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Honda Passport Lives On - Refresh Coming in 2026

One of our favorite five-passenger SUVs will continue on. Here’s what we want to see in the 2026 Honda Passport. 
Image of 2026 Honda Passport courtesy of Honda

Honda makes great SUVs for family and homeowner use. While not the rough and tumble hardcore off-roaders that some brands offer, Honda’s are outstanding off-pavement in real-world situations like boat ramp access, getting to your ski lodge in a storm, and exploring back-country dirt roads. We particularly love the Passport for its size and comfort, but were worried that its relatively low volume might cause Honda to cancel it and focus on the three-row Pilot. Our fears were assuaged this week by Honda.

Honda says that not only will the Passport continue on, but it will get a refresh for the 2026 model year, which arrives in early calendar 2025. We suspect it will mimic what the Pilot got for upgrades a couple of years ago. That makes sense since the Passport is sort of a five-passenger version of the three-row Pilot.

Here’s What We Want In the 2026 Passport
We will keep our list of hoped-for upgrades realistic. Would we like to see an all-wheel drive hybrid version of the Passport? Absolutely, but we don't see much of a possibility of that. We also don't care if there are any trims other than TrailSport. Buyers who want other trims can and should simply get the Pilot. Here’s our list of what we hope to see:
TrailSport Trim Features:

  1. Real skidplates
  2. Real recovery hooks front and standard towing package rear
  3. Hill Descent Control
  4. Better Response from the engine and transmission
  5. Better steering response
  6. Wireless Android Auto and Apple Car Play
  7. Tires with meaty sidewalls and the 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake rating
  8. Spare tire

The Passport TrailSport was very good in its current version, but the Pilot is better in many ways. The Passport is a bit numb. It’s not exciting enough to compete with real adventure vehicles like the Ford Bronco Sport Badlands. It needs to be more punchy off the line and more fun to steer and brake on-road.

We also hope hill descent control and severe-snow-duty-rated all-terrain tires like the Falken WildPeak A/T Trail or A/T 4W make the grade. These will elevate the Passport’s winter driving capability quite a bit over what it is now capable of. Finally, we expect any SUV in 2026 to have a spare tire (compact is fine) and to have wireless phone integration standard across the line.

Honda is one of the automotive media’s biggest supporters, and we’ve tested the current generation Passport twice. We hope we can bring you a full review of the 2026 Honda Passport in about nine months.

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John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work at our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading. 

 

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