American Honda EVP John Mendel reveals the 2016 Civic sedan
For most companies that make and sell products there is often one particular product that is most important to its image and its bottom line. For Apple, it’s the iPhone, at Ford it’s the F-150 pickup. For Honda, that product is the Civic, its top-selling product globally with 800,000 annual sales and also its longest running continuous model after 43 years on the road. At events in Detroit and Los Angeles today, Honda revealed the all-new 10th generation Civic in the four-sedan form that will launch later this fall. The new Civic sedan is the first of several body styles that will arrive on our shores in the next two years including for the first time, a Civic Type-R.
At this initial reveal, American Honda executive vice president John Mendel was light on technical details of the new compact model, but we did get some interesting tidbits. Over the last several generations, Honda has increasingly diverged the design and platform of Civic and other models for different regional markets. Thus the Europeans got three and five-door hatchbacks and wagons while we got only sedans and coupes. Much of the underpinnings were unique as well.
This time around, Honda has followed the direction of other major automakers such as Ford and General Motors and brought everything back onto a common platform. For the first time, the production engineering of the Civic platform took place here in the U.S. led by the Honda R&D team in Marysville, Ohio. There will be a staged roll-out of the 10th-generation Civic in various regions over the next two years starting this fall with the sedan. A few months after that will come a new coupe that looks like the concept we saw last January at the Detroit Auto Show followed by a five-door hatchback, an Si and the Type-R.
After using a monospace design on the last two-generations that gave the car a single continuous curve for its profile, the Civic has taken a new direction. Mendel explained that the benchmark for development and design of this car was the Audi A3. The team wanted give the car a much more upscale appearance inside and out and corresponding performance to go with it. That’s not to say the Civic beats the A3 on all counts, but that was the target.
LED headlamps are standard on the 2016 Honda Civic
The new Civic is about one-inch longer overall, two-inches wider and one-inch lower. The base of the A-pillars has been moved back, creating the impression of a longer hood that looks decidedly more premium and sporting. From the windshield, the fastback greenhouse now sweeps all the way back to the rear fascia. Combined with more pronounced sculpting of the flanks, standard LED headlamps and taillamps and a prominent chrome bar in the grille, the car now has much more character.
Like its other mainstream models, Honda has avoided using any significant quantities of of aluminium or other lightweight materials in the Civic. Instead extensive use of high-strength steels has reduced the body-in-white mass by 68 pounds although the final curb weight is unknown at this point.
Inside, the hip point where occupants sit has been lowered by 20-millimeters, matching the height of the Audi TT. The former double-deck instrument panel has been discarded in favor or a more traditional setup and high-quality soft-touch materials abound. An extra two-inches of wheelbase provides extra room for passengers. Civics will now be available with Honda’s Android-powered seven-inch touchscreen infotainment system that includes support for both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Advanced driver assist systems including lane watch and automatic emergency braking will also be available for the first time.
Power for the Civic comes from two all-new engines, a standard normally aspirated 2.0-liter direct-injected four-cylinder that will be the most powerful standard engine ever in the Civic. The 2.0 will be available with a choice of either six-speed manual or continuously variable transmissions. The optional engine will be an all-new 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder with a different CVT that is optimized for the low-end torque characteristics of the turbo engine. Both CVTs are all new and the engines will be built at Honda’s Anna, Ohio factory. No specs are available yet, but the 2.0-liter should produce around 160-horsepower while the turbo should be competitive with the approximately 180-horsepower output of similar engines from Ford and Hyundai. After poor sales of the hybrid and natural gas editions of the generation, both have been discontinued and likely won’t be back. Mendel projected that highway fuel economy for both of the two gas engines should be several notches above 40 mpg.
We won’t know for sure how well the new Civic drives for a few more weeks but Honda officials seem very confident this time around. When the last Civic arrived as a 2012 model, it came after a development period that started in the depths of the great recession and it’s cost-cutting efforts showed. Honda heard the howls of disdain from the critics and quickly turned around an update barely a year later. Honda doesn’t intend to make the same mistake again.
