2024 Honda Civic Hatchback EX-L

If you are seeking a sporty aesthetic while also needing the most practicality you can get out of something that fits in a compact space, this is the one for you, especially at this price point.

Good Side

Thanks to Honda’s vast experience with front-wheel-drive vehicles, the 11th-generation Civic sports a well-balanced suspension that excels in the corners and pairs nicely with the car’s reactive steering. We were worried about the use of a CVT transmission at first, but thankfully the 1.5-liter turbo engine squeezes out just enough power to change our minds and make the drive feel responsive. While these benefits are built into every new Civic, you can add more practicality to the vehicle by going with the hatchback model. Even with a style-forward fastback design, the amount of space added by the hatch puts this vehicle at the top of the list in terms of storage space.

Inside

As soon as you sit in the new Civic, you can tell they put just as much care in designing the interior as they did with the powertrain. As soon as you sit in the Civic you can feel how comfortable the seats are while still providing support for faster driving. You also notice a multitude of physical controls and a simplified layout that is much more intuitive than previous Civic interiors. Honda even went the extra mile and utilized metal instead of plastic on something as mundane as the air vent covers. While the physical things on the interior are well sorted, the technology powering the vehicle is where this vehicle begins to let us down. If you want to connect your phone to the car using something like Android Auto, you need to use an already outdated USB-A port. Which might not be a big deal if you already have a cable that fits, but it is a big deal for longevity. USB-C ports are rated to be used three times longer than USB-A ports. Which means you might not have problems today but in the long run (year 6 and beyond) you might run into issues that could have been avoided if Honda spent a little more money up front on implementing a USB-C connector.

Bad Side

Maybe it’s in the name of cost savings or maybe it’s the move to US-based manufacturing, but the build quality has noticeably decreased from prior generations to now. The perfect example of this is the Civic’s hood, which sat unevenly on the vehicle’s bodywork. Whether this was something that happened at the factory or in transit, this was still a brand-new car that had a hood which sat below the left fender and above the right fender. This left us disappointed in the overall build quality of the vehicle and any others that might have come out of the US factory.

Summary & Ratings

Building a car at this price point is not an easy task. Honda, however, has built cars for a really long time, and this Civic prioritized the vehicle’s styling and driving dynamics above all else. If you share their philosophy and are set on getting a vehicle in this price range, you will be hard-pressed to find a vehicle on sale today that can do those two things better than the 2024 Civic.

👎 Build quality

👍 Exterior look

👍 Interior feel

👎 Infotainment 

👍 Driving experience