If you’re driving a relatively new car, you sort-of expect your gauges to just work, right? Well, that hasn’t been the case for every owner of the electric crossovers produced as part of a joint venture between Honda and GM. The Japanese automaker is recalling 65,135 examples of the 2024 Acura ZDX and Honda Prologue due to digital dashboards going blank. While this isn’t the first time a modern car has seen a similar recall, the sheer lead time here is definitely noteworthy.
Back in 2020, Honda and General Motors announced a partnership that would kick off with a pair of electric crossovers based on GM’s Ultium battery technology. It wasn’t the first time the companies had worked together, as certain first-generation Saturn Vue crossovers came equipped with Honda V6 engines, but this was a new era. How much of these EVs would be GM, exactly? As it turns out, a whole lot.
Under the skin, the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX were basically siblings of the Chevrolet Blazer EV, from underpinnings to certain pieces of interior switchgear. The Honda-badged model used the standard 85 kWh battery pack; the Acura model used the optional 102 kWh battery pack. Really, the biggest functional change over these EVs’ domestic-branded brother was the presence of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Unfortunately, the Blazer EV didn’t enjoy an especially smooth rollout, with software glitches dominating the early experience. As it turns out, not all of the bugs of that platform were eradicated because Honda is finally launching a recall for the screens on its electric crossovers going blank.
According to the recall report, the story starts in June of 2024, when Honda “received notification” that the instrument clusters and infotainment screens on the Prologue and Acura ZDX crossovers could simply go blank while driving. It shouldn’t be surprising that the former is a safety issue, as the recall report spells out clear as day:
If the instrument cluster display goes blank while driving, the driver may be unable to view critical vehicle information, including vehicle speed and warning indicators, reducing the driver’s situational awareness and increasing the risk of a crash or injury
As for the infotainment screen, it’s where the feed from the federally mandated backup camera pops up; that’s a mandated piece of safety equipment. Not being able to see that feed would indeed be a regulatory issue, not to mention a safety issue because the view out of the Prologue’s rear window is roughly the size of a mail slot.
However, after seven months of fiddling with the models, Honda’s team only had an update that wasn’t really an update: “Honda failed to recreate the issue and continued to investigate.” Continued investigation lasted another 11-plus months until Honda received word of where things might be going wrong. The culprit? The Bosch-supplied radio control module. As further probing of the issue revealed:
The vehicle’s display control software for the instrument cluster and infotainment system contains six independent software defects within the Radio Control Module. Each defect can occur independently and result in a processing error within the Radio Control Module. When triggered, the Radio Control Module may fail to properly transmit data to the instrument cluster and/or infotainment display, resulting in a system restart or crash and both displays to go blank.
One software bug can be irksome enough, but six different ones culminating in the same failure mode is like playing a game of whack-a-mole. Still, 20 months from initial complaints to recall? All while 143 warranty claims rolled in? That’s an unusually long lead time. What’s especially puzzling is how Honda has effectively had functional software for a year, with an on-the-line fix rolling out on Jan. 11, 2025, according to the recall report.
Even more frustrating is that despite the Prologue and ZDX supporting over-the-air software updates, fixing this multitude of radio module bugs won’t be something owners can do from home while their cars are parked. According to the recall report:
Registered owners of all affected vehicles will be contacted by mail and asked to take their vehicle to an authorized Honda or Acura dealer. The dealer will update the vehicle Radio Control Module with improved software.
What’s especially interesting is that while the Chevrolet Blazer EV hasn’t been recalled for similar issues, the Cadillac Lyriq has. Oh, and that recall for 2023 to 2024 Lyriq displays going blank was announced in May of 2025, taking only three months to roll out after an NHTSA inquiry. However, while the fixes for both the Lyriq and Prologue both pertain to their Virtual Cockpit Units, the part numbers and software version numbers aren’t the same, meaning it’s likely that additional development was required to roll out the fix to the Honda twins.
Still, with Honda largely dissolving plans to collaborate with General Motors on future EVs, this recall does answer the question of future support for these weird stop-gap models. It shall continue for the foreseeable future, but lead times may not be optimal.
Top graphic image: Thomas Hundal
Design issue. Can’t wait for them to make these systems
breakablefixable over-the-air and integrated with the infotainment system so Spotify can crash my car.Not shocked. I have intermittent problems with the screens in my Chevy too. They don’t shut off completely, but the gauges occasionally disappear and the center screen has frozen up a couple of times. It doesn’t happen enough to be a huge problem, but it is super annoying every time.
“…resulting in a system restart or crash and both displays to go blank”.
maybe “…system restart or shut-down…” to resolve ambiguity in this automotive context.
Digital gauge clusters have always seemed like a dumb idea to me, and this is why.
What possessed Honda to want to partner with GM?
Definitely lost some respect for them when I heard they were partnering with GM. GM can make good stuff, but Honda has a much better reputation.
I’m wondering who else would’ve been a good choice when it was decided. The partnership was announced way back in 2020: https://global.honda/en/newsroom/news/2020/c200403eng.html
GM seemed in a good position for EV platforms at the time, so it makes sense since I’m sure the talks happened at least a year earlier. I found a CNET article on all the EVs for sale in 2020, and it’s slim pickins for partners. Hell, the Mach E wasn’t even out yet. https://www.cnet.com/home/electric-vehicles/every-electric-car-ev-range-audi-chevy-tesla/
I’m frustrated that the update can’t be done over the air.
I’ve never had the screen go blank in 18,800+ miles. My wife’s Kia, on the other hand? Where’s her recall? But I believe them. So, I’ll be bringing it in… eventually… and my dealer’s service manager will once again complain that they hate these cars.
(after it gets back from the body shop because a CRV sideswiped it while it was parked in front of my house…the driver panicked when an ambulance was coming the other way and moved over a bit too aggressively, then ran. Caught the plate on my aftermarket dashcam.)
Actually, my experience with the car has been mostly positive and my previous two cars have had more recalls. My dealership still hates them, though.
At work we’re struggling with Google cybersecurity software being packed to the gills with amateur-hour bugs, feature omissions, foundational shortcomings, UI layering/resizing issues, odd downtime, etc.
To their credit they’re responsive and actively developing things to make life with their two/three-products-in-a-trenchcoat better but geez, I can’t imagine the software hell in automotive land if this is what Google puts out.
Remember, folks. Software defined vehicles are the future!
It’s making headaches for techs as well.
Our hybrid buses from 2008 had 50 rungs of ladder logic in their multiplexing system.
Our new EV buses have 1500 rungs of logic in their multiplexing system.
One of these takes a much longer time to track down issues. It took us an hour and a half to figure out why one bus wouldn’t go into EV mode, cause it threw 0 fault codes.
Turns out the system didn’t see the fire suppression system online, so it refused to start (was a loose connector at the control panel, which took a couple hours of wire tracing).
> the fixes for both the Lyriq and Prologue both pertain to their Virtual Cockpit Units
Joey, have you ever been inside a cockpit?
Do you like movies about Gladiators, Joey?
Reason #749,227 why analog gauges are better and manufacturers should just go back to using something that ain’t broke.
I drove a Hyundai with a digital speedometer and it never skipped digits, so under medium acceleration it wouldn’t actually display speed since it had to count up first.
My Tacoma’s mechanical gauge will sometimes get stuck, I reach foward and tap it.
An LCD screen for a gauge cluster feels very cheap to me. It’s cool for a Changli or a golf cart, but I paid for actual gauges.
I mean, they haven’t been truly analog in 30+ years. They’ve been using speed sensors, processed through the ECU to control a motor in the dash. That’s still pretty digital.
I think we’ve just had the infotainment flake out on ours, and I have seen right after starting up that the hvac knob digits and button lights weren’t on, I adjusted the driver knob and they lit up so that was…reassuring. But just a lease, we’ll definitely be passing on the buyout.
This has happened to us in our Prologue. Thankfully only once, but it is harrowing to have both screens eventually just go blank – while on the highway, at night, in winter.
Our Prologue is back at the dealer for another issue – external temp sensor went bad, basically borking the entire HVAC system – and I’m very curious to see how the recall fix is implemented.
this has happened several times on both my Volvo and ID.4. The backup camera has been recalled 2-3 times with another update to ‘fix’ it again. The Volvo is getting a UI refresh in the next week or so which may help (or create more issues). Not sure about the VW.
I feel sorry for any of the Honda faithful who bought this turd thinking they were getting a Honda and didn’t know any better.
Oh, I KNEW what it was. I went to a Chevy dealer first. They didn’t even offer to let me test drive the Blazer and the salesperson acted like he didn’t want to be bothered with it. I sat in it like a kid playing with buttons. My Honda dealer (I bought an actual Honda from them previously) was a whole different experience. They wanted my business.
We test drove a couple of the Chevy versions of this platform. I’m prejudiced, but the interior was sooo tacky. I specifically wanted the Honda version of the Chevy product. It is definitely an aesthetic improvement.
I suspect that anyone who thought this was a full on Honda is in the minority. Our sales guy made a point of telling us that the best selling Chevy Blazer was the Honda Prologue.
As far as reliability goes, I find that Chevy has a positive reputation in the EV market- and the segment is still new enough that hiccups are not uncommon across all makes.
I feel bad for anyone who buys a new vehicle in an emerging market and expects a flawless experience.
More reason to check which manufacturers are on the BBB Auto Line list. This seems like a “please take it back and give me everything I paid already” situation to me.
Where’s the accountability? When does Bosch get sued? When do they get dropped by everyone for future supply contracts?
Working as a service admin – eg booking cars in for services and seeing the diag reports – I hope Stellantis and VAG read this
I still can’t understand why something as critical, as say how fast you are going, is left to a screen like that. I do get that a lot of modern vehicles aren’t setting RPM or Speed by a cable but at least there were gauges so if something was off it might only be one or two things…not the entire dash.
If I were a 2004 Chevy Silverado you’d know I was in good condition because my fuel, temp, battery, and coolant gauges would be making full rotations by now.
Not exactly true. I had a 2004 Yukon XL and at various times while driving every single gauge would quit working at the same time. Sometimes they’d come back on their own, some times you’d need to “reboot” the truck. I believe that they’re also being fed data by some computer. I tried several things to find out where there may be a bad connection, broken wire, etc. but later inadvertently fixed it after I replaced the factory radio. Obviously the radio wasn’t running the gauges but I’m guessing it was communicating to some other module maybe for things like the speed sensitive volume or something and effectively caused the exact same problem as here, or I bumped a wire into the perfect spot where things started working again.
Sounds promising for the Polestar4
The one with no rear window, right?
There’s a screen you definitely don’t want going blank!
I wonder if the June 2024 Honda issue didn’t come in handy for the May 2025 Cadillac similar issue?
We haven’t had the screen go blank, but we have had to replace the front axles twice, and now they think this time it’s the front differential and not the axles…
TBH I only look at my dashboard readouts when I see a cop
Maybe they need to do a… Differential Analysis…
Yeah…