It has almost been a mainstay of New Zealand’s history; for some, owning a Honda Civic is almost as much a rite of passage as owning a Toyota Corolla.
We last reviewed the Honda Civic Sport in 2022 and found it to be a competent and refined 5-door hatchback, with comments like, “Simply put, this eleventh-generation Honda Civic does everything well. The sharp exterior design looks high-end, carrying the aura of an executive saloon. The interior is high quality, spacious and strikes a near optimal balance of technology and physical controls, which makes the Civic incredibly easy to live with.”
For 2025, the update is a mid-life facelift of the current 11th generation Civic, rather than an all-new model. We headed to Honda’s HQ in Nelson to hear about the new model and spend a half-day and 325km behind the wheel.

Honda Civic: A brief history
To launch the new Civic Hybrid, Honda rolled out one of every previous generation, outside their plant in Nelson. It was fantastic to see the change in design through the years, right up to this latest model.

One of the cars on display was not only an original EB1 1972 Honda Civic, but was the very first Civic built in New Zealand, in Wellington, at the Petone plant. This Civic was bought new by the previous owners, and was offered to Honda New Zealand as part of a deceased estate. The EB1 is extremely tidy and original, almost looking like the day it rolled out of the Petone plant.
To date, there have been 27.6 million Civics built, and sold in over 130 countries. It has been built in 8 different factories and covers 12 models. It’s still a popular model, with over 450,000 being sold in 2023.

2025 Honda Civic Hybrid: Drivetrain
It’s the biggest change in the new model; For 2025, Honda has changed the powertrain from a 1.5-litre turbocharged engine, to a 2.0-litre hybrid, using their e:HEV hybrid system that we’ve seen on the Jazz, HR-V, and CR-V.
While the previous turbocharged model had a power output of 131kW and 240Nm of torque, the new model is up on both of those numbers, at 149kW and 315Nm. Performance has improved with the hybrid system, with the 0-100km/h dropping slightly from 8.4 to 7.9 seconds.
Now that the Civic is a hybrid, CO2 emissions have dropped from 165 to 109 gms/km, a worthy improvement.

There’s also a new drive mode; Individual. This allows the driver to select what options they want for their drive mode, although this is limited to changing the engine’s responsiveness, making the steering heavier, adding the ‘enhanced’ engine noise, and changing the dashboard gauges.
Honda has taken the enhanced engine noise feature from the Type R, and added it to the new Civic Hybrid, using their ‘Active Sounds Control’ system. According to Honda, this is not fake noise, but channelling of the actual engine noise into the cabin, through the speakers.
Like other Hondas with the e:HEV system, there are three hybrid modes:
- EV
- Hybrid Drive
- Engine Drive
EV of course means EV only, and is mainly used at lower speeds. Hybrid drive sees the electric motor driving the front wheels, while the petrol engine charges the EV battery. Lastly, at motorway speeds, Engine Drive will have the petrol engine driving the front wheels directly.
We’ve experienced all these modes in previous reviews and there is no noticeable change in the modes as you are driving, and we certainly don’t expect it to be any different in the Civic Hybrid.
Like some brands love to claim, Honda’s e:HEV system is “self-charging” system, so is not a plug-in hybrid. You can’t charge it up to force-drive in EV only mode, however it does mean there are no road-user charges to pay.

2025 Honda Civic Hybrid: Tech
Along with the new hybrid powertrain, there have been a few other changes in the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid. Some of these changes include tech advances, like the ability to use Google Assistant, as part of Google’s ‘GAS’ (Google Automotive System).
That means you can sign in with your Google account, and then download apps from the Play Store, submit your planned route from your phone to the car (it has no built-in SatNav), and also control some of the car’s functions like adjusting the air-conditioning, checking your range, making phone calls, etc.

2025 Honda Civic Hybrid: Exterior
Externally, the new Civic has different bumpers, 18″ alloy wheels, tyres, has a sunroof, and now has a black grille. There are five colour choices:
- Ocean Blue Pearl
- Premium Crystal Red
- Platinum White Pearl
- Crystal Black Pearl
- Sonic Grey Pearl

2025 Honda Civic Hybrid: Interior
The new Civic has a white pinstripe across the dashboard, a new push-button e-Shifter, and black leather seating.
USB ports have been changed over to the Type C, with four USB-C ports available in total. Also new is Qi wireless phone charging, a slightly updated UI on the centre screen, and a Bose speaker system.

2025 Honda Civic Hybrid: Chassis & Safety
While the chassis is essentially unchanged, the centre of gravity on this new model is down 10mm. Active Noise Control has been added too; this system uses front and rear microphones in the cabin and cancels out unwanted noise using the car’s audio speakers. This should reduce the amount of road noise in the cabin.
There are some new 18” alloy wheels, and these are fitted with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres; expensive tyres that are pretty sticky, so this should endow the new model with great grip through the bends.
There are a few, new Advanced Driver Assistance Aids (ADAS) added to this new model:
- Four front and four rear parking sensors
- Collision Mitigation Braking System
- Lane Keeping Assist System
- Traffic Jam Assist
- Road Departure Mitigation System with Lane Departure Warning
- Lead Car Departure Notification
- Adaptive Driving Beam
Honda are retaining the current petrol model’s 5-star ANCAP rating.
2025 Honda Civic Hybrid: Honda Connect
The phone app has been updated, so now you can:
- Locate your Civic
- Check on the security alarm
- Set a geofence up, so you are alerted if someone in the car goes outside the ‘fence’
- Do remote diagnostics
- See up to the last 25 trip logs
- Remote lock/unlock the car
- Start the engine
- Turn on the air-conditioning
- Operate the lights and horn
- Auto Collison Detect – if airbags deploy, a notification is sent to the owner and the Honda call centre
- Set up to 3 speed alerts, and be notified if the car goes over any of them
- Remote Status: check fuel level, door status locked/unlocked, check if the headlights are on or off
2025 Honda Civic Hybrid: Price
Currently, Honda is selling just one model of Civic in New Zealand, and there are no immediate plans to add more models. This means the current petrol model is now discontinued.
As mentioned in a previous press release, the new Civic Hybrid is priced at $59,000, up from $47,000 of the previous version.

2025 Honda Civic Hybrid: Drive Impressions
At the presentation, we were told that the new Civic is aimed for buyers of European cars, which feels like the same space that Mazda is targeting. With claims today of “it’s a real driver’s car”, and “it’s not just about the price, its’s about the driving”, I have high hopes that the new Civic drives at least as well as the previous model.
With so much talk of the new Civic being a driver’s car, Honda had set a route of 325km, driving down to Hokitika, through some particularly twisty, winding roads.
To put that in perspective, sometimes at car launches we don’t get to drive the new cars at all, or often it’s only for 30 minutes. It feels like Honda is putting money down on this car being something special, to spend so much time behind the wheel for a first impression.
Heading out to the cars, there’s no denying it’s a great looking car; the first car up was finished in Premium Crystal Red, and looked fantastic. The 11th generation Civic has always been a good looker and the subtle changes to the front along with the new wheels has only enhanced that.

Grabbing a black Civic, I note that it has just 5km on the clock; we know from experience that Honda motors need a few kilometres on them to give their best, so I’ll need to take that into account.
First things first, it’s time to sign into the Google app on the car, and setup my route for the day. It does take a little bit to get connected, but once it’s done, that’s it.
Driving out of Nelson, and the new Civic Hybrid feels extremely refined – even more so than the previous model. This is probably down to the hybrid drivetrain, which is flicking into and out of EV mode as it pleases, but meaning a quiet journey. There’s also the active noise cancelling making things quieter, too.
Performance around town is good, the transmission doing its thing. I could see this car being very easy to drive on a day-to-day basis.
I note that thankfully, Honda has not removed the physical buttons around the screen, so that means you still get an actual volume off/on knob, along with buttons for the Home screen, Back, and track/station select. Perfect for those times when you passenger needs to use these instead of using on-screen buttons.

Another huge relief is the retention of the knobs and dials for adjusting the air conditioning; while you can do some of this via voice commands, it’s so very simple to just turn a dial, again, rather than making adjustments from a screen.
On the open road, surprisingly the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres are very noisy on coarse-chip seal; the active noise cancelling can’t seem to reduce this down. On other surfaces they are fine, and road and wind noise are negligible, so the active noise cancelling is working well on those fronts.
The Bose speaker upgrade is a good move from the previous model; separation is excellent, and the audio system covers all frequencies very well.
I switched the car to Sport mode for some of the windier roads on our route. While fake engine noises can feel cringy, the ‘enhanced’ exhaust note of the Civic Hybrid is excellent – I was impressed. It sounds delicious when you wind this car out to the red line, if you have a need to. At other times, the engine is as quiet as any other on the market.
So, what’s it like on the bends? Is it a driver’s car like Honda claims? On the whole, yes. It sits flat, it feels neutral, and it’s a bit of fun. The steering could do with a little more feedback, and while it’s slightly heavier in Sport than when in Normal drive mode, there isn’t a huge difference. However, this is a car you can chuck about, as it’s pretty composed and competent on tight bends or long sweepers.
As expected, those low-profile Michelin tyres do their job well, with fantastic grip. We were driving in fine weather, however there was never a hint of the tyres letting go on any bend. With 40 series tyres, I thought the ride quality would suffer; the previous Civic rides very well. However, fears were unfounded as although the Civic Hybrid is a little firmer in the ride department, it’s still very good.
I did find that on a trailing throttle, a bumpy bend would see the rear of the car a bit unsettled, but it’s not a drama and still feels very safe.

Performance is very good. While 7.9 seconds to 100km/h is not blazingly fast, mid-range acceleration is excellent, meaning quick and safe overtaking manoeuvres.
After our 325km drive, the Civic Hybrid used 5.5L/100km, close to Honda’s claim of 4.8L/100km. For a 2.0-litre car, that’s excellent. Even more so since all of that was on the open road, where hybrids are not the most efficient. It will be interesting to see what economy we get from the car, when we spend a week commuting in it.
For the moment, the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid impresses. The sticker price may put some off, but they should drive the car before making any decisions.
