Edmunds.com Hybrid Civic Review

Review posted on rec.autos.makers.honda

I drove the new Civic Hybrid at the Electric Transportation Industry Conference in Sacramento, Cal-last Friday...first official U.S. showing of the car.

The only minor exterior visual differences, between the Hybrid and a  standard Civic sedan; are trunk lid batching, a small spoiler on the trunk lid, nice alloy wheels, and a slightly different grill.

The interior is much the same as standard Civic, with a modified dash panel, and a fixed rear seat back. The small thin battery pack is attached to the back of the seat back, in the trunk, and takes up little space.

Performance of the Hybrid, with the CVT auto transmission, was impressive. Power delivery was seamless, with the feel of a peppy standard Civic EX model.

Stick model Honda Hybrids, weren't available to drive, but will be sold next year.

Several Toyota Prius owners, over lunch, indicated they preferred the Civic Hybrid to the their own Prius, and made special mention of the improved power and brake feel.

At around $20,000 and 50+ mpg, this new Hybrid should be a winner for Honda. Consumer delivery is expected to start by spring of 2002. Industry surveys have shown some folks want to drive "green" vehicles,
but have them look like standard vehicles. The Civic Hybrid should be perfect for those customers.

Honda also had a nice full size cutaway display of the Hybrid Civic powertrain, with CVT. The mechanical simplicity of the CVT, really demonstrates its advantages over a conventional automatic...also illustrated the importance of good computer and software design in controlling those variable CVT pulleys. Real slick stuff!

I've been most impressed, with the Honda CVT in both the Hybrid, and the
HX coupes, I've driven. While I prefer sticks, my wife's next auto transmission car will be a CVT.

Also, drove a CVT equipped Insight, and was somewhat disappointed by the noticeable lack of performance, compared to manual transmission Insights, I've driven previously. This is the only Honda model I wouldn't recommend a CVT in...seems to cut performance too much.

All in all a great conference, with also some most impressive fuel cell vehicles, available for driving...but probably 8-10 years away from volumn production and wide scale consumer purchase.

Honda had a couple of their EV Plus all electrics converted to fuel cell
use. Nice cars...high sitting 2 door hatchbacks, with great interior room and comfort for their size.

The consensus was, IC/battery powered Hybrids, would probably be a major market force for the next 8-10 years.