11th-Gen Honda Civic Facelift Debuts in The US with Improved e:HEV Setup

Honda US welcomed the newly-facelifted eleventh-gen Honda Civic recently, featuring an improved e:HEV hybrid  powertrain setup.

Less than three years after making its global debut, the eleventh-generation Honda Civic (FE/FL) has been given its first proper facelift in the North American market. Teased earlier this year, the newly-updated Civic gains some minor design changes as well as boasting a new and improved e:HEV hybrid powertrain setup.

Starting with the visuals, both the 11th-gen Civic sedan (FE) and hatchback (FL) adopt a sportier front face, featuring a redesigned front grille and bumper that look similar to the Civic RS prototype unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Salon 2024 (TAS 2024) show earlier this year.

The new front bumper and grille are complemented by the factory-fitted dark-tinted taillights for the sedan model, while the hybrid-powered variants are getting body-coloured garnishes around the headlights and machine-finished 18-inch alloy wheels. Also new here are the four exterior hue options offered exclusively to the Sport Touring Hybrid variant.

The facelift treatment is somewhat milder once we get inside the newly-updated Civic. Featuring the same front dash layout as the pre-facelift model, the new Civic e:HEV is offered with an optional grey upholstery hue instead of the standard black-hued one, as well as a slew of USB-C charging ports replacing the ageing USB-A ones.

On top of that, the top-spec Sport Touring Hybrid variant also gets a larger 9-inch central infotainment screen powered by the latest version of Google Built-In OS, which is also compatible with both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay wirelessly.

For the North American market, the facelifted Honda Civic gains an improved e:HEV hybrid powertrain setup that uses the same 2.0-litre 4-cyl Atkinson Cycle petrol mill that acts as a generator to its small battery pack, which in turn juices up its twin, front-mounted (FWD) electric motors.

Capable of producing up to 200 HP and 315 NM, this makes the facelifted Civic e:HEV the most potent version of the current-gen Civic, excluding the manic FL5 Type R. To go along with this improved e:HEV powertrain setup, Honda engineers have also tweaked both the suspension and damper setups for the facelifted Civic hybrid.

Besides the improved total system output, this new e:HEV setup also boasts enhanced fuel efficiency, with Honda US promising the new Civic hybrid to boast a decent fuel economy rate of 50 miles per gallon, or about 21 KM per litre on the more useful metric system.

For the North American market, both the facelifted Civic Sport Hybrid and Sport Touring Hybrid are joined by two full-ICE variants, which use the old 2.0-litre 4-cyl i-VTEC mill rated at 158 HP and 187 NM. This means that the 1.5-litre 4-cyl turbocharged petrol mill used in the Malaysian-spec Civic FE1 is only offered to the souped-up Civic Si in the US market.

Priced from $30,000 (RM140,760), the newly-facelifted, 11th-gen Honda Civic is poised to hit the US market some time later in June this year, starting with the sedan and followed by the hatchback later on. As of now, Honda has yet to reveal any plans to bring this facelifted Civic into other international markets, including ours, although we can expect them to arrive sooner or later.