Introduction to the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
Since 1972, the Honda Civic has provided sensible, frugal, occasionally fast and furious, family transport and has been a consistent thorn in the side of its great rivals, the Toyota Corolla and VW Golf.
The Corolla and Golf have racked up more sales, but the Civic's current 30-million total is hardly to be sniffed at. The current version carries on from where the previous Civic (that's the 'FC/FK' model for those who care) left off in that it's a larger and more substantial car than most of its key rivals, and actually isn't too far of the size of a Honda Accord (remember the Accord?).
However, that gain in size has also come with a significant gain in price, and that could push the Civic off of a lot of Irish car buyers' shopping lists. So, what's this Civic like? And can it justify its high price tag?
Pros & cons of the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
Pros:
• Of very high quality
• Excellent driving experience
• Loads of space inside
Cons:
• Notably high price
• Plain styling
• Limited model range
Exterior & design of the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
• Quieter styling than previous models
• Still looks handsome
• Larger than most hatchbacks
This is the quietest-looking Civic for a while, and although that may play well with Honda's traditionally more conservative buyer base, it is a bit of a shame that the sharper styling of previous versions has been abandoned. Then again, it does bring the Civic neatly into line with the rest of the Honda model range.
The basic proportions of the Civic are spot-on, though, and the fastback styling gives it an edge of stylistic difference compared to most rivals. It also looks smart in traditional Honda white, with dark-finished, diamond-cut, 18-inch alloy wheels setting things off nicely. Not a thrilling car at which to look, but reassuringly solid.
Dimensions of the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
Length: 4,551mm
Width: 1,802 (mirrors folded)
Height: 1,408mm
Wheelbase: 2,734mm
Paint colours for the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
All of the Civic's paint options cost an extra €620, and you can choose from the Platinum White Pearl of our test car, or Premium Crystal Red Metallic, Premium Crystal Blue Metallic, Crystal Black Pearl, or Sonic Grey Pearl. White is probably the best bet - it gives this humble hybrid a faint hint of the Type R hot hatch.
Interior, practicality, tech & comfort of the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
• Very roomy inside
• Excellent quality
• Lots of physical buttons
In some ways, the Civic's cabin is as plain and straightforward as its exterior, but that's fine by us when the quality levels are this good and the control layout is so simple and intuitive.
Getting comfortable in the driver's seat
The Civic has excellent front seats, clad in a mixture of synthetic and real black leather. They're almost armchair comfortable, and there's an enormous range of adjustment and space so that you can get into a suitable position.
Bonus points to the Civic for allowing you to get the seat nice and low for a more laid-back driving position, and there's a good range of movement for the steering wheel too, and that wheel is perfectly round - no squared-off nonsense here, thank you.
Infotainment and technology
The Civic's digital dials are neat and easy to read, but some of the menu options - you can control both the display itself and some vehicle functions via a button on the steering wheel - are confusing and difficult to follow.
For instance, you can manage some of the car's safety systems with a few clicks on that steering wheel button, but not the (annoyingly inaccurate) speed limit warning, which can only be accessed through the central touchscreen, and which takes about half-a-dozen presses to activate or deactivate.
That nine-inch touchscreen looks remarkably inoffensive and doesn't dominate the dashboard in the manner which some rival models suffer. That's the good news - the bad news is that the software on that screen is confusing as hell to use and has graphics that look about a decade out of date.
Thankfully, there is Apple CarPlay connectivity, as well as Android Auto, but the connection was irritatingly inconsistent in our time with the car. Also, who the heck only fits USB-A sockets these days? At least you get two.
If that sounds like we're being a bit down on the Civic's cabin, nothing could be further from the truth. That's because the beauty of it, once you've got your phone connected and your tunes sorted out, is that you can basically ignore the touchscreen.
The Civic still has a full set of proper, physical, real buttons for the likes of climate control, the driving mode and even the gearbox, as that uses pushbuttons rather than a lever.
Combined with the buttons on the steering wheel (and all of these buttons and switches feel wonderfully well-assembled and damped, just wait until you experience the satisfying 'click' as the air vents return to their central position) you can drive the Civic without ever needing to interrogate the flaky touchscreen, which is just as it should be.
It's also worth mentioning the Bose stereo system, which has excellent sound quality.
Practicality around the cabin
There's plenty of space for humans in the front of the Civic's cabin, but for all your clutter, there's not quite as much space. You do get two good-sized cupholders in the centre console, and an open storage area in which there's a wireless phone charger.
The storage space under the armrest isn't massive, though, and the door pockets are slightly small, as is the glovebox, so you might start to run out of places to stuff your keys, wallet, phone, handbag etc.
Rear-seat passenger space
Space in the back of the Civic is excellent, with plenty of knee-room for taller passengers, although anyone very tall will find that headroom starts to run out, not least because of the chunky lump in the ceiling that houses the retracting blind for the glass roof.
There's a large hump in the floor which will restrict the foot space available if you're trying to load anyone into the centre rear seat, which is pretty narrow.
Fitting child seats to the Honda Civic Hybrid
The Civic's rear doors open nice and wide, and the door opening is a decent size, so there should be no difficulty in lugging large child seats into the back, and the copious legroom means that even the biggest rear-facing seat should fit in easily.
There are two ISOFIX anchor points in the outer rear seats (none in the front) and there's a top-tether anchor for the centre seat too, but that's going to be too narrow for almost any child car seat we can think of.
Boot space in the Honda Civic Hybrid
Boot space in the Irish-market Civic is slightly smaller than is standard for the Civic in some other European markets, as the sub-woofer for the Bose stereo takes up a couple of litres.
Still, 409 litres is a healthy load space for a family-sized hatchback. Fold down the 60:40 split rear seats and you have more than 1,100 litres of loadspace.
There's also a hugely clever touch - the rear luggage blind, instead of retracting fore and aft and clipping in behind the back seats, retracts right to left, meaning that you don't need to take the luggage cover out and try to stow it anywhere when using the full loadspace of the car (just as well as there's little enough under-floor storage).
This is a trick lifted from the previous Civic, but the downside is that the cover feels cheap and insubstantial, and you certainly can't carry anything on top of it. Equally, the Civic's boot has quite a deep rear load lip, so heavier items could prove hard to lift in.
Towing with the Honda Civic Hybrid
The Civic's maximum towing weight, on a braked trailer, is just 750kg, which in fairness will be enough for many purposes, but it's certainly not a caravan enthusiast's dream.
Safety in the Honda Civic Hybrid
This generation of Civic took quite a while to reach Irish shores, hence why the official Euro NCAP safety rating dates back to 2022. Still, it's an impressive result, with a full five-star score including 89 per cent for adult occupant protection, 87 per cent for child occupants, 82 per cent for vulnerable road users and 83 per cent for electronic safety systems.
As standard, those systems include a centre airbag (between the driver and front-seat passenger), blind-spot monitoring, lane-keeping steering, adaptive cruise control with traffic jam assist, and a pop-up bonnet to mitigate pedestrian injuries.
Performance of the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
• Only one powertrain
• Excellent fuel economy
• Genuinely fun to drive
You just get the one hybrid engine option for the Civic, but thankfully it's a good one and it has the fuel economy brief absolutely nailed. And the driving fun brief, as it happens.
Driving the Honda Civic Hybrid in Ireland
It's a shame that the ultra-fast, manual Honda Civic Type R is (a) staggeringly expensive and (b) no longer on sale, because it was an absolute belter of a hot hatch, foregoing the ultimate in power outputs and instead focusing on being utterly delightful to drive.
Obviously, the Civic Hybrid can't hope to match the Type R in terms of power and performance, but you can feel some of the same DNA in the way the Hybrid drives.
The steering is just excellent - not least because Honda knows that a fully round steering wheel with a slim rim is what a keen driver truly needs. Through that steering wheel, the electric power steering system does a terrific job of mixing and matching the conflicting demands of being light enough to make the Civic easy-going around town, but weighty enough to inspire confidence on flowing, faster roads.
Better still, there's some granular feel through the steering, some sense of what the front tyres are actually doing, so that you're always informed and aware of grip levels and the car's attitude. Would that all car makers fitted steering this good.
Ride comfort is mostly fine, although sharp edges around town can occasionally catch it out, and there's quite a bit of tyre roar coming up through the back.
The 2.0-litre engine doesn't drive the Civic directly, except at times of maximum power demand. Instead, its 143hp is sent to the 1.05kWh battery which drives the 184hp electric motor. There's a second electric motor, incidentally, which acts as a generator and a starter.
Thus combined, the Civic has easy, smooth power. A quoted 184hp isn't huge by any standards, but the Civic Hybrid never feels less than decently brisk, and anyway you'll be having too much fun with that excellent steering to worry about how much power it has. There's a commendable lack of hybrid-style groaning from the engine when pressing on, incidentally.
Fuel economy and running costs of the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
• Good real-world fuel economy
• Low emissions rating
• Not expensive to tax
Honda's i-MMD hybrid is a smooth operator, and frugal one too.
Official fuel economy and emissions
The Civic's CO2 emissions of 114g/km are a little higher than those of its closest rival, the Toyota Corolla saloon (with the 1.8 hybrid) which manages 102g/km, but the motor tax penalty isn't much; just €10 extra per annum, bringing the Civic to €190.
Officially, Honda quotes five litres per 100km, and as we'll see, that's absolutely bob-on.
Real-world efficiency of the Honda Civic Hybrid
There aren't very many cars that match their official WLTP fuel consumption figures in real-world driving, but the Civic is one of them. Over a mixture of motorway, country and town driving across several days, we matched Honda's 5.0-litres per 100km, although if you're driving in town a lot, that might creep up to 6.0 litres per 100km, even though the Civic spends much of its time on electric-only power in urban driving.
Servicing the Honda Civic Hybrid
Honda doesn't stick to a rigid service interval for the Civic, preferring to use the car's on-board service indicator, which will give a driver a month's warning of needing to book in.
However, Honda does recommend an annual oil change for the Civic, or every 10,000km, and an oil filter change every two years, or 20,000km. There are inclusive service plans via 'HondaCare' which start from €299 for the first two workshop visits.
Honda Civic Hybrid Fastback warranty
Honda Ireland (part of Gowan Auto) only provides a pretty basic three-year, 100,000km warranty for the Civic, but then again, it's a Honda, and pretty much nothing breaks on a Honda, so why worry? The hybrid battery is also separately warrantied for eight years or 160,000km.
Irish pricing & rivals to the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
• Seriously expensive
• Only one version available
• Good standard equipment
Here's where you need to take a sharp intake of breath. The Honda Civic costs €48,995 in Ireland. That's a staggeringly expensive price tag for what is a family-sized hatchback.
Now, there are a number of mitigating factors to that price. Honda has always considered itself to be a cut above the mainstream motoring horde, and closer to the German premium marques in terms of image and quality. We won't quibble with the quality bit - Honda's engineering standards far exceed those of most other car makers - but the image bit is more subjective. If you're a huge fan of motor racing history then yes, you may well also regard Honda as a cut above, but for most buyers it sits at a similar level to Toyota. Except you can't physically spec a Corolla up to the Civic's price tag.
Helping, somewhat, to balance that out is the Civic's generous standard equipment including leather upholstery, Bose stereo, panoramic glass sunroof, all the standard safety kit, electrically adjusted front seats, which are also heated (as is the steering wheel), dual-zone climate control and wireless phone charging.
Verdict - should you buy the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
It's a qualified yes for the Civic Hybrid, qualified by the searingly expensive price tag. If you can justify that expense, trading it off against the quality, the driving engagement, the space and practicality, and the excellent hybrid system, then yes you should buy the Honda Civic Hybrid.
FAQs about the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
What are the complaints about the Honda Civic Hybrid?
Mostly that it's too expensive, although one could also take issue with a slight lack of outright power, and the fact that there's only a single model range.
How much does it cost to replace a Honda Civic Hybrid battery?
It wouldn't be cheap, especially with labour costs, but you could probably replace the Civic's battery, if you ever need to, for about €1,500-2,000.
Want to know more about the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid
If there's anything about the new Honda Civic Hybrid we've not covered, or you'd like help in choosing between it and other cars, you can avail of our expert advice service via the Ask Us Anything page.
