Spending three weeks with the Honda Civic RS e:HEV reminds us why it’s our top pick for 2025

Our top five picks for 2025 are out, and gaining the top spot once again for the third year in a row is Honda, this time with the Civic 2.0 RS e:HEV. This was a unanimous decision by the team, but I’ve always asked myself how it won our hearts by a landslide.

READ | TOP 5: The best cars we reviewed in 2025

Thankfully, I got the chance to get reacquainted with the electrified compact sedan after a minor problem cancelled my three-week holiday lend-out with Honda Cars Philippines’ Civic Type R (FL5) media tester. HCPI then offered to replace it with the Civic RS e:HEV, which I gladly accepted.

And there it was, waiting for me at my condominium parking space as I got home from a consecutive six-day overseas vacation and two-day out-of-town work trip, finished in a stunning Platinum White Pearl paint job, looking very much like the FL5 in its iconic Championship White color. I apparently like this more than the new Canyon River Blue hero color, which I thought I preferred, until I saw this one up close.

That goes perfectly matched with the more angular front bumper and larger honeycomb mesh grilles, along with the ’90s-inspired 18-inch alloy wheels, that were all introduced in the latest update from late 2024. The dark finish on those shoes, along with the blacked-out accents all around this RS trim, contrasts perfectly with the white paint.

Stylish on the outside? Check. 

The interior remains a great place to be with high-quality soft-touch surfaces all over the dashboard and front doors, while hard-touch surfaces still feel good to the touch. The controversial honeycomb mesh design for the aircon vents still remains dust-free after more than a year of motoring media abuse.

The seats, wrapped in a mix of leather and suede, feel very premium. The front seats will also hug you very well, despite feeling a bit too wide, at least for my stature. 

Tech isn’t behind either with a nice nine-inch touchscreen infotainment. It’s not the most comprehensive in terms of features, but it gets the job done with a simple and very user-friendly interface. In other words, it’s the right way to do an infotainment system, especially when paired with the excellent-sounding 12-speaker Bose audio system.

Google Built-In is built-in (pun intended); however, you must connect it to your phone’s WiFi hotspot in order to use Android applications such as the Play Store, Waze, and Google Maps, and Spotify and YouTube Music, among others, without using the wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto feature.

This is good and all, but unlike similar systems from vehicles such as Tesla and BYD, it does not come with a built-in (pun intended again) data plan locally that allows you to use the head unit independently without using your phone’s WiFi hotspot, despite the system supporting this feature. Hopefully, Honda Cars Philippines partners with a local telco to make this feature usable.

Space is one area in which this compact sedan excels. With its wheelbase of 2,735mm, it’s able to provide top-tier cabin space, even at the second row, easily beating out the Toyota Corolla Altis and Mazda 3, with the Hyundai Elantra close to being on par with it. In fact, it’s already larger than a Honda Accord from the late 90s.

A great interior? Check.

The Honda Civic has always been known for being the fun-to-drive option in the compact sedan segment, and that stays true to this day despite electrification.

While we lose the iconic i-VTEC engine startup noise, the combination of the R20 engine-based 2.0-liter engine that’s paired to Honda’s dual motor system for the e:HEV hybrid powertrain is one of the best out there. 

The engine is capable of 141 horsepower and 182Nm of torque, while the motors put out a combined 184 horsepower and 315Nm. Combined figures for both the engine and electric motor are unavailable, but with good numbers from both, you can imagine how it feels once they do work in tandem.

If there’s one thing we like about Honda’s e:HEV system, it’s the capability of charging its lithium-ion battery quickly through regenerative braking. This allows the vehicle to move more on electric power even at highway speeds, obviously giving better fuel economy figures.

And economical it is, capable of up to 35.9km/l in a mix of city and highway driving. Pure city driving can even yield about 29 km/l without trying at all. 

Our entire time with the tester, spanning exactly three weeks with 902.6km driven, yielded 21.6km/l in a mix of light and heavy Christmas rush hour city traffic, plenty of expressways and provincial highways, and a lot of idling while taking photos. 

Excellent efficiency? Check.

Excellent is also the best way to describe how it drives, with so much torque available, it’s very easy to get up to speed. It’s effortless, to say the least, and really provides a good connection between the driver and the car.

If you want to have some fun, it delivers with the way it handles. Steering feedback is plentiful, with a little bit more weight added for extra feel. Putting the vehicle in Sport mode adds even more weight for a sportier touch, in addition to piped-in engine sounds for the classic Honda experience, mimicking the sound of Civics of old.

I do really appreciate the Individual Drive Mode, which is taken from the Civic Type R’s playbook. This allows for a customizable driving experience, letting you select your own individual settings for the powertrain (Econ, Normal, Sport), Engine Sound, Steering, and even the colors of the 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster.

And for those who still want to know how the Honda SENSING advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) perform, we’ve said it time and time again, this is one of the best ADAS suites out there. I did, however, find myself barely using it during my stint with the vehicle, as I really enjoyed just driving it completely by myself without any assistance.

So the Honda Civic RS e:HEV can do it all, but no car is perfect, right? Well, here’s my only gripe with this—tire noise.

Driving on different road conditions, the tire noise is undeniably the Civic’s downfall. Maybe it’s the Michelin Pilot Sport 4, or maybe there isn’t enough sidewall, but they just get way too loud at speed. It’s so loud that increasing music volume on the excellent sound system will not be enough to dumb it down. 

But hey, some may see it as a part of that stronger driver-car-road connection. Maybe, just maybe.

As TheAutoPH Associate Editor Sam Surla puts it in his review of the Honda Civic RS e:HEV last year, it’s the jack of all trades, master of none. Bar that excessive tire noise and its rather steep asking price of Php 1,990,000, this Civic is one of the best you can get on the market today.

The whole three weeks I spent with the car truly reminded us why it is our Car of the Year for 2025. There is no doubt that it does nearly everything so well–style, comfort, driving feel, efficiency, tech, you name it. It’s very easy to mess up a very popular model, expectations and all, but Honda didn’t. 

Hats off to Honda for a job well done!

2026 Honda Civic 2.0 RS e:HEV E-CVT | Key Information

Engine	2.0-liter LFC-H4 (R20-based) Inline 4-Cylinder Atkinson Cycle Engine + Dual Electric Motor
Output	141 horsepower, 182Nm (Engine) 184 horsepower, 315Nm (Electric Motor)
Transmission	E-CVT
Drivetrain	Front-wheel Drive (FWD)
Seating Capacity	5 (including driver)
Price	Php 1,990,000 (as of January 2026)
Pros	Fun to drive, High-quality and comfortable interior, Excellent fuel economy
Cons	Tire noise gets very loud, Pricing is expensive

_{Photos by Julian Panlilio and Sam Surla}