2023 Honda Civic hybrid (inc. 0-100 & autonomy test) review: The first hot-hatch hybrid?

CarExpert

You guys were a bit shocked at the price of the 'regular' 2023 Honda Civic. But, the new Honda Civic hybrid takes it to the next level with an asking price of over $50k. Is it worth the price tag...Paul Maric finds out! Included in this video is a full detailed review, a 0-100, 80-120, reverse speed test, horn test and an autonomy test!  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Honda content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/honda More Honda Civic content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/honda/civic  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 0:53 Interior 4:01 Infotainment 5:48 Safety Tech 7:38 Practicality 8:24 On the road 11:42 0-100km/h 17:16 Driver Aids 18:30 Verdict 21:24  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #honda #civic #hybrid #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So, Honda in Australia has gone lower volume, more premium, and that's meant that prices have gone that way as well.

00:08 But maybe it's justified, and today we're going to be driving this, which is the hybrid version of the Civic.

00:14 It's called the e-HEV-LX.

00:16 So, a bit of a mouthful. This competes with things like the Mazda 3, the Toyota Corolla, the Kia Cerato.

00:24 But it's a bit unique in the sense that the rest of those brands don't really do much in the way of hybrids outside of Toyota.

00:29 So, it is in a bit of a niche there on its own.

00:31 $55,000 drive away, so it is a fair old chunk of money. Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this car.

00:38 So, if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes on the screen.

00:42 Or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below.

00:44 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon as well,

00:48 so you can find out every single time we review a premium vehicle.

00:52 Now, let's talk exterior design. You have three colors to pick from. It's a very limited range.

00:58 But the good news is they're all free of charge, which makes me very happy. Now, on the design front,

01:04 I mentioned this the last time we reviewed the Civic. I think this is a sensational looking car. I mean, that is my

01:09 own honest opinion. You might have a different opinion, but I think it looks really cool in person.

01:15 It has a lot of presence to it. And out on the road, it really cuts a fine line.

01:18 And I think that's one of the advantages of them only offering, I guess, this in a higher grade trim.

01:23 You're only ever going to see the good looking ones. You don't see the sort of

01:27 white Hertz rental looking ones like the Corolla Crossroad we're reviewing today.

01:32 So, what do you get then? Down the front here, you get black highlights that offset with the body color.

01:38 Blue around the edges here, similar to Toyota, which signifies hybrid.

01:42 Parking sensors are sort of randomly really high up. Normally, they're quite low here, but there must be

01:47 a reason for that. And then air dam down here to keep that engine cool. So, this is a fascinating setup.

01:53 It's kind of similar to the HR-V, where they have an Atkinson cycle internal combustion petrol engine

01:59 that drives an electric motor that drives the vehicle, but then sometimes it can directly drive the wheels as well.

02:04 And I'll run you through that in a bit more detail later on.

02:06 But I'm hoping this is an engaging experience behind the wheel, because the

02:10 standard Civic that we drove was actually pretty fun to drive as well.

02:13 Big chisel there, that sculpted line that wraps around the front. Full LED headlights with auto levelling and auto high beam.

02:20 Fog light down the bottom there as well. Come around to the side with me.

02:24 18-inch alloy wheels, that sort of machined finish on the outside with a sort of dark edge to it.

02:31 And then piano black on the inside there as well.

02:34 I don't know if I'm getting old, but I commented before, getting in and out of this car

02:38 is sort of a little difficult. It's quite low to the ground.

02:41 I don't know, maybe we've been reviewing a whole bunch of SUVs lately, but it sort of has that very hunkered down position.

02:47 So I guess that will help it when it comes to our sportier driving. Decent tyre as well.

02:52 Michelin Pilot Sport 4. This is like a very sporty tyre.

02:56 So we'll see how that goes when we throw it through a couple of bends.

02:59 Up the top here, body colour on the wing mirror with an indicator built into there.

03:03 And then no puddle lamp or 360 camera under there. Get this

03:06 line that runs all the way down the back of the car there as well. Privacy glass, big panoramic

03:12 sunroof there. And then whip around to the back with me. Partial LED taillights.

03:17 So this section is LED. A bit disappointing. There's still incandescent globes in here.

03:22 You know, it's 2022, 2023.

03:24 It'd be nice to see full LED there. E-HEV here for

03:29 signification of this being a hybrid. I like that diffuser down the bottom there as well.

03:34 It kind of conceals the exhaust as well.

03:35 You don't see that. Honda logo there with that blue element as well. And then Civic off to the side.

03:40 I was quite surprised to see this. When I put this in reverse last night, it was raining and stuff.

03:45 It started wiping and normally with hatchbacks, they don't have a wiper on the back.

03:49 So it's interesting to see that's included. Shark fin aerial up the top there as well.

03:53 So let me know what you reckon about the design. Do you think this looks good?

03:56 I reckon it is a very smart looking car. Let me know what you think down in the comments section below.

04:00 So we're inside the Civic. We will start off with the key. Here it is. You've got

04:06 lock, unlock. Then on the back, you've got the Honda logo.

04:10 It's a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in your pocket.

04:13 Once you're inside, you have a push button start over here that glows and pulses as well, which is kind of cool.

04:18 Now, have a look at this interior.

04:20 You know, when you look at the asking price of this car,

04:23 it is expensive. It is premium.

04:25 It kind of really matches up with some of the more premium German brands as well in terms of what

04:30 you're sort of putting it up against. But in saying that, I think if you remove the Honda badge

04:36 that people may not yet perceive as being premium, this actually looks really nice.

04:41 I love the way that they've put this mesh material here along the dash. Don't love all the piano black along here,

04:47 but outside of that, it is actually a really nicely presented interior with nice soft touch surfaces.

04:53 Just an air of quality to it as well.

04:57 So from that point of view, I think the price can be justified if you have a look at what you're being offered here.

05:02 Then the infotainment screen and the big screen there ahead of the driver as well. In terms of your touch points,

05:07 all that stuff is nice and soft to the touch and that sort of continues down this side of the

05:12 dashboard as well. Over on this side where you're going to be resting your elbow, that is really nice and soft.

05:18 And so is the door as well. How soft are those surfaces? We've got our durometer.

05:22 We've tested all the main surfaces in this cabin.

05:25 If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description below.

05:29 Now, build quality.

05:32 A little bit wonky there in the center.

05:36 Yeah, that is sort of not great, I don't think, but

05:39 the rest of this feels okay. And our door test.

05:42 Sounds very nice and solid.

05:47 Righto, let's talk infotainment. So nine inch display here central to the cabin.

05:52 It is a touchscreen with some shortcut buttons there as well.

05:55 Ahead of the driver, you also have a full digital display as well that I'll run you through separately in just a moment.

06:00 In here, you have inbuilt satellite navigation that all seems to work pretty nicely.

06:05 It's also the first Honda to have a remote connection to the car through your phone.

06:09 So you're able to pair the app with the car and it has an embedded sim to allow you to communicate with the car, check

06:13 on status, preheat, that kind of thing.

06:15 So, really cool feature and good to see that they are rolling that out to their vehicles at the moment. In terms of other functions,

06:21 you have AM, FM and DAB plus digital radio. 12 speaker Bose branded sound system. Really good sound system as well.

06:28 Quite impressed with that. In addition to that, you also have over-the-air updates for the infotainment system.

06:35 Smartphone mirroring comes in the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Apple CarPlay is wireless. This is what that looks like.

06:42 Big integration there. Really nice and high resolution too.

06:46 Very cool setup. And I think the screen actually has a film on it to stop fingerprints as well,

06:52 which is cool because sometimes with these screens, they have so many fingerprints on them

06:55 that you can't even see what's going on. I'll show you what Android Auto looks like. So again, full screen integration.

07:02 Nice and quick and snappy there as well. Let's have a little sticky beak here at the screen ahead of the driver.

07:07 So, pretty straightforward setup. On the left-hand side,

07:09 you have a power gauge instead of an RPM gauge. And on the right, you have

07:13 your speedometer. And then off to the sides there, you have battery status and also fuel levels as well.

07:19 So, nice setup. All pretty straightforward.

07:21 And I love the fact that this all animates when you're doing things. So, when you put the indicator on,

07:26 animates on the car. And later on, when we test the lane support systems,

07:30 you'll actually be able to see that it will paint all the lines and other vehicles around it as well.

07:34 So, really cool setup and it feels very high-tech and advanced. Moving on to safety tech,

07:39 you've got autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection. You have a lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant.

07:45 You've got a semi-autonomous steering function with that radar cruise control too,

07:48 which we will test a little bit later on. Blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror. Rear cross traffic alert.

07:54 You get both front and rear parking sensors and a reverse view camera. I'll show you what that looks like.

08:00 I'm just going to pop the car on.

08:02 So, there it is there. Yeah, look, the quality is not too bad.

08:06 You can select a number of different angles there too. So, I can clearly see what's on the suitcase there.

08:10 But you can see it's a bit washed out around those top edges.

08:13 But that's fine. It sort of does the job there with the sonar as well. Now, our horn test. Back into park. Here we go.

08:20 Sounds good.

08:24 Now, practicality. We'll start off with your connectivity. You have two USB-A ports down the front here. A 12-volt outlet.

08:31 You've got a wireless phone charging pad down the bottom here.

08:34 Your phone can live on that or in the cup holders. There are sort of a few different spots you can put it. Coffee cup.

08:40 And that fits in there nicely. You've got teeth to hold the bottle/coffee cup in as well.

08:48 The bottle fits nicely in there too. Try it in the side of the door as well. Yep, fits good. Big bottle.

08:55 No, not really. You've got to kind of wedge it in. It doesn't really fit in there.

09:02 Other storage. You have a big old center console here with a coin tray as well.

09:09 You have a generously sized glove box that is mainly taken up by the manual there.

09:16 And finally up the top here, you have a sunglasses holder. Moving on to comfort.

09:21 You have dual zone automatic climate control up the front here. I actually quite like these

09:25 selectors.

09:28 So they have a little click to them and they're knurled as well.

09:30 Heated seats for the front row.

09:32 You also have a heated steering wheel. Both the driver and front passenger seat offer electric adjustments.

09:37 You can go backwards/forwards. Backrest can go forwards/backwards.

09:42 Front of the seat can go up. Back of the seat can go up. And then you have electric lumbar adjustment as well.

09:47 Seats are really comfy too. I've spent a fair bit of time in the car now and

09:50 really quite like them. They hug you in nicely.

09:53 Perforations there to keep you nice and cool as well.

09:55 So it's a pretty comfortable seating position. And on the steering front, it offers both tilt and reach adjustment.

10:02 Wow, reach test. All of this stuff is easy to reach. Well done driving.

10:05 Okay, second row of the Civic. It's actually pretty spacious back here. So knee room's good.

10:11 Toe room's a little bit cramped there. I'm sort of having to wedge my toes underneath that seat.

10:16 Headroom is pretty compromised as well.

10:19 But outside of that, it sort of does feel like a spacious area. Back pockets in the back of the seats.

10:24 You have air vents. Two USB-A ports. Would have been nice to see USB-C here, just sort of given

10:29 that's where we're moving to. It's a brand new model. So anyway,

10:33 center armrest here with two cup holders. So you can pop your bottle in there.

10:38 It doesn't really sort of sit there. It just falls out. It's quite shallow.

10:41 But you do have bottle holders inside the doors as well, which is good.

10:46 Seating for the kids. You have ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats and three top tether points as well.

10:52 And our window test. So it's auto up and down.

10:55 Oh, so close.

10:58 Okay, cargo space. Let's have a little look under here.

11:03 Crack that open.

11:06 It's actually not a bad space. So I like this cargo blind as well. So

11:10 move that out of the way, which is pretty clever. Beneath the cargo floor,

11:14 you have a little bit of space in there, but it is just over 400 litres.

11:17 If you ignore that bit. And then our bags. Let's see how well that fits in there.

11:23 Yeah, nice. Very impressive. You can expand the space a little bit as well if you want

11:30 by, oh, also 12 volts outlet over there, by dropping the second row seat.

11:36 Flick that out of the way. Once you do that, it expands the space to just under 1200 litres.

11:41 So we have just hit the road in the Civic E-HEV.

11:48 I think it's a strange name, but anyway, that is what we're driving.

11:54 Now, let me run you through how this works, because it's actually quite a clever system.

11:59 And I'm keen to see now whether it works in practice or not. So under the bonnet,

12:03 you have a two litre naturally aspirated petrol engine, and that uses an Atkinson cycle.

12:09 It produces 105 kilowatts of power and 186 newton metres of torque. So it's

12:14 kind of barely anything in the grand scheme of things, but it does make to two electric motors.

12:19 One of them is specifically a generator, and that's basically used to charge the battery system.

12:24 The battery system is only small, it's around a kilowatt hour in size.

12:27 There is then a secondary electric motor that is used to drive the front axle.

12:31 Combined, all of that puts out 135 kilowatts of power and over 300 newton metres of torque.

12:39 It's all pushed through a continuously variable transmission that's electronically controlled.

12:44 And the interesting thing with the way this setup works is most of the time,

12:47 it's actually the electric motor that's running the vehicle. So you don't always

12:52 see a direct correlation between the internal combustion engine making noise and you pushing

12:56 the throttle down. And when the battery is charged, you can see here it's been discharged

13:00 now after a couple of faster laps. It can actually run at higher speeds just on EV alone.

13:05 So now it's switched back on, so at 50 k's an hour I can lean onto the throttle.

13:08 You can see there it stays in its EV mode where it's just

13:12 powering the car and pushing the car along using the battery and the electric motor.

13:16 At higher speeds though, where it's actually more efficient to just directly connect the

13:20 internal combustion engine to the wheels, it has a clutch pack that allows it to directly

13:24 drive the wheels instead of the electric motor. And this engine has something like a 41%

13:29 thermal efficiency, which in the internal combustion world is actually really good.

13:32 So in those instances, it will directly drive the wheels. So pretty cool setup and just something

13:37 a little bit different there in terms of the way hybrids work.

13:40 Now what does all that feel like behind the wheel? Well,

13:42 everything's pretty instantaneous and you can see there I go almost to full throttle.

13:48 And it's only when I really get stuck into the throttle that you do actually hear the

13:52 internal combustion engine. Outside of that, it's a pretty quiet experience in here.

13:56 And like I mentioned before, you're not always hearing the engine when you're pushing the

13:59 throttle. You have paddle shifters here, they are to adjust your regen modes.

14:03 You go all the way through to full regen there if you need to.

14:06 Now what does all that mean importantly in terms of fuel economy? I know I've just bored

14:09 you with all this engineering speak, but in terms of fuel economy, it consumes officially

14:13 just over four litres per 100 Ks, which makes it comparable to a Corolla. Corolla is more

14:19 efficient, but it's sort of close in that regard. We're currently sitting on six litres per 100 Ks.

14:25 Now, a couple of caveats here. On the way here in the morning, I was averaging 4.3 litres per 100

14:30 Ks, which is quite good. When we got here, I started doing a couple of faster laps here for

14:36 our photography and stuff, and that's pushed that number up. That's still a pretty impressive

14:40 figure there at around six litres per 100 Ks. What about the ride? Ride is interesting. It's

14:47 really quite comfortable, but on the firmer side, so you feel that sportiness to it, which I don't

14:52 dislike. But let's see how that performs on our sine waves here. I'll increase the pace to 130

14:58 Ks an hour, which is maximum speed limit in Australia, and we'll see how it performs on our

15:03 undulations. So there it is there. It doesn't feel too bad. Look, it's got a little bit of hang time

15:11 there. It doesn't have quite the best body control as those oscillations start going, but it is

15:17 actually pretty good. It's very well composed, and that type of suspension setup should mean that it

15:22 is pretty sporty when we do actually go for a bit of a fang. Okay, let's talk drive mode. So you've

15:30 got a little selector here. You've got individual, sport, normal, and economy. Let's pop it up to

15:36 sport. Let's see what this feels like. It's starting to make a whole lot more noise there

15:40 when I get stuck into it. Here's our first corner. It's a jack of traction. That is impressive.

15:50 Holy moly, those tyres are sensational. So the tyres are really

15:54 giving this the ability to just stay really nicely connected to the road.

16:00 Now I'm through this corner up the back here. So the back section of our track here is actually a

16:06 faster flowing section, and it is holding on so nicely. That is the big difference with some of

16:13 these cars. You have to have a tyre that complements the chassis, and you can kind of see where they've

16:18 got the bones of the Type R from. If this is impressive as a hybrid, you can imagine what

16:23 the Type R is going to be like when we have a crack in that. Yeah, I think these tyres are

16:32 sensational. So you do give up a little bit there in terms of road noise, but it all comes back

16:38 with traction and grip. That is awesome. So I'm going to punch the throttle here on the back

16:44 corner. Let's see what this feels like. It's getting along really nicely. Yeah, very good.

16:53 Very impressed with that. That is awesome. I was not expecting that, especially from the hybrid.

16:57 You would think the hybrid is going to be the most boring of the lot, but it's actually really

17:02 engaging and fun to drive. Steering feels great, brake pedal's good, the regen modes are really

17:07 good as well. It's giving me enough deep dive there into the regen to make it useful. So

17:12 yeah, really impressed with the way this handles.

17:14 Okay, let's torque zero to 100. Honda claims a time of just under eight seconds.

17:21 We've got our measurement device hooked up. I'm going to go all the way to 120 as well,

17:26 just to see what that feels like. I'll also turn traction control off. Got it in sport mode.

17:32 Here we go. The wheels slip off the line. Moving along the right here. So there's 100.

17:41 It's 120. That is hauling. Okay. Wow. That is awesome. So zero to 100 in 7.3 seconds.

17:53 That is way quicker than the claim. That's really cool. So, and 80 to 120 in 5.1 seconds as well.

18:00 So it does show you that this is actually a functional hybrid in that sense. You are getting

18:04 real good poke there and it's good for overtaking too. So really impressed with that.

18:10 Okay. The all important reverse acceleration test. Let's see how it goes. Got it in sport mode.

18:19 Torque there, which is good. Not bad. 54 kilometres an hour.

18:27 Okay. Time to test the safety systems. We'll get this up to 70 kilometres an hour

18:32 and we will flick on our lane support set up. So there it is. Just there. So the way this works,

18:41 we're going to use the three outer lanes of the bowl here to see how well our autonomous

18:46 steering function works. Whole concept is the steeper it goes, the more torque that needs to

18:50 be applied to the steering. And it's a test of whether that's going to be the case. So

18:54 the more torque that needs to be applied to the steering and it's a test of whether the car is

18:58 capable of doing that. And typically what we see is that cars that do well here in the outer lane

19:03 do well in real world conditions as well when there is a tighter turn. So I'll flick that on

19:07 by pushing that. You can see here it's displayed the lanes. I can also see that that system is

19:13 active. So this is the easiest lane. Just shows a small turn on a freeway. It's working quite

19:19 well. So I'll just keep that in the centre. All right, jump over to the next lane.

19:23 Okay, this is a little bit harder because it's signifying a sharper turn. See how well that

19:31 keeps us in the centre. It is drifting towards that left line just there. I'll see if that's

19:39 keen on actually staying in the centre. Yeah, it just constantly drifts towards the left line

19:48 and I would be a little concerned about being too close to a vehicle next to me. So let's see

19:54 what it's like up here on the biggest lane that we have. See if it actually activates. Okay,

20:01 so it's on. I'm just going to gradually let go of the wheel and see if it holds.

20:04 No, it doesn't love that. It's now over the line there. But it is actually holding it.

20:12 So it is holding it, but it's just not applying enough steering torque to keep us in there. So

20:17 yeah, look, no, it is holding. There you go. Okay, it is holding, but it's just straddling

20:22 the line, which in real world scenario, I probably wouldn't be a huge fan of. So yeah, look, it's

20:27 good, but it probably just needs a little bit more work in terms of being confident where it's

20:31 sitting within its lane. Now, what's it all like in terms of road noise? I'll pick up the speed a

20:39 little bit here to 80 k's an hour on our country road. It's not amazing. I would have thought that,

20:45 you know, especially where they're trying to position this in terms of price, a lot of the

20:48 German cars in this price bracket are actually quite quiet at highway speeds. This is still

20:53 letting a lot of tyre noise in. I think it's partially due to those Michelin Pilot Sport

20:56 tyres. So it can get a little bit boomy in here, especially when you do pick up the speed on a

21:01 Corset Ship country road. Let's talk visibility. So I can see clearly down the front of the bonnet

21:05 there. Wing mirrors could be a little bit bigger, but they're fine for the most part. You've got

21:10 the blind spot monitors built into those as well. Visibility out the back is pretty poor. It's a

21:14 very narrow envelope, so it is a little tricky to see out the back, especially if you have passengers

21:18 and headrests up. So the Honda Civic Hybrid, what do we think? Look, to be honest, the only thing I

21:31 can fault the car on is the price. Everything else is really impressive. It drives so well for

21:37 a hybrid. You know, a hybrid, you think to yourself, it needs to be efficient, it needs to be

21:41 boring and not that interesting, but this is actually really good fun to drive, and you can

21:45 see they've dialled that sportiness into it. It's got enough room inside, it's got all the latest

21:50 technology, and it's pretty efficient as well for what it is. But yeah, ultimately it's just

21:54 let down by the price. At that price, it's more than like a top-spec Camry Hybrid, and it's a much

21:58 bigger car in comparison. So look, if you do buy one and you're happy with the price, you're getting

22:04 yourself a really good car. But if you, I guess, are still shopping around, there are a lot of

22:08 other options out there at that price point, so it is just worth keeping that in mind before you do

22:11 commit to it. Now, let me know in the comments section below, have you bought one? What's it

22:16 like to live with, and what's Honda like to deal with? Let me know in the comments section below.

22:20 If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel, press the bell icon, and if you did enjoy

22:24 this video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates. But until next time,

22:28 take it easy.

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