Just a week after premiering at the L.A. auto show, the 2019 Honda Passport has already entered production in Alabama. The crossover will go on sale early next year, and it joins the Odyssey, Ridgeline, and Pilot among the lineup of vehicles built at the facility. Like its siblings, the Passport makes use of the Honda Global Light Truck platform, and all four vehicles have a 3.5-liter V-6 engine good for 280 horsepower and 262 lb-ft of torque.
The facility in Lincoln, Alabama, can make 340,000 vehicles and V-6 engines per year. Since production went online in November 2001, Honda has made more than 4.7 million vehicles and engines at the plant. Investment has exceeded $2.6 billion at the 4.6 million square-foot facility located 40 miles east of Birmingham.
The Passport will slot between the CR-V and the Pilot in Honda’s lineup. The five-seater was built with off-road capability in mind, boasting more ground clearance than the CR-V and Pilot and different driving modes for snow, sand, and mud. The Passport comes standard with Honda Sensing, which includes forward-collision warning, collision-mitigating automatic braking, lane-departure warning, lane-keep assist, road-departure mitigation, and adaptive cruise control. We expect pricing to come relatively soon given the Passport’s imminent arrival in dealerships.
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