2021 Honda Odyssey Gets Family Friendly Upgrades
The minivan might not have the family hauler glamour it had in the 1990s, but it’s still an important segment. That means that the refreshed 2021 Honda Odyssey, the most popular minivan in the country an important one. Loaded with new features like seats that fold flat, more luxury touches, and some useful upgrades to the van’s active safety systems.
Though you’ll first notice the 2021 Honda Odyssey’s freshened styling. A new grille brings it more in line with the rest of the company’s lineup, and the new lights should send plenty of lumens down the road. New black trim under the rear windows helps keep the van looking sharp. Those lights are now LED as standard even on base LX trim, and Honda anticipates them earning a better score on IIHS testing this year.
More important to minivan buyers, though, are the changes to the middle row of seats. They’ll slide fore and aft like before, but now they’ll fold flat, too, which means that it’s easier to load large items on top of the rear seats. It’s also now easier to remove the middle seats, as before they’d stay in a mostly upright position for you to wrangle out.
EX and higher trims of the 2021 Honda Odyssey get restyled seats and tri-color floor mats to brighten the interior, with EX-L and up getting power front lumbar in the front and contrast stitching. Touring and Elite add piano black trim, and Elite adds perforated leather in the first and second row, their own 19-inch wheels, and a special dash trim.
New for the 2021 Honda Odyssey, the Honda Sensing active safety suite gets low-speed follow for the radar cruise control. That’s a big benefit in heavy traffic and it’s able to slow the vehicle to a complete stop in traffic situations and then move off again after. It also gains pedestrian emergency braking and traffic sign recognition, all standard across the line. The features, including collision mitigation braking and lane departure warning, have a new single set of controls honda says make them easier to use, adjust, and turn on and off.
A new rear seat reminder on select trims monitors the doors to let you know that you may have forgotten someone or something in the back. A chime and dash message will remind you to check the van. On vans equipped with the CabinWatch camera, which shows you the interior of the van on the infotainment screen, that camera image will come up with the rear seat reminder warning.
Unchanged is under the hood, where the Odyssey retains Honda’s 3.5L V6 with 280 hp matched with a 10-speed automatic gearbox. The revised 2021 Honda Odyssey goes on sale August 3rd at dealers across the country, starting from $31,790.
