Best sedans of 2020 and 2021

In this video, Will Kaufman covers the reveal of the 2022 Honda Civic. What does Honda have in store for its most popular car?

[MUSIC PLAYING] PRESENTER: Say hello to the 11th-generation Honda Civic. One thing I do need to point out is that this particular vehicle is a prototype. Now, it does look basically like what you'll see when the car goes into production, but this one doesn't really have an interior, and it doesn't have a powertrain. Even if it never got the love it deserved from the Fast and the Furious movies, the Honda Civic is an iconic small car. And it's not just the fast and loud Si or Type R that make it worth talking about. The Honda Civic has been a benchmark small car year after year-- except, like, 2001's. I'd avoid those. And sort of 2006 through, like, 2010 weren't great, I guess. But otherwise, it's a benchmark small car. And I'm not just saying that. Honda has sold more than 18 million Civics worldwide since the model was introduced, making it one of the bestselling cars of all time. And I guess Lada sold, like, 19 million Riva variants worldwide. So maybe sometimes, there's something else going on. The current 10th-generation Honda Civic is our top-rated small car, but it's got a few weaknesses now. The infotainment is old and just kind of blah. Competitors have economy-focused hybrid models where the Civic doesn't. So we're looking forward to getting more details on this car. We don't have them all right now, but we'll tell you what we can. So let's take a closer look. And I guess, I mean, they had a Civic in the hijack scene with the truck, but that's not really showing it love. Commenters won't care. Man, I'm going to have Fast and Furious fanboys crawling up my [BLEEP]. The 11th-generation Honda Civic gives up some of the playfulness of the design of the 10th generation for a more sophisticated, clean look. Also, look. Plastic honeycomb-- it's gone. The dimensions haven't really changed overall. It's basically the same width and the same height, and it's only about an inch longer overall. But the new design definitely accentuates the width and the length. Just all paint. It looks just lower and longer and a little more sporty in some ways. You can see up front the grill has actually been lowered and brought down to make the front end look lower. And these headlights have been traded from the up-swept version on the 10th generation to, again, a sort of flatter look here. The character lines are just meant to really draw the eye across the front end and accentuate the width that's there. The A pillars have actually been moved back a bit, and the top of the hood has been lowered. They've also moved the mirrors from the window mounts onto the door. All of this taken together should help improve visibility. And again, it just accentuates that flat, long look that they're going for with the car. The competing, swooping character lines that you had in the 10th generation have been replaced by this very strong crease. It's a little reminiscent of the Accord, but where the Accord is a bit of an arc, this is a very flat line. And they've leveled out the door handles, which my OCD loves. Back here, the rear window actually starts a little lower so there's more glass for the rear passengers. Overall, they're trying to keep the greenhouse feeling relatively airy and open even though they're aiming for that sporty look. This little hitch here-- again, very reminiscent of the Accord, meant to accentuate the hips of the car, go for that sporty look. Let's check out the back. Around the back, you can see there have been really big changes. Those crab-claw tail lights are gone, and in their place are these much more standard units. It maybe has a little less personality, but also, those old headlights added a lot of visual height to the vehicle. And that's something they're looking to avoid here. Gone also is that separate spoiler. Instead, they have an integrated spoiler. It looks a little bit like a duck tail feel. I think overall, this tail reminds me a little bit of some of the design language we see from Mercedes, just like the profile view reminds me a little bit of what we see from Audi. It really is a cleaner, more sophisticated look all around. Some people may be sad to have lost a little bit of that playfulness and personality, but we haven't seen what the hatchback and Type R look like yet. So there's probably room for some of that playfulness to come back. Overall, though, I think most people are really going to like this design when they see it on the road. But it's not exterior design that makes the current 10th-generation Honda Civic our top-rated small car. The interior is a huge selling point for the vehicle. It's not necessarily the nicest interior in the class in terms of materials. That probably is the Mazda 3. And the infotainment isn't necessarily the best in the 10th gen. It's sort of annoying to use. But hopefully, this addresses many of those concerns in the 11th generation. Now, what made the 10th generation great was just how easy it was to live with. It was roomy without having things be too far out of reach. There was a lot of storage space for all of your small items. It was just generally practical and easy to use. So let's see what they're doing with the interior for this 11th-generation model. They won't let me in it, actually. What you can see here is we found some more plastic honeycomb. This long horizontal line, again, carrying across the flat design language from the exterior-- this is actually a plastic grill that's meant to cover and disguise the air vents. It looks pretty neat. I actually think this is a better implementation for that material than on the bumper. The rest of this interior-- again, they've cleaned it up a lot. This HVAC kind of looks like what we see in the Accord right now. So we know it's probably a pretty easy-to-use system. It looks like there's still going to be some nice storage accessible. Hopefully that carries through into the final design as well because interior storage, like I said, is a strong point for the Civic. This infotainment unit is interesting. They're telling us that this is going to be a 9-inch screen. That's something new for Honda. The unit that we have in vehicles like our Passport or like in the Accord are 8-inch units, and we've had some technical glitches with them in the past. They're not that bad to use, especially if you get into the light customization. But having the screen totally cut out on us every once in a while was something that wasn't our favorite. So if they could take the strengths of that operating system, put it into a bigger screen and address some of the glitches that we had in the past, it could be a really strong infotainment experience. They're also introducing a digital gauge cluster, which is going to be a first for Honda, an entirely digital gauge cluster. So far, we've only seen partial digital clusters. Overall, it looks like a pretty clean space, and it sounds like it will address some of our biggest concerns with the outgoing model, in particular that infotainment. We don't know much else about the upcoming 2022 Honda Civic. We'll get those details closer to the spring 2021 on-sale date. So we can't exactly tell you what's under the hood, but we can make a few guesses. We think it's likely that the current 1.5-liter turbo and CBT combination will make it into this generation in at least some form. That's a good thing. That CBT is actually the transmission that changed my mind about CBTs when I first drove it in the 10th-gen Honda Civic. And the 1.5 turbo is punchy and pretty satisfying to drive. All around, the outgoing Honda Civic is already one of the best small cars to drive. So there's not necessarily a ton of work to do on that front. We do know that the sedan will not get a manual transmission in the next generation. However, the hatchback, Si, and Type R variants will. Speaking of the Si and Type R, again, we don't know the details, but we do know that they're coming. The current Si is a lot of fun. I don't think that there's a ton Honda needs to do to make this new Si into a fun-to-drive car. All they really need is maybe clear up the transmission. It's a little vague, the stick right now, guys. If you could address that, that would be all I need. Otherwise, don't mess it up, please. There's been all sorts of speculation about what we'll see in the next Civic Type R, and we haven't gotten any more details yet. It does seem likely that they're going to need to implement some sort of all-wheel drive system. I can't imagine they're going to be easily able to get more power down through the front wheels of this car. There's also the question of electrification. We've seen more hybrid variants coming from competitors. The new Toyota Corolla has a great hybrid powertrain that is super, super efficient. And we know that Honda has a good hybrid powertrain as well. The Insight is one of our favorite hybrids, again, because it is so nice to drive. And it seems like that powertrain would be a natural fit for the Honda Civic. What else can we tell you? Well, not much right now. Honda has said they're going to be adding some new safety features, but they haven't said what they are. And other than that, we really don't have any more details. We know that this car is going to go on sale sometime around spring, 2021. And after that, they will be introducing a hatchback model and then following up with the Si and Type R. Otherwise, if you want to know more, I guess you could get a job for Honda, get clearance, and find out stuff that way. 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