Honda is one of the largest automakers in the world, and the Japanese auto giants have a lot of popular cars in its lineup. One of Honda’s best and most well-known cars is the Civic, and Honda gave the Civic a complete redesign for the 2022 model year. However, despite the total redesign, the 2022 Honda Civic has not been selling well, and here’s a look at why that may be the case.

The changes that Honda gave the Civic for the 2022 redesign

Since Honda gave the Civic a redesign, the entire car is practically different from before. Honda changed the way the Civic looks on the outside, as well as how it looks on the inside. The Honda sedan’s new look is cleaner than before, but it still looks similar to the old Civic. There’s a bigger difference inside the cabin, as according to MotorTrend, the new Civic’s cabin looks more upscale than before. 

In addition to that, the starting trim on the Civic gets a 7-inch touchscreen, which used to be reserved for the car’s top trims. The new Civic also gets a bigger optional touchscreen, as it’s 9 inches.

Plus, all Civics get a digital gauge cluster display. It’s a 7-inch screen as standard, but it can be upgraded into a 10.2-inch one. Furthermore, Honda improved the Civic’s safety features for the 2022 model year.

Critics liked the 2022 Honda Civic, but its sales have flopped

One major area that was practically unchanged is the Civic’s engines. The standard engine is still a 2-liter four-cylinder, and the optional engine is still a 1.5-liter turbo four-cylinder. This optional engine now gets 180 hp instead of the 174 hp it got in the 2021 model year, but other than that, the engines are about the same. 

Overall, since Honda only really improved on the Civic, car critics have continued to be pleased with the car. Since critics still like the Civic, and since the Civic is still an affordable compact sedan, it’s reasonable to assume that Honda has been selling a lot of Civics recently. Surprisingly though, that’s not really the case.

In fact, according to GoodCarBadCar, the Civic is having its worst year in terms of sales since 2005, which is the earliest year that the site has info on. Honda usually sells about 300,000 Civics a year.

As of November 2022, the Japanese auto giant has only sold about 120,000 units of the small sedan in 2022. Honda needs to move over 100,000 Civics in December 2022 just to pass 2011 in terms of total Civic sales.

Drivers still like the Civic, but there are supply chain issues

The monthly numbers are even more dire. In August 2022, Honda only sold just over 7,000 units of the popular sedan. That’s compared to 19,000 units in August 2021, and 25,000 units in August 2020. It may be reasonable to claim that the Civic’s massive drop in sales year-over-year is because drivers don’t like the redesign, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Like many other automakers, Honda has been hit hard by the supply chain crisis. This has caused the Japanese automaker to shut down factories temporarily, which has also meant that there are simply fewer Hondas at dealerships. Drivers want to buy a Civic, but since there’s a low supply of them, the actual sale price of those Civics have risen. This shows that the Civic hasn’t flopped, but is a casualty of the ongoing supply chain crisis.