As a hybrid it doesn't work quite how you might expect it to work
and what I mean by that is welcome to technical I am Oliver this is the new 11th generation honda
civic now I'm going to ask you a question which hopefully will know the answer to by the end of
this video is this the best hatchback car that you can get on the market right now does it lead the
market in its technology in its performance maybe in its economy or does it not hold that thought
and let's find out at the end of this video the Honda Civic has been around for 50 years and
this is the 11th generation of the car over 27 and a half million cars have been sold since it
launched over 50 years ago and this car has been designed differently from the previous generation
you can see my review of the previous generation honda civic Type R on the channel but this car has
some differences namely it's slightly longer 35 millimeters longer but it's lower and it's also
lighter than the previous version Honda have done a lot with the stiffening of the suspension of
the chassis and also with reducing weight at the back the rear tailgate is about 20 lighter than
the previous version so overall this car should be better handling but also it's got fantastic
Tech under here where the engine is there's some really clever technology which gives class leading
economy and also mind-boggling driving to see when we get to that in a little bit at the front of the
Civic there are obviously further changes every car gets the LED lights which is great to see
and we've got an all-new front design here with a Grille on this a sport version it's got a matte
black design although it does look a bit plasticky I'm not going to lie but it has a definite
presence on the road when you are driving from the side of the new Civic you can see that the
highest point of the roof line is actually lower and further forward than the previous generation
Civic with a gentle slope to the back here over this hatchback which is like I said lighter than
the previous generation by quite a bit this gives a really sporty look to the rear design at the
back of the 11th generation Civic not only is this boot lid 20 lighter made out of red within
that it's also lower than the previous generation which means it has a more sporty look and you can
see these new design rear tailgate lights which are very nice looking at and the little blue light
which indicates that is a hybrid around the Honda Logo and what about space back here well we've got
410 liters of storage space here in the back which is more than any of its competitors in the car
market no one has as much space as this car we've got tether points we've got hooks and we've got a
handle here that we can cover up the view of the back when the hatch is down so lots of space back
here as far as access to the back goes we've got quite a high load lip but it's a wide opening and
so I don't think you can have much trouble getting anything back into this car so a lot of space cost
leaning that's impressive all done Honda one of the things I'm not sure about here is a design at
the back yes this heart is not pretending to have exhaust cutouts because well you can see there
aren't any but it's still got that shape deep here and it's still got kind of like a fake diffuser
on quick viewing it looks alright if you look a bit closer you do wonder why they did that but
you know not the worst bakery at the back of a car that I've seen and I think maybe because this car
is so good all round we can give Honda a pass on that now is the time to talk about the powertrain
of this car now Honda has done something very very interesting with this car there's only one
type powertrain available in the UK and this is only available as a hybrid now what makes
that very unique is the fact that as a hybrid it doesn't work quite how you might expect it to work
and what I mean by that is the engine is providing electricity
to the electric motors so this car is essentially being driven like an electric car because the
wheels are being driven directly by the electric motors now if you go much faster then it will
actually disengage and the engine will power the wheels directly but in normal driving in normal
scenarios this car sounds like an electric car if you can hear anything of course because it's
very very well insulated and hundred has done a lot of work with that to reduce noise inside
the car and that makes this a very very unique engine now this engine actual engine is a two
liter engine and Honda Accord this system the intelligent multi-mode drive system sounds like
a level out of a Nintendo game coming from Japan what that means is engine is very very efficient
we're talking over 50 miles per gallon combined maybe more in the town and on top of that we're
saving us the cost of fuel we know how expensive petrol is this car is designed with efficiency in
mind obviously Honda are taking a very different approach on the new 2023 Civic Type R but on the
UK version of the Civic this is a really clever and unique design which no one has used before
now on my Honda HRV video I talk a bit about that car and that car had a previous generation of this
system which worked very similarly and which I was very surprised about but this is an even
better version in terms of power and torque this puts out 135 kilowatts around 130 horsepower and
350 newton meters of torque which is a lot of torque I might add for a car like this this new
engine has over 41 thermal efficiency which is class leading so it's a fantastic bit of design
that Honda had done and very 21st century thinking and I think Honda really deserve credit for doing
this because this is a totally different system to how you would have it on any other kind of
hybrid and it's very very impressive by the way 0 to 60 in 7.8 seconds but it's probably faster
than that based on my experiences okay right let's have a look at the interior now here in the front
of the new Civic you can see that there is a lot of differences to the previous generation a
lot of differences I felt the previous generation Civic was a bit cluttered and a bit old-fashioned
inside the this air vent diffusion system which is hidden behind which I really really like the
look of is fantastic this is similar to the in the Honda HRV and it just has a very stylish
look the vents are behind this Grille so it looks sophisticated we've got actual climate controls
which is really really good in fact if you start the car here you'll see they pop up with the exact
temperature on here and it's just very very easy to use we've got a sync button Auto so I like that
very good we have wireless charging which comes on the sport trim and above and like all Hunters
it's got a little button you can press to turn the wireless charging on and off which I also think is
very cool we've got our 12 volt here we've got two USBS these old style USB type A's which is
a bit unusual all new cars come with at least one USB type-c most just come with type c USB so this
means in about four years time when this car is due to be replaced you're going to need lots of
adapters for this probably which isn't great but that's a minor thing in a sense here we've got
two nice big cup holders I really like this gear selector system where you have physical buttons
for drive neutral reverse and park I think it's a lot better than those little fiddly gear stalks
which are in Audis and vws even in my own Audi I think this looks much better having buttons is
much cooler it's more lamborghini-esque right they have buttons we've got our drive mode selector on
here we've got our Park button our break Button as well so that's good the steering wheel very
nice very round design we've got the buttons for our cruise control and our media and then what's
interesting is the digital drivers display or should I say the half digital driver display
if you buy the advanced model then you get a full 10.2 inch digital driver's display but if
you're on any other trim including this is Sport trim you get a half analog half digital display
I don't really understand the point of that it looks fine and you probably won't even really
notice it still it's a bit unusual these seats are very comfortable these are manual on the sport
version but on the advanced they're also available as electric and overall it's a nice interior here
on the infotainment system we've got a nine inch display which is very clear and easy to see this
is fairly responsive it's a big improvement over the previous generation infotainment systems we
can go into our navigation and it will load I would probably choose Android auto Apple
carplay over this but we've got these buttons at the bottom which let you go between various modes
shortcuts which is great we can change the display mode the brightness we've got physical buttons on
the side home back and our audio control and also our Skip and back audio buttons we've got our
power flow button which shows our range and shows when the engine and the motors are working and we
can see our efficiency and MPGs here I would use Android auto and Apple carplay and I think that's
the best way to go with any new car but it's a big improvement over the previous generation and it's
very easy to see how it works overall this is a very nice interior as I mentioned in the back
if you get the advanced you get a panoramic glass sunroof which will bring a lot more light and make
it a lot more Airy in here but this is a nice interior this is much better than the previous
generation and it's very very spacious and in all honesty it just completes the all-round vibe
of this car which is this is a fantastic car and perhaps the best in the hatchback market right now
in the back of the Civic there's a lot of space I'm really impressed with mouse space we've got
tons of space a good two or three inches in front of my knees I'm 178 we've got a good two or three
inches above my head this is a driving position as well these seats are comfortable we've got big
open Windows although they are tinted at the back here and we do also have an armrest with two cup
holders but no pass through somewhat strangely there's nowhere to store your stuff behind the
driver's seat but there is a little pull out air area behind the passenger seat I don't know why
that is a bit weird but there is any space there on the advanced trim we do have a panoramic glass
sunroof which would bring a lot more light into the back of this car but in terms of space this is
very very good we do have two USB type A's back here and climate control and the door bins are
enough to fit a small to medium bottle of water in if you want to do that overall very very spacious
at the back here impressive by a Honda in the new Civic you immediately greeted by a much more
Dynamic more sporty feeling ride than a previous generation it's hard to really appreciate how much
of a difference these cars do feel to drive this car is a much lighter car the Bonnet is 43 lighter
the real tailgate is 20 lighter and the car is 19 more rigid as well plus we also have a more
efficient steering system and a much much much more efficient engine which we're going to talk
about in a a second this car is really quite astounding in what it's like to drive and the
differences between it and the previous generation but before we talk about the special system which
Powers this car let's talk a bit about different modes so if I put this into our eco mode here
in eco mode it drives like any other car we've got a cool little animation by the way out here in Eco
every car feels a bit hesitant a bit slow and that is designed to give you the best efficiency
that you can get and that's understandable if we change it into normal and by the way I do like
these little switches to change the mode down here immediately it feels a lot more like it has it
feels like it's ready to go it feels like it's got something going on you can feel it just feels more
Dynamic more sporty but not too hard not too rigid just about right if we then stick it into sport
mode immediately wow you can feel it just kind of take off to be fair to say and then you know
going around corners like this corner here it just feels very flat you can feel the extra rigidity
which has come through the improvements that Honda have made to the body of this car it's just a lot
lot more sporty and it's driving Dynamic now let's talk about the black magic that is the powertrain
on this car so we've got two electric motors which basically power the wheels like an electric car
that's right the two liter engine is not actually powering the wheels unless you're going really
fast it's actually powering the motors and this car will go from EV mode to hybrid mode to engine
mode which basically means that in EV mode the 1.05 kilowatt hour battery is providing enough
battery and power for the motors to run without using the engine and then when it goes out of
EV mode into hybrid mode it's then using this is a mode we should be in most of the time is then
using the engine to power the motors so the engine is providing electricity for those Motors and then
when we go much faster it decouples the motors and it just uses the engine as a traditional engine
but there is no traditional gearbox so if I start accelerating now the car or sound like is changing
up I can hear it and it sounds like the gear is changing and I can definitely feel it moving but
it's not because the gearbox doesn't work like a traditional gearbox the paddles on this steering
wheel are not changing gears they're adjusting the regen braking so when you're driving along
it's putting the energy back into the battery so you've got more range when you're in electric mode
and just to be clear you can't choose electric mode by itself this car will automatically choose
between the modes by itself but what that means is it has fantastic efficiency we're talking around
50 miles per gallon in normal combined thriving this car right now is telling me I've got a
range of around 317 miles and over 59 miles per gallon right now that's insane 59 miles per gallon
wow wow wow wow Honda's tagline is the power of dreams and somebody dreamed up this amazing car
with this amazing technology and this may well be the best car that you can get right now in
this segment of cars how about price well this car aspect is around 31 000 pounds it goes up
to about 33 000 for the advance and it starts around 29 000. I've been considering everything
you get it's a really really good value and it's a fantastic car to have so what is my verdict on
this a new 2022-23 Honda Civic well this car is very very surprising it has really good economy it
drives in a way which boggles the mind being that it's mostly running on electric motors powering
the wheel instead of the engine even though it has an engine which is totally different with any kind
of hybrid they are really comfortable interior it feels sporty to drive even though it's not a sport
car because it's stiffer inside there's loads of Technology we've got the cool dashboard design
with the diffusion technology and we've got a ton of space in the back of this car this may well be
one of the best cars of the year the 100 made and arguably the best hatch fact that you can
get on the market right now so why is my taking the car score for this the 11th generation honda
civic well it's great value starting at 29 000 pounds up to 33 000 for the advanced version I
think this is a really really good value car it's got fantastic handling and performance
driver assistance got all the latest technology parking it's got by standard a reversing camera
which lots of cars don't even have unless you option them in fact some cars are even coming
without the option for reversing camera so that's very very good as well all round this is a really
really good car and I would certainly recommend it if you're looking for a stylish sporty hatchback
and maybe if you're not thinking about Honda Now's the Time you should do hope you found this
video enjoyable and interesting please do give me a like I have videos on the Honda HRV 2022
Civic Type R and loads more videos on hybrids and electric cars on this channel thank you very much