New Honda Civic to shake up diesel market

Honda Australia plans to expand its newly launched Civic hatch line-up to include a diesel option by early next year, when its first oil-burning model will form the basis of a whole new family of diesel-powered Civics.

The first diesel Civic won’t just sit mid-high in the new hatchback line-up, as is the case with Volkswagen’s Golf and the Ford Focus, with the local arm confirming it is looking to offer diesel power at both ends of the new Civic hatch range in a bid for volume sales in Australia’s booming small-car market.

With the entry-level petrol Civic hatch priced from $22,650, Honda is openly playing as hard a ball as it can to grab market share after a 10-year absence from this end of the segment. That means there’s a good chance of a starting price of around $25,000 for the Civic diesel, putting it in the same vicinity of the cheapest small diesels currently available, including the Hyundai i30 ($23,090), Holden Cruze ($25,490) and Mazda3 ($27,360).

At the other end of the scale, a better-equipped Civic diesel should rival pricier diesel-powered Golfs (from $28,990) and Focus models, which start at $30,500.

“There’s clearly a market for high-spec (Civic diesel) variants here,” Honda Australia sales and marketing chief Stephen Collins told motoring.com.au at this week’s Civic hatch launch. “But we’re looking for volume too, so we’ll be looking to a range of diesel-powered Civics.”

Asked what sort of price premium the oiler might command over petrol variants, Mr Collins said the new Civic diesels will be priced to compete directly with small diesels currently available here.

“The local market currently commands a premium of $2000 to $4000 for diesels, and we’re confident we can get it to fall in that range, though of course we’re not sure exactly where yet,” he said.

“One thing you can be sure of: it’ll be competitive with what’s in the market today.”

Apart from competitive pricing, the Civic diesel – which is claimed to offer both best-in-class economy and performance – will be among the most efficient models offered in Australia.

Although its official emissions figure of 95g/km falls short of the CO2 benchmark set by Toyota’s Prius hybrid (89g/km), the Civic’s high-tech 1.6 i-DTEC engine is 15g/km or 13.6 per cent cleaner than the 2.2-litre i-DTEC diesel Honda introduced less than a year ago, setting a new CO2 standard for diesel passenger cars, including the Audi A1 1.6 TDI, Mini Cooper 2.0 D, Golf 1.6 BlueMotion and Volvo C30 1.6 DRIVe.

Official economy figures are thin on the ground, but UK Top Gear is quoting 75mpg. That translates into a little under 3.8L/100km, placing the Civic well up the pointy end of the tightwad class by matching the A1, Mini, Golf and C30.

The diesel-powered Civic will provide a distinctly different driving experience from the 1.8-litre petrol four in the new model, serving up 88kW at 4000rpm and a beefy 300Nm of peak torque between 2000 and 4000rpm.

Carrying the company’s Earth Dreams technology, the all-new i-DTEC oiler has just arrived in the British and European Civic line-ups. At 1.6 litres, it’s considerably smaller and less powerful than the 110kW/350Nm 2.2-litre engine it replaces, matching the displacement of the i30 but being smaller than the 2.0-litre diesel engines in the Cruze, Golf and Focus, and the 2.2-litre oiler in the Mazda3.

Honda claims that at 170kg, thanks to its aluminium block, the use of
high-strength materials in the cylinder head and a remarkably compact
turbocharger, it’s the world’s lightest diesel.

Although Honda offers three hybrid models in Australia – the Insight, CR-Z and Civic Hybrid sedan – it remains one of the few mainstream brands to offer an exclusively petrol-powered model range.

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