LIKES
- Spacious interior
- Comfortable seats everywhere
- Plenty of cargo space
- Most vans have active safety bundled
- Handsome looks
DISLIKES
- Base vans skip the good stuff
- Conservative compared to others
- Pricey top trims
- No hybrid batteries on offer
BUYING TIP
The 2020 Honda Odyssey has nearly everything we like in a family vehicle, minus the ground-up Cheetos in the back.
Cool after kids is possible. The 2020 Honda Odyssey is more about convenience, and less about capitulation.
This year, the van is standard with a 10-speed automatic in all trims and celebrates its 25th anniversary with some special badges and wheels, if you like.
The basic formula hasn’t changed for more than two decades. The Odyssey still holds big families and their cargo, and shuttles around with ease.
We give it a 6.7 on our overall scale, which is boosted by the van’s comfort.
Like last year, the 2020 Odyssey travels far across the affordability spectrum. The base Odyssey LX costs less than $32,000, but skips automatic emergency braking and a touchscreen. Moving up the line to EX, EX-L, and EX-L with Navigation and RES (rear entertainment system) adds more to the bottom line, but also packs in features that families are looking for. Odyssey Touring and Elite vans double-down as swank corporate shuttles.
Every van is equipped with a 3.5-liter V-6 that makes 280 horsepower and a 10-speed automatic that powers the front wheels only and returns 22 mpg combined on the EPA’s calculators. The ride is sublime.
Tumble down the third row and that room expands to more space than many SUVs: 88.6 cubic feet. Nearly every surface is soft and touchable, but also durable.
If the van unexpectedly hits something hard (aka another car) federal and independent testers agree that it’s safe. Not every van gets automatic emergency braking, which is an oversight in our books, but EX and higher trims get that life-saving feature, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitors, and automatic high beams.
Predictably, our pick is the Odyssey EX that bundles those active safety features with an 8.0-inch touchscreen for infotainment with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility, remote start, active lane control, power sliding rear doors, three-zone climate control, sliding second-row seats, heated front seats, and 18-inch wheels for less than $36,000.
Styling
Don’t worry, the 2020 Odyssey’s looks don’t mean you have to completely abandon “cool” in a van.
Minivans are hardly paragons for style, but the Odyssey changed that.
A few years in, we still have good feelings for the Honda van’s look, which was updated in 2018. We give it a 6 with one point above average for its exterior.
Choose your (family) fighter: The Odyssey shares many styling cues with the Pilot crossover and Ridgeline pickup because they share similar platforms.
The Odyssey made waves several years ago with a hidden sliding door track and a “lightning” kickdown toward the rear of the body that broke up vans’ longtime slab-sidedness. Both appear in the 2020 version, although the kickdown is tamer, and all Odysseys wear sculpted doors that break up the acreage of sheet metal.
Inside, form follows function, but there are a few styling features. Odyssey Elite vans bathe the interior in ambient blue LED lights at night, and the dashboard coalesces toward the middle touchscreen with a wing-shaped dash.
Performance
A standard 10-speed automatic is this year’s news, and every Odyssey is a breeze to drive.
Honda’s addition by subtraction (and addition) is worth considering in the 2020 Odyssey.
This year, the van gets just a single 10-speed automatic transmission across the board. Last year’s 9-speed transmission is left off the sheet, and the Odyssey is better for it.
We give the van a 6 for performance, with one point above average for a calm ride.
The sole engine that powers the Odyssey is a 3.5-liter V-6 that makes 280 horsepower and drives the front wheels only. Even though it’s an engine that Honda’s used for a long time, the Odyssey is just as efficient as its competitors and the power delivery is sorted and smooth. (The Ridgeline pickup uses the same engine, too.)
In prior years, the 10-speed automatic was reserved for top trims, but it’s trickled down into the mainstream lineup. That’s good. The 10-speed fires up smooth shifts without interference and loses the low-speed jostle that the 9-speed once had.
Although minivans are hardly performance vehicles, the Odyssey shuttles around without straining and its harsher qualities are quelled by a thicker windshield and front windows. In 2018, Honda added more sound deadening throughout the cabin for an even quieter ride.
The Odyssey steers well and tracks down the road without much effort. The wheel is light by new-car standards, but it’s mostly what minivan drivers need after long days shuttling around town and running errands.
Comfort & Quality
The 2020 Odyssey is comfortable like a living room, but easier to clean.
With room for up to eight people and their cargo, the Odyssey was always going to be 10 on our scale. Minivans usually are, they’re expert-level family vehicles.
If you’re into details, here’s how we come to the numbers: the front seats are all-day comfortable, and the second row is adult-ready, too. The Odyssey is a makeshift pickup with the second and third rows folded, but even full of rumps the van hauls plenty of cargo thanks to generous interior cubbies. It excels at hauling people and it’s finished with quality materials that also feel durable. It’s perfect, as far as comfortable vehicles go.
Most Odyssey vans will have the automaker’s configurable seating option, which Honda calls Magic Slide. The seats can be moved closer or further apart, depending on need, which opens up the cargo area for long items such as flat-pack furniture or building materials. By removing the 70-pound seats in the second row, Odyssey owners can unlock up to 144.9 cubic feet of cargo room. With just the third row folded, the Odyssey swallows 88.6 cubic feet, and with all three rows in place it still holds about 33 cubes of cargo.
We wouldn’t complain much if we had to ride in the third row either. The third row is easily accessible thanks to that movable second row, and there’s about 38 inches of leg room in the wayback, which is comparable to many mid-size sedans.
Honda uses mostly high-quality materials throughout the Odyssey’s cabin that are soft to touch and durable for toddlers—probably.
Safety
Most families will agree that the 2020 Odyssey is a safe place to be in a crash.
The 2020 Odyssey’s safety score is a head-scratcher.
Federal testers gave the van a five-star overall score for crashworthiness. Independent testers from the IIHS largely agree and named the Honda a Top Safety Pick last year, but an oversight on base vans keeps it from scoring higher on our scale. It’s a 7 for that scorecard alone.
Despite high praise from crash-testers, Honda withholds automatic emergency braking from entry-level vans, which doesn’t make sense. Families need that life-saving feature, even those on a budget.
The Top Safety Pick award applies to Odyssey Touring and Elite models that are equipped with headlights that the IIHS rated as “Acceptable” in its latest round of testing.
Features
The 2020 Odyssey wants for little, and top trims are more lavish than many living rooms.
Most versions of the 2020 Honda Odyssey have the features families need to distract each other long enough for a road trip.
Aside from a standard touchscreen on many versions, rear-seat entertainment, USB charge ports, and flexible seating make hours in the rolling living room, well, livable.
Starting from an average score, the 2020 Odyssey gets points for good base features and good value. It misses a point for a small screen on base versions that we don’t recommend.
The 2020 Odyssey LX costs $31,785, including destination and top Odyssey Elite vans cost more than $48,000. Luckily for families, one step above base is a solid value, with more features families may need.
Odyssey LX models are fairly spartan but have the basics. The 2020 Odyssey LX includes a 5.0-inch screen for infotainment, Bluetooth connectivity, two USB charge ports, 18-inch wheels, and a sliding third row.
We’d skip ahead to the EX, which adds an 8.0-inch touchscreen for infotainment with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility, adaptive cruise control, remote start, seating for eight, active lane control, power sliding rear doors, three-zone climate control, sliding second-row seats, heated front seats, and blind-spot monitors. EX-L and EX-L with Navigation and RES versions add leather seats; leather, navigation and a rear-seat entertainment system, respectively.
Honda Odyssey infotainment
Most Odyssey vans will leave the factory with an 8.0-inch touchscreen that includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone compatibility.
Odyssey EX-L vans with navigation and rear-seat entertainment also offer a in-car PA that uses the van’s Bluetooth microphone to broadcast the driver’s voice into the third row via the speakers. It’s a helpful system that reduces the need to shout toward the backseat that if one more Cheerio gets thrown that we’re more than happy to turn this van around.
Odyssey Touring and Elite vans are equipped with an in-car camera to monitor the food-fight suspects, too. It’s a handy feature that displays a 180-degree view of the cabin, and can zoom, or in low light, can switch to infrared. For most parents with small children, the camera can show whether children in rear-facing car seats are sleeping, which is nice.
The rear-seat entertainment system is helpful, but perhaps already outdated in a world full of iPads. Like those iPads, the rear-seat 10.2-inch screen is internet-connected and can stream PBS Kids and Spotify.
The only downside for owners will be navigating to those in-car cameras and talk-back systems from smartphone software. The functions are only accessible from the Odyssey’s native infotainment screen, which requires drivers—or better still, front-seat passengers—to back out of the map or music apps to use the features.
Fuel Economy
The 2020 Odyssey’s mileage is competitive with other family haulers.
A newly standard 10-speed automatic helps the 2020 Odyssey stay competitive among vans, but it was never far from the mark.
The EPA rates all Odysseys at 19 mpg city, 28 highway, 22 combined. It’s a 4 on our scale.
Among vans, that’s par. The Honda’s 22 mpg combined rating keeps pace with the Chrysler Pacifica at 22 mpg but not its hybrid counterpart, which rates at 27 mpg combined after its electrons are exhausted. The Toyota Sienna manages 22 mpg combined without all-wheel drive, too.
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