
In this year of pandemic, automakers have been looking for new ways to launch new products and Honda will turn to streaming service Twitch to introduce the 2022 Civic next week.
While sedans have lost a lot of momentum over the last several years, the 2022 Honda Civic will be a critical offering for the Japanese automaker and it is betting that Twitch will give it access to the “young, first-time and multicultural consumers” that make up the bulk of Civic buyers.
Honda released some new images today to tease the 11th-generation Civic. But we’ll have to wait until Tuesday, Nov. 17, for full details. The debut event will take place on the Honda Head2Head Twitch channel, starting at 8 p.m. EST, the formal unveiling scheduled for 9:45 p.m. The event will feature Grammy-nominated recording artist Cordae.

In line with the young, tech-oriented Twitch audience, the event also will feature two teams battling it out on Fortnite, Twitch’s second most streamed videogame.
The Civic has been around since 1973, Honda selling 12 million in the U.S. market alone over nearly a half century.
The automaker is keeping mum ahead of next week’s introduction but we’ve been able to pick up some key details about the Gen-11 compact.
Several new patent drawings were unearthed recently and they suggest that Honda has opted for a more evolutionary and conservative approach to the 2022 Civic’s styling, with the new model picking up on key design elements first seen with last year’s makeover of the bigger Accord, as well as the Insight, a hybrid-only model sharing the Civic platform.
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Based on the patent drawings, that should translate into a more streamlined grille and more traditional headlamps, among other things, the Civic losing the quirky C-shaped lights on the current model.
While Honda might be taking a more conservative approach to styling than it did with the aggressive model the new Civic replaces, we can expect Japan’s third-largest automaker will continue to play up the car’s sporty, fun-to-drive nature. But whether there will be as many variants as with the outgoing model is a matter of some debate considering the decline of the passenger car segment of the market.
What we can be sure of is that Honda will upgrade the interior and add some new technology, including a larger touchscreen and updated infotainment software. It remains to be seen whether a manual transmission will remain available on some models but Honda is all but certain to migrate to the e-shifter seen on other products for automatic transmissions – most likely, Honda sticking with the CVT now used in the Civic.

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Expect to see upgrades to the Honda Sensing suite of advanced driver assistance systems, as is the case with the new Accord Hybrid.
In terms of powertrains, there will be a mix of options from base up to the next-gen Civic Type-R. The foundation of the line-up will be a 1.5-liter turbo-four that, in the current Civic makes 174 horsepower and 162 pound-feet of torque. At the upper extremes, the Type-R relies on a turbo-four displacing 2.0-liters and making 306 hp and 295 lb-ft.
With the Insight in the line-up, it’s not expected we will see a hybrid version of the 2022 Honda Civic. Look for the production model to start rolling into U.S. showrooms next spring. As is the Honda norm, it is likely to stagger the rollout of new Civic variants, however.