Free and smartphone apps to find destinations, bypassing the Passport’s clunky voice command menu and sketchy user experience. The standard seven-speaker sound system was adequate, except when driving on the highway, where road and wind noise competed with it.
The standard reversing camera features multiple viewing angles, and Honda equips every Passport with front and rear parking sensors. For 2022 the SUV gains rear seatbelt warning and rear-seat reminder systems. That latter feature reminds the driver to check the back seat before leaving the SUV. When you walk away from the Passport, the doors will automatically lock if you’ve selected that vehicle setting.
Christian Wardlaw
Several advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) are standard on the Passport, all part of the Honda Sensing package. In addition to these collision warning, collision avoidance, and lane-keeping systems, Honda also equips the Passport with adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, and a rear cross-traffic alert system.
In the Passport, the Honda Sensing tech lacks refinement due to its age. It’s not as smooth or accurate as newer versions, and I dislike the lane-departure warning system’s obnoxious steering wheel wobble when a steering wheel vibration is preferable. As a result, I found the Passport more enjoyable to drive with most of the Honda Sensing tech turned off.
The Passport reveals its age in another way, too. It does not earn the highest possible safety rating in a new Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crash test, getting an Acceptable rather than a Good rating for front passenger protection in a small-overlap collision on the SUV’s right front corner. In addition, that same seating location earns a four-star rather than five-star rating for frontal-impact protection in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) testing.
Christian Wardlaw
2022 Honda Passport Review: The Drive
Honda equips every 2022 Passport with a 3.5-liter V6 engine making 280 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque. Unless you opt for AWD, a nine-speed automatic transmission powers the EX-L model’s front wheels. The AWD system is standard with TrailSport and Elite trim.
The AWD system is called Intelligent Variable Torque Management Four (i-VTM4). It’s a torque vectoring system, which means it can transfer up to 70 percent of the engine’s power to one of the Passport’s rear wheels. That is great for driving on the pavement; it makes the SUV more pleasing to drive on the roads you most frequently travel, especially if you exit a curve or a corner with enthusiasm.
But what about when you’re on dirt, and the going gets tricky? I took the Passport TrailSport down a trail in the mountains north of Santa Barbara, and the SUV demonstrated decent off-road capability on moderately challenging terrain while using its Normal driving mode. The most significant concern was the lack of wheel articulation, which meant the Passport was lifting its wheels off the ground more often than I’d prefer.
Christian Wardlaw
Currently, fuel economy is on everyone’s mind due to high gasoline prices. The Passport’s V6 engine features Variable Cylinder Management, which means it can operate on just two or three cylinders under ideal highway driving conditions. In turn, this saves gas. The official EPA fuel economy estimate for the Passport TrailSport is 21 mpg in combined driving. I averaged 21.9 mpg on my 685-mile road trip and 20.6 mpg on my standard testing loop.
Acceleration is robust, and you’ll have no trouble merging onto fast-flowing freeways. The transmission performs well, too, but the Passport can roll a little bit after selecting Park, which can be unnerving – especially if passengers have begun to disembark. The ride quality is relatively firm and communicative, which I prefer to a soft and floaty sensation. Also, the handling is impressive, the Passport proving every bit as tossable on a twisty road as the other Hondas that share this vehicle platform (Odyssey, Pilot, and Ridgeline). As previously mentioned, however, road and wind noise is excessive at highway speeds.
Christian Wardlaw
Unfortunately, and this is a problem I’ve noted in the platform-mates listed above, the Passport’s brakes heat fast and start to rumble and shudder under your foot as you’re pressing on the brake pedal. This sensation is especially noticeable when descending mountain grades, where it happens even while using the adaptive cruise control. The brakes don’t fade, but they don’t inspire much confidence either. I would imagine that attaching a 5,000-pound trailer to this SUV would only magnify the issue.
Nevertheless, I enjoy driving the Passport. It feels quick and agile, remains comfortable after hours on the highway, and offers enough ground clearance for off-road exploration or getting home during a nasty snowstorm.
Is the Honda Passport a Good SUV?
Though the Passport is aging fast, its combination of quality, comfort, cargo space, driving dynamics, and value is compelling. So yes, it is a good SUV. But perhaps not a great one.
Honda Passport Competitors for 2022
The insatiable demand for SUVs has renewed consumer interest in midsize, two-row models like the Honda Passport. Alternatives in this segment include the Chevrolet Blazer, Ford Edge, GMC Acadia, Hyundai Santa Fe, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Nissan Murano, Subaru Outback, and Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport.
Honda Passport Features
Highlights
The 2022 Honda Passport is an appealing choice in a midsize SUV. It offers plenty of power, a torque-vectoring AWD system, comfortable seats, a cavernous cargo area, and decent ground clearance, providing what most people want from an SUV most of the time. However, the Passport’s technology and imperfect frontal-impact crash-test ratings cause a pause.
2022 Honda Passport Safety Features
- Collision Mitigation Braking System – Standard forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking system
- Road Departure Mitigation System – Standard feature that can steer the SUV back into the intended lane of travel
- Lane Keeping Assist System – Standard feature that helps to center the Passport within the lane of travel
- Blind Spot Information System – Standard blind-spot monitoring system
- Cross Traffic Monitor – Standard feature that warns the driver when other vehicles are approaching from the sides while reversing
2022 Honda Passport Technology
- Infotainment system – Standard 8-inch touchscreen display
- Smartphone integration – Standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
- Wireless smartphone charging – Standard feature
- Navigation system – Available feature*
- HondaLink – Available connected services, including access to a Wi-Fi hotspot*
2022 Honda Passport Specs
- 3.5-liter V6 engine
- 280 horsepower, 262 lb.-ft. of torque
- Nine-speed automatic
- Front-wheel drive (FWD) or all-wheel drive (AWD)
- EPA fuel economy ratings: 22 mpg in combined driving (21 mpg with AWD powertrain)
2022 Honda Passport Interior
- Leather seats – Standard feature
- Heated front seats – Standard feature
- Heated rear seats and steering wheel – Available features*
- Ventilated front seats – Available feature*
- Premium audio system – Available feature with ten speakers*
*Availability is subject to specific trim level selections
