Honda still committed to Civic, updated hatch coming this year

Once a juggernaut in New Zealand’s new-vehicle market, the trusty Honda Civic has become something of a niche nameplate these days — particularly in its standard non-Type R trim. 

But the chief executive of Honda New Zealand, Carolyn McMahon, believes the model still serves a purpose in the Japanese marque’s local line-up. The CEO confirmed that a mild update to the nameplate will be arriving here later in the year. 

Speaking with CarExpert NZ at the brand’s launch of its all-new Super One, McMahon acknowledged that many customers have moved away from hatchbacks and towards crossovers and SUVs. 

“Over the years, the segmentation has changed,” said McMahon. “But we're happy with having [the Civic] at the moment. There's still a loyal hatch [customer] base that we still want to service and bring cars for.”

“We’ve got a minor model change coming up the second half of this year, so it will be interesting to see what comes through on that,” she said, adding that full details on these updates will be released later this year.

In past generations, the Civic was offered here in numerous bodystyles and trim levels, with multiple powertrain options to match. Nowadays, the line-up has been dwindled down to just one single ‘mainstream’ variant — the SR e:HEV hybrid. 

The high-spec trim comes with a considerable price tag of $59,900. That’s almost $10,000 more than both the Volkswagen Golf R-Line and Mazda 3 Homura, and around $15,000 more than a Toyota Corolla ZR. 

Within Honda’s own line-up, the $59,900 Civic SR is just a few thousand dollars cheaper than the much larger, much more practical $62,000 CR-V Hybrid X. The non-hybrid CR-V can be had for as little as $44,900 for the base grade 1.5-litre petrol variant.

Honda also still offers the Civic Type R hot hatch, priced from $77,000. 

The market shift away from hatchbacks and towards SUVs has seen the local compact hatchback segment shrink significantly in recent years.

Hyundai no longer offers the i30 locally. The same goes for the Kia’s Cerato replacement, the K4, as well as the Subaru Impreza hatch. And globally, Ford ended production of the Focus late last year.

On the flip side, there is plenty of interest in compact hatchbacks from the plethora of new Chinese brands that have recently entered the New Zealand market. 

The first examples of Leapmotor’s new B05 hatch have arrived in the country, with the GAC Aion UT, MG 4 Urban, Dongfeng Box, BYD Atto 1 also now on sale in New Zealand. The B05 is especially notable, as it is the same size as the likes of the Civic.