2012 Honda Civic Lx Sedan 4-door 1.8l on 2040-cars

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Best and worst car brands of 2022 according to Consumer Reports

It's that time again, Consumer Reports this morning lifting the curtain on its 2022 Annual Car Brand rankings and its 10 Top Picks in the car, crossover, and truck category. Drumroll, please: This year, Subaru climbs two spots to claim the winner's circle, having come third the last two years. Last year, Mazda climbed three spots from 2020 to take the crown. This year, Mazda slipped to second, BMW taking the last spot on the podium, also a one-spot drop from 2021. Six automakers in the top 10 hailed from Japan, which is one more than last year, and five luxury makers occupied the top 10, which is two more than last year. And South Korean representation didn't crack the top this year, after Hyundai managed tenth last year. The seven makes after BMW are: Honda, Lexus, Audi, Porsche, Mini, Toyota, and Infiniti.  The magazine and testing concern says its Brand Report Card "[reveals] which automakers are producing the most well-performing, safe, and reliable vehicles based on CR’s independent testing and member surveys," and that "Brands that rise to the top tend to have the most consistent performance across their model lineups." The domestics also took steps back among the 32 OEMs ranked on the 2022 card. Chrysler and Buick were the domestic carmakers who made last year's top 10 in eighth and ninth, respectively. This year, Buick dropped to eleventh, Chrysler to thirteenth. Dodge went from fourteenth to sixteenth. CR continues to ding Tesla's yoke steerer, the not-exactly-natural handhold responsible for the electric carmaker going from sixteenth last year to twenty-third this year.

Is Acura working on a premium minivan?

Here's a vehicle that nobody saw coming. Unless Honda/Acura is keen to play tricks on us, our spy shooters recently caught what appears to be an Acura minivan fully camouflaged for testing on some back roads on a rainy day.
Details on the disguised minivan are rather scarce, but it certainly bares all the hallmarks of an Acura. The front grille alone gives it away with a look that mimics the latest MDX, and note that the orientation of the rear door handle heavily suggests that it slides to open. Moving inside, the tester appears to borrow some tech from the luxury brand's parts bin too, and the Acura logo seems to be covered in tape right in the middle of the steering wheel.
Mechanically, our spies believe that the production version of Acura's minivan might borrow the brand's V6, nine-speed automatic and Super Handling All-Wheel Drive - a similar layout to some trims of the TLX. The photographers also think that the vehicle is a little wider than the current Honda Odyssey to give occupants a bit more room. Given the more luxurious focus, the high-end model would surely carry seven people with a bit more opulence than the standard Odyssey, especially, we'd imagine, for second-row passengers. A launch for this posh hauler could be slated for the 2016 or 2017 model years.

Honda to import Euro market Civic hatch to America

If you look at the Civic sedan Honda offers in America and look longingly at the hatchback version it sells in Europe, we've got good news. The latest word has it that the Japanese automaker will start offering the Euro-spec hatch in North America. The reason, however, may surprise you. According to Nikkei Asian Review, Honda wants to start selling the Civic hatchback in America less because it thinks that's the model Americans want, and more because it has excess capacity at its plant in the UK. Bringing it to the US would also give Honda an entry against the Volkswagen Golf and other competitors. Honda's plant in Swindon, England, is its sole assembly location in Europe, where the company's market share has dropped to a reported one percent. That doesn't mean Honda is giving up on the European market and its strong currencies, but with models like the HR-V to be manufactured in Mexico and the new Fit/Jazz to be imported from Japan, the Swindon plant doesn't have enough vehicles to produce to make use of its annual capacity of 250,000 vehicles. Producing 30,000-40,000 Civic hatchbacks each year for North America would help pick up some of the slack, but not all of it. It would also only represent a small fraction of the number of Civic sedans Honda moves here. Last year Honda sold over 325,000 Civics in America and over 336,000 the year before, making the Civic its second- or third-most popular model here after the Accord and closely positioned with the CR-V crossover. The reported number of Civic hatchbacks it would sell here wouldn't even keep up with the smaller Fit, but would far overshadow the CR-Z hybrid hatchback. The bigger question that performance enthusiasts will be asking is: What does this mean for the prospects of getting the new Type R hot hatch over here? Revealed in production form at the Geneva show earlier this month, the new Civic Type R is based on the European hatchback in question. Prior to the emergence of this report, the official line was that we wouldn't get the new performance model because its bodystyle isn't offered here altogether, and that our version would more likely be based on the sedan. If the five-door model makes its way here, though, we can't help but wonder if the Type R might not follow close behind. Reached for comment, Honda's US office didn't have anything official to add, but we'll be watching this development closely to see how it plays out. Related Video: