Today, I’m in sunny southern California because although some automakers have abandoned sedans, Honda has not, and in 2022, we’ll see an all-new honda civic sedan and, soon, a new honda civic hatchback.
This video will be a little bit shorter than usual because I’ll be able to drive this back home and spend a full week with it, so stay tuned for that video and stay tuned for June 23rd when I’ll be able to tell you what the new Civic hatchback looks like.
As you might expect from an honda sedan, the designers have chosen a very restrained and elegant design.
Nothing out of the ordinary is going on around the Civic.
It looks a lot like the previous generation model and also a little bit like the current accord, but you can see they’ve updated things.
Instead of a huge chrome bar running from one side to the other, there are larger body colored sections than these black grille portions right here this is the top-end two-ring trim so we do have led fog lights below led headlights are standard as is the led turn signal above moving around to the side, I honestly see a little bit of bmw in this design and that’s certainly not a bad thing to be reminded of when we’re talking about an inexpensive sedan the Civic starts at $16,500.
Out back, the restrained and elegant style continues, but we have less leds than we did up front.
The backup lights and turn signals are still incandescent in this tail lamp design.
If you pick the sedan, both engines will be coupled to a continuously variable automatic gearbox.
If you get the two-liter four-cylinder engine, fuel economy will range between 33 and 35 miles per gallon depending on the options you select.
The big difference there is the tire size because the upper level trims definitely get wider tires like the one that I’m driving today.
If you get the 1.5 liter turbo engine, fuel economy actually goes up to 34 to 35 miles per gallon depending on the options you select.
Another feature that is remarkably comparable to a lot of mid-size sedans is the cargo capacity of the new Civic, which is 14.8 cubic feet behind the trunk lid, which is quite close to the 15.1 cubic feet found in the Camry.
If you’re looking for even more cargo space out of your next Civic, stay tuned because the hatch will almost certainly provide us double the cargo capacity that we find in the sedan as we look around the inside, keep in mind that I am in the top end two-ring trim.
Honda has updated the button bank a little bit up here on the ceiling there’s a sunglasses holder right there sliding sun visors for the driver and front passenger a fairly standard sized moon roof right here over the driver and front passengers heads no panoramic moon roof in this vehicle we have height adjustable shoulder belts for the driver and front passenger and two-way height adjustable headrests this model has the available leather upholstery we have perfora leather upholstery we have perfora leather upholstery we have perfora leather upholstery we have per Moving over to the front door panels, we see a new design trend for Honda with soft touch materials like right here in the middle area of the door and the very top section of the door, but this whole trim piece right there around the door handle and that black insert is a hard plastic.
The dashboard design is undoubtedly the most notable difference from previous Honda models available in the United States.
We have this very unique honeycomb strip that extends all the way from one side of the dash to the other, as you can see right over here.
It continues all the way over to the passenger side beneath that infotainment screen and houses the air vents you can see over here.
On the passenger side, we have that little knob to rotate and direct the air vent around, and then that dial right below to open and close the air vent, but the entire section between these two air vents, if I can finally zoom out enough this one right over here and that one right over there, this is all just for show, nothing actually comes out of that portion of the air vent I have to say I love the way this looks, but if I zoom in here you’ll notice if I zoom in It also has wireless capabilities.
Apple Carplay is a fantastic addition.
It has a factory navigation system, and an interesting feature is that if you use Apple Maps for navigation, as I was just showing over here in the carplay, you’ll get turn-by-turn navigation directions in the instrument cluster.
As we move down the dash, we’ll see those honeycomb air vents again, as well as the controls for the optional dual zone automatic climate control.
There are no ventilated seats, just heated seats.
Below that, we have two USB ports, one of which is an input for the system and the other of which is a charge-only connector, which looks a lot like the honda accord.
There’s a qi wireless charging mat, but there’s not quite enough room to stash some of those larger smartphones if they’re connected to a usb cable.
If that was just in the wireless charging mat and you were using wireless carplay, that would probably be fine.
We have a fairly traditional console shifter drive all the way back there park is just forward Back here is a driving mode selection that lets us pick between regular sport and economy mode, as well as an auto start stop deactivate button.
there are two huge cup holders There’s an electronic parking brake and auto brake hold, and there are two distinct instrument clusters depending on the trim level: a 7-inch basic panel and a display that’s just over 10-inches.
One really nice touch is that the navigation instructions coming out right here on the instrument cluster are actually being pulled from apple carplay, so if you prefer to use carplay to navigate, it will pull instructions from there.
There are two basic layouts this is the bar layout, there’s also a more traditional gauge style layout right like that, and then there are variations around that so you can get a round minimal or a bar minimal.
The mazda 3 has great steering feel, a little better than the civic, but the civic has better grip because it has a more elegant suspension design with a fully independent rear suspension rather than the twist beam axle that we find in the mazda3, and this has wider tires, 235 with tires in the upper end trims of the civic, and that’s one of the reasons why the stopping distance in this vehicle is shorter than average for the compact stand segmentmen.
the new double wishbone suspensions used in the acura lineup or prior models of the honda accord, but it’s still quite finely tuned and far more exciting than the ordinary small stand.
This is definitely more fun to drive than a Toyota Corolla and significantly faster, which is something else you’ll notice out on the road in terms of handling ability.
I won’t have an official score until I get this at home, but it’s clear that this is going to be among the best handling of the compact stand group, and if you want to take things to the next level, stay tuned because there will be more powerful versions just not necessarily for the same price.
In terms of fuel economy, I’ve been averaging 28 miles per gallon, which is much below the ep score, but I’ve been doing a lot of city driving.
I’m about to stop at a stop light right now, and this vehicle does have auto brake hold wand.
With everyone else leaving, sales of the Civic have been relatively healthy, including sales of the Civic hatchback, which will be completely redesigned on June 23rd, so be sure to come back for that, but unfortunately the realities of sedan life just cannot be ignored, which is why honda focused on the core values of the Civic, which are fun to drive, well priced, and have a lot of features, but unfortunately the realities of sedan life just cannot be ignored and that’s why honda really focused on the core values of the Come back for a first look at the Honda Civic hatchback, as well as the complete review of the Civic, which will be going up in the coming weeks.
I’ll see you all later.