"It¹s not easy being green, " sang Kermit the Frog of Sesame Street fame.
And this pithy statement applies to motorists who want to minimize their
impact on the environment as well as to amphibians.

To this point, there have been two ultra-green automobiles sold in the US
based on gasoline/electric hybrid technology, generally considered the best
environmental alternative. But both of these vehicles, the Toyota Prius and
the Honda Insight, look a little weird and neither is quite up to par in
terms of the driving experience.

Honda just made it significantly easier for car buyers to be green with the
introduction of the 2003 Civic Hybrid, which employs gasoline-electric
technology in its first mainstream application, the Civic being about as
ubiquitous as a car can get.

Being green does come with a service charge, however. Reading the Honda
Civic price list, I¹d estimate that being green costs the owner an
additional markup in the $3,000 to $5,000 range. On the other hand, the
Hybrid¹s gas mileage is spectacular and if you¹re a fixture at Sierra Club
meetings, the bragging rights are worth even more. A recent Internal Revenue
Service ruling that the Civic Hybrid was eligible for a $2,000 federal tax
deduction further offsets the initial price disadvantage.

Beyond a modest price differential, the Civic Hybrid imposes no real
limitations on the owner. The Civic Hybrid looks like any other Honda Civic
and drives and handles like a garden-variety Civic, nothing weird or exotic
here. You can just put gasoline in the tank and forget about the fact that
you are an environmentalist. And that¹s good, because the Civic has been a
top seller in the US and a benchmark automobile in its class for the last 25
years or so. The Civic Hybrid continues the model¹s evolution as a benchmark
for economical operation, efficient packaging and environmental
responsiveness. 

Honda¹s growth in the North America market was triggered in the early 1970s
with the huge success of the original Civic, which set the standard for a
clean-burning gasoline engine at a time when the domestic manufacturers said
that it couldn¹t be done. Save for the original Volkswagen Beetle, no other
small car has had the industry impact of the Honda Civic.

At the heart of the Civic Hybrid is what Honda calls its Integrated Motor
Assist system, which consists of a small extremely efficient and
clean-burning gasoline engine coupled with a lightweight electric motor. The
electric motor functions as a generator, automatically recharging the
batteries and giving the car a boost during acceleration. In the Civic
Hybrid, the battery pack is ingeniously stowed unnoticed behind the rear
seat. 

In operation, you¹d be hard pressed to detect the hybrid technology at work.
The special Civic starts like a normal automobile, accelerates quickly and
easily gets up to and maintains cruising speeds. The engine is very refined
and quiet, particularly for a small four-cylinder engine. When the Civic
comes to a stop, the gasoline actually shuts down and doesn¹t restart until
you lift your food off of the brake pedal. But Honda has made this operation
almost undetectable. You just stop and then go as in any other automobile.

The integrated motor combination delivers impressive acceleration for such a
small engine despite the fact that the Hybrid weighs a couple of hundred
pounds more than the standard Civic. Thanks to the torque characteristics of
the electric motor‹which reaches its torque peak of at just 1,000 engine
revolutions per minute‹the Hybrid gets off the line without hesitation.
Power is transmitted to the front wheels by a new continuously variable
automatic transmission that is not only efficient, but provides smooth power
delivery and eliminates shifting

Small cars have often received a deservedly bad rap as highway cruisers. The
new Civic Hybrid is quiet and free of unwanted vibration. It cruises calmly
at freeway speeds. The Civic¹s short wheelbase, on the other hand, will
pitch and dive a bit when you encounter a series of swells and heaves in the
roadbed, but this behavior is true of most small cars.

 
Vehicle: Honda Civic DX

Price as tested: $20,460

Engine:

         Type: 1.3-liter, inline four cylinder with integrated motor assist

         Horsepower: 93 @ 5,700 rpm

         Torque: 116-ft. lbs. @ 1,500 rpm

Fuel economy, automatic transmission

         City - 48 mpg

         Highway - 47 mpg

Curb Weight: 2,661