2022 Honda Civic

Overview
Honda's popular Civic compact car gets a big glow-up for the 2022 model year as it debuts a more grown-up appearance, new features, and a refined cabin design. A selection of four-cylinder engines—including a turbocharged 1.5-liter—are offered; front-wheel drive will continue to be standard as Honda insists all-wheel drive is not part of the plan. Updated tech features such as a larger infotainment display, wireless smartphone connectivity, and improved driver-assistance features are all meaningful updates that will help the Civic stave off competition from the likes of the Hyundai Elantra, the Mazda 3, and the Toyota Corolla.

What's New for 2022?
The Civic is all-new for 2022, with a redesigned body and an updated interior. Like the last generation model, the 2022 Civic will be offered in both sedan and hatchback body styles.
Our recommendation is the well-equipped EX trim on the sedan model, which comes with a lot of additional features that easily justify the increase in price. Those niceties include blind-spot monitoring, a power sunroof, dual-zone automatic climate control, heated exterior mirrors, and heated front seats. It also comes standard with the more powerful 180-hp turbocharged four-cylinder engine. If you're buying the hatchback, we'd direct you to the EX-L, which offers similar equipment and adds leather upholstery.

Engine, Transmission, and Performance
Even though it has redesigned everything else about the new Civic, Honda has decided to carry over the powertrain options from the previous-generation car. Base models come standard with a 158-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder while the upgrade engine continues to be a turbocharged 1.5-liter four-cylinder that now makes 180 horsepower. The new Civic is offered solely with front-wheel-drive car. Sadly, the manual transmission offered on the previous generation Civic sedan has been cut for 2022, leaving a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) as the sole offering; a six-speed manual is still available on the hatchback model. At our test track, our turbocharged Touring sedan needed 7.5 seconds to reach 60 mph, which is slightly slower than the last generation Civic's result. The manual Sport Touring hatchback we tested did slightly better at 7.3 seconds to 60 mph. Luckily, the spry handling, communicative steering, and well-balanced ride that we appreciated so much in the last generation model are present and accounted for here. Sporty Si and high-performance Type-R variants are also in the works and both will offer a manual transmission; we review those models separately.