The Honda Civic Hybrid for 2010

The Honda Civic 2010 Hybrid is designed to haul you and your family around with ease although it is a small four-door sedan.  It has excellent fuel efficiency, spacious front seats and great regular car handling.  It also gets a newer lights and grille but other than that it remains pretty much unchanged from previous models.  There are some minor alterations to the exterior including different wheels, a side-view mirror with built-in turn indicators, clear turn-signal lenses, and a spoiler for the small trunk.  The interior has rich blue coloring and bluish lighting although the dual-tiered instrument panel which combines digital and analog gauges are odd.  The backseat doesn’t have much space with limited rear access, it lacks trunk-pass through and the ride is hard and bumpy but all-in-all it is a nicely rounded impressive vehicle.

The 2010 Civic Hybrid from Honda is equipped with one trim level that includes 16-inch alloy wheels, a sunroof, ambient console lighting, 60/40 split rear seatback with a fold-down armrest, a six-speaker sound system, steering-wheel mounted audio controls,  USB input and an automatic climate control.

The Civic Hybrid uses a gasoline and electric hybrid powertrain to maximize its fuel economy.  There are five different modes that allow the gas engine and electrics work together in different ways.  The 2010 Honda Civic Hybrid has a four-cylinder, 1.3-liter engine that produces up to 110 hp and is coupled with a continuously variable transmission or CVT.  The power train alone consists of 93 hp and gets an extra 17-20 hp through the electric motor.  Fuel economy is estimated at 40/45/42 mpg.  Unfortunately, the Civic Hybrid is quite slow.

The Honda Civic Hybrid for 2010 comes with numerous safety features that does well in crash tests; it has a five-star rating for frontal impacts while side impacts gets a four-star rating for front passengers and five-stars for rear passengers.  Equipped features include front-seat side airbags, full-length side curtain airbags, active front head restraints, antilock brakes, rear drums and stability control.

Although, the Honda Civic Hybrid has a strange gauge layout and there is only 10 cubic feet of space in the trunk, the controls are nicely laid out and user friendly when operating them.  Also, the seats are comfortable in the front and rear, the materials use are however are not of very good quality.  One feature that is nice is the rear floor is flat all the way across so that the person unfortunate enough to be sitting in the middle is more comfortable.