Honda Australia's Epic Price Fail: Over $47K for New 2022 Civic

Honda Australia thinks you’re going to pay much more for the new Civic, in 2022. In this report, the real reason consumers like you probably won’t bother buying one…

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New Honda Civic debuts Down Under with just one model variant in the range, fully loaded, and with four colours (black white red and blue).

Honda Australia is still alive, commercially, barely, and yet is tasked with selling the new Civic, despite there being nothing remarkable about this car, in my view. Except the price…

So, what’s new with Civic?

Well, it’s the same size, same weight, has the same engine, essentially, no real innovation with this car, compared with other contemporary cars and it’s somewhat less ugly (I think) than the outgoing Civic which it replaces. Let's face it, that car was Predator-level hideous.

They want $47,200. That's a $16,200 price rise. I would love to be a fly on the wall following the convoluted trail of so-called logic which concluded that this whole concept was a good idea.

Last week (November 2021), you could buy old ugly poverty Civic for about $31,000, but if you wanted a Civic going forward (December 2021 onward), you have to buy the top of the range. And there is only the top of the range.

So I guess it's also the bottom of the range but it's fully loaded anyway, and you have to pay $47,200. 

Now, if you're a Honda fan, I get that perhaps you think I'm being unfair with this $16K price rise. But consider it this way:

In previous weeks, if you bought the range topping Civic RS, the outgoing one, it was $39,600, driveaway. The new one is $47,000 - that’s a 20 percent price hike - I can’t present it any fairer than this. In the current market, that is clinically insane.

Wind the clock back a few months and you’d keep $16,000 buying a Honda Civic.

Same car in Japan is 3.54 million Yen, which is about $44,000 Australian dollars. Japan has the same 10 per cent consumption tax rate as our GST. There’s a free-trade agreement between our nations, so there’s no import duty. 

Further, the steering wheel is on the same side of the car, the tax rate’s the same, these cars even come from the same factory. It certainly does not cost $3200 to ship each one here. Not in bulk, at the kinds of shipping rates carmakers enjoy.

I guess this is all part of the kaleidoscopic Honda Fixed Price Promise:

How stupid does Honda Australia think you are to believe this rubbish?

“Transparent and enjoyable” is ironic. Can you imagine if Kia had given birth to a new Sportage recently, with a 20 per cent price hike? Imagine if the i20 N cost $7000 more than the Fiesta ST? It would be a media feeding frenzy, I’d suggest.

I reckon consumers might even agree with the transparency thing, only, they can see right through you, Honda.

As for ‘enjoyable’, do you enjoy a 20 per cent price hike for coffee, or your local pizza shop or takeaway place? If you’ve had a string of base-model Civics quite happily for several years, and now the barrier to Civic entry just jumped $16,000. Betrayed is how you would probably feel.

If this new Civic were a hybrid and it cost $7600 more - fair enough. Only it’s not a hybrid. There might be a hybrid later. But as we know, it’ll cost even more thanks to Honda’s Fixed Price Promise: Details Here >>.

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HONDA VERSUS MAZDA: WHICH IS BETTER VALUE?

This new Honda Civic is a notionally small car. It’s the same size as a Mazda3: full buyer’s guide here >>.

Mazda3 is so Civic-like it’s really not funny. But if you look at the details, you’ll start to notice that the range-topping Mazda makes more power and torque, has a bigger fuel tank, is slightly lighter, and you can have it as a sedan or a hatch, where the Honda is hatch-only. And the Mazda is available with a manual or a conventional torque converter auto, whereas the Honda is a CVT only.

I hate CVTs, personally, but they do save you fuel. In this case, 4.5%, based on the official laboratory-standardised tests. But if you buy the manual Mazda3 Astina, the fuel economy is equal to the new Civic.

So, the automatic Mazda3 Astina is officially about $43,200, drive-away. But there’s no Mazda Fixed Price Promise, thankfully, so even if you are the world’s most incompetent negotiator, and you manage to mumble:

‘I can’t afford that…’

That’s all you have to say and there’s at least a chance you’ll get a discount. It’s a game. Except that Honda isn’t playing the long game.

It’s very easy to a Mazda 3 for less than $40,000. So there’s a $7000 price gap, and I cannot see $7000 worth of objective reasons to go with Honda. For what?

Civic: $47,000

Negotiate a Mazda 3 for $40K, easy.

i30 N: $47K, maybe $45K.

If you want something properly speedy: You can buy an i30 N manual for $47k. And that’s a proper performance car. You could also buy any one of half a dozen hybrids, if you want to rock a green car instead. Or even an MG ZS EV - and you’d drive away there, electric dreaming, for $2000 less than the Honda.

Honda’s Fixed Price Promise is right on the money, if being an objectively shit price is the commitment; Honda Australia seems like it’s promising to stick to it. 

If you want an equivalent competitor the Mazda3 range-topper is $7000 cheaper, in practise. If you want more performance, the i30 N manual is the same price as new hairdresser’s Civic. And if you want an ‘eco car’ - you are burdened by a vast choice of greener alternatives at the same price or less.

Honda has its head in a vice, and this new Civic is a classic case of nice styling, but no fundamental innovation. Honda has lost the ability to innovate - and this is one of the great automotive tragedies of the early 21st Century. We’re talking about the inventor of VTEC.

And the double-whammy here is: Economics. This price is nothing more than a slap in the face that’s only enjoyable if you have too much money to spend and don’t do any basic research.

You might also like to consider the awesome value Kia Cerato GT which is quite potent, or a Subaru Impreza if you want AWD, there’s also the bland but not-expensive Toyota Corolla.

WHERE IS HONDA HEADING?

Honda engaged in a mass dealer-culling five months ago in Australia. It announced the Fixed Price Promise around that time, and since then, Honda’s Australian sales have tanked >> ‘to their lowest level since record-keeping began’. 

This is a strictly democratic process. New car buyers like you vote with your cash. It seems to me that the Australian public has voted on what I regard as a ridiculous concept of paying the worst price on every Honda, every time. It’s their promise to you. Transparent and enjoyable.

Here’s why you absolutely should not buy a Honda in 2022 >>

Honda might have won the 2021 Formula 1 driver’s championship, but in Australia at least, it seems the sun is setting.

One aspect of this that is neither transparent nor enjoyable is the gentle treatment of the Civic price increase in the mainstream motoring media. Honda deserves a scolding on this issue, in my estimation. 

But really, they don’t get criticised, generally. The media reports the facts - sometimes - but we wouldn’t want to offend a potential advertiser. So they smooth it over, they tone it down, change the wording. 

For a journalist to offer an objective opinion about this trajectory Honda has chosen, that’s the publishing equivalent of committing apostasy.

Advertising is the prime bad media incentive - it turns journalists into a bunch of pseudo marketing copywriters working to promote or defend carmakers. If you see a Honda ad on the page, you can guarantee they’re going to keep Honda happy. And the biggest casualty in this is you, in the audience, the consumer.

New Civic, look I’m sure it’s an okay car, good enough to pass for a Honda, but it’s not particularly special. 

They’ve done its hair and makeup and bought it a new dress, at best. But the price is, frankly, an insult. It takes this car off the table if you care what your money buys you. It makes Civic just another nail in Honda’s coffin and they don’t need to hammer too many more of those in, before there’s no escape.

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