Honda has a long and proud tradition of thoughtful little touches that are also a bit whimsical. Remember the cargo floor in the first-generation CR-V that turned into a picnic table? The HondaVac, long a staple of the company’s Odyssey minivan, sucked up an unquantifiable number of spilled Cheerios and tracked-in mud during kid-schlepping duties, is just that sort of feature—and it is no longer. The connection to a problem with the HondaVac’s supplier, Shop-Vac Corporation, was first spotted by The Drive.
We reached out to Honda for details and they confirmed that a supplier issue is the reason for the discontinuation. Here’s what a representative told us: “The timing of model year introductions varies from model to model for a number of reasons, some of which are out of our control. We pulled forward the introduction the model year 2022 Odyssey primarily due to the discontinuation of the HondaVac feature in the Odyssey Elite at the conclusion of the 2021 model year based on a supplier issue. “
The Drive also learned that Honda isn’t quitting on the HondaVac idea altogether, but hasn’t yet settled on a new supplier. The search is ongoing—just like, surely, an Odyssey owner with children is desperately searching for a dropped toy that just rolled under the seat, with a wailing toddler’s five-alarm fit adding to the chaos. In the meantime, you can still find a built-in vacuum in the Honda’s key competitor, the Chrysler Pacifica; that van’s Stow ‘n Vac option is supplied by Rigid.
