2022 Honda Civic Debuts New Outside Look With Gobs Of Tech Underneath

The 2022 Honda Civic Sedan moves the venerable model into its 11th generation. The company says the design philosophy for the new model is "Man-Maximum, Machine-Minimum" that puts a focus on functionality and simplicity.

Honda uses the design concepts from earlier Civics to influence the look of the new one. The overall shape is more angular than the previous-gen model. The wheelbase is 1.4 inches longer, and the overall length is up 1.3 inches. The windshield pillars are more rearward to accentuate the length at the front. The low beltline creates a large greenhouse. The Civic is available in eight colors, three of which are new: Meteorite Gray Metallic, Sonic Gray Pearl, and Morning Mist Blue Metallic.

The designers get far more adventurous when styling the interior. The most striking aspect is the honeycomb mesh that runs the width of the dashboard. It incorporates the air vents to create a clean, unified look.

The LX, Sport, and EX models get a 7.0-inch instrument display with a digital speedometer and tachometer on the left and a separate physical speedometer on the right. These grades also have a 7.0-inch infotainment display on top of the dashboard.

The Touring gets an all-digital instrument cluster with a 10.2-inch display and can show the info with traditional dials or bar graphs. There's a 9.0-inch infotainment screen, which is the largest ever in any Honda-brand vehicle. This range-topping grade comes with a 12-speaker Bose stereo, too.

The LX and Sport grades of the 2022 Civic get the existing naturally aspirated 2.0-liter four-cylinder that still makes 158 horsepower (118 kilowatts) and 138 pound-feet (187 Newton-meters) of torque. A CVT sends the power to the front wheels.

The EX and Touring get a 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder 180 hp (134 kW) and 177 lb-ft (240 Nm), which is 6 hp (4.5 kW) and 15 lb-ft (20 Nm) more than in the application in the previous-gen Civic. The tweaks include revised turbo plumbing and VTEC for the exhaust valves. A CVT is the only gearbox option.

A new Civic Si arrives later.

Honda already has estimates for the 2022 Civic's fuel economy:

The 2022 Civic has an upgraded Honda Sensing safety suite that has a single camera and eight sonar sensors. The tech now includes traffic jam assist, low-speed braking control, and front and rear false-start prevention. The improvements include more natural braking from the adaptive cruise control and more linear steering from the lane-keeping assist.