Honda stands by $55,000 Civic hybrid pricing

Honda Australia senior executives have pointed to strong early demand for its 2022 Honda Civic e:HEV as evidence that its current premium pricing strategy is working, even with the new hybrid tagged at $55,000 drive-away.

That’s well above the most expensive Toyota Corolla ZR Hybrid at $39,120 plus on-road costs, and places the new-generation Civic e:HEV in league with European performance hybrids such as the higher-output Cupra Leon VZe PHEV (from $60,490 plus ORCs).

The new 11th-generation Honda Civic caused a sensation a year ago when the petrol-engined model arrived at $47,200 drive-away – at least $10,000 more than similarly-specced rivals like the Toyota Corolla and Hyundai i30.

Speaking at the national launch of the Civic e:HEV in Melbourne, Honda Australia’s head of product planning, Ray Gani, said: “Clearly there’s demand, even with this price range, so there are customers that are happy to pay that price.”

Gani told carsales that the new Civic hybrid – which marks the return of petrol-electric power for the small car, not seen since 2015 – could even outsell the petrol-engined model.

“There’s a lot of orders being taken [for the hybrid],” he said.

“The current anecdotal feedback is that there is a strong demand on the hybrid so there is that potential [to outsell the regular model].

“The market is fairly hot with hybrids these days and even with that price gap it’s not just for the powertrain, there’s additional features.

“So we look forward as we progress with the sales to how the market will decide.”

Some of the equipment added to the Civic e:HEV LX over the regular Civic VTi LX include leather seat upholstery, a panoramic sunroof, fully digital driver’s display and a number of safety upgrades including a centre front airbag and front and rear parking sensors.

Honda said at last year’s launch of the petrol-engined Civic that it expected to only sell around 900 examples of the new small car in the first nine months – far fewer than the previous-generation model (with its lower pricing and broader range) that was shifting between 10,000 and 15,000 units per annum before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

But even that drastically lower target has proven elusive for Honda, which has managed only 787 Civic sales for the 11 months to the end of November this year (compared to 2867 over the same period in 2021).

According to Gani, the hybrid should add valuable sales volume for Civic, which unlike most new cars hitting the market nowadays, has no issues with supply.

“So we actually have stock on both,” he said.

“At the moment there is enough supply but as we progress, if the demand gets stronger and we struggle with supply, that could put pressure on wait times.

“But as of now, we have good stock coming in.”

Check out our review of the 2022 Honda Civic e:HEV here.

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