Refreshed Honda Odyssey to Offer In-Vehicle Vacuum

In the competitive landscape of minivans, Honda claims an industry-first achievement with a hard-wired central vacuum cleaner in the refreshed ’14 Odyssey.

Honda debuts the Odyssey tonight in Manhattan, ahead of the media opening of the 2013 New York International Auto Show.

The HondaVAC, as it’s being called, is standard in the Touring Elite grade of the minivan, which is the New York show vehicle.

The vacuum’s power is drawn from the minivan’s 3.5L V-6 and will run for 8 minutes after the Odyssey’s engine is turned off, the auto maker says.

The HondaVAC was developed in conjunction with Shop-Vac and comes with nozzle accessories stored in the driver’s-side bulkhead rear cargo area. It has an integrated hose, replaceable filter and canister bag.

Also for ’14, Honda has updated the Odyssey’s safety features by increasing the field of vision of the driver’s-side mirror and adding forward-collision and lane-departure warning.

Honda has beefed up the minivan’s structure, with the goal of earning the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Top Safety Pick+ rating.

Honda calls the Odyssey’s design “sleeker” for ’14, with a deeply sculpted aluminum hood and “bolder” twin-bar grille.

Other new design features include light-emitting diode taillight bars and, in the interior, a new-look center stack.

Now standard on Touring Elite grades is keyless entry with push-button start, SMS text messaging function, and the HondaLink cloud-based telematics service.

The Odyssey continues to be assembled at Honda’s Lincoln, AL, plant.

Although it had been the best-selling nameplate in the minivan segment in recent years, 2012 Odyssey sales, while up 17.5% to 125,980 units, fell shy of the 141,468 Dodge Caravans sold, WardsAuto data shows.

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