The Honda Civic Hybrid Is Here. But Will It Cost Us a Turbocharged Engine?

On January 17th, Honda served up a preview of its lineup changes for the coming year. There’s no word on a Civic Si hatchback — at least, not yet. But the standard Civic receives “style and feature enhancements” as part of a 2025 refresh, and one of those enhancements will be a new hybrid powertrain.

What do we know about the 2025 Civic Hybrid?

Honda was stingy on the details. We know the hybrid engine will be available on both the sedan and hatchback body styles, and Honda expects the hybrid to make up about 40 percent of the Civic’s sales. With Honda selling ~200,000 Civics last year, that should be a lot of hybrids.

We don’t know which of Honda’s hybrid engines the 2025 Civic will offer

Honda didn’t tell us what the hybrid powertrain for the Civic will be yet. Our best guesses would be either a detuned version of the 204-horsepower 2.0-liter four-cylinder hybrid in the Accord and CR-V Hybrids, or a variant of the 151-hp 1.5-liter four-cylinder hybrid from the departed Honda Insight that the Civic Hybrid is effectively replacing.

Honda

And we don’t know how that affects the rest of the Civic lineup yet

Honda hasn’t given us a full-blown trim walkthrough yet of the new models, but Honda told Car and Driver that the lineup would be positioned similarly to the Accord and the CR-V. That presumably means that lower trims will be exclusively gas-powered and upper trims will be hybrid-only machines.

But the hybrid may mean the solid turbocharged 1.5-liter engine is leaving

The current upgrade engine in the Civic is a turbocharged 1.5-liter gas engine pumping out 180 horsepower. It’s a good engine for the car — and the price point. But it’s hard to see how it would stick around.

The Civic needs to be affordable. And Honda is already stretching that boundary with the current base model, which starts above $25,000 when you factor in the destination and handling charge. Going turbo is a $3,000 upgrade on the current model, which is a lot for a Civic.

And let’s face it, Honda doesn’t really need a zestier gas-powered Civic amongst its regular ranks. The hybrid option may replicate or exceed the power of the current 1.5-liter turbo and operate more efficiently. A significant segment of driving enthusiast Civic buyers may want more power and don’t want a hybrid, but Honda still has the Civic Si — with a manual — to satiate them. Here’s hoping Honda at least has the decency to keep the stick shift around in the Civic Sport hatchback, too…

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