Civic X Life Expectancy

[Manual]

I'm not a big advocate for electric cars persay... but honestly I think high torque electric motors will make performance of middling ICEs seem lame.

I expect the civic is the last car I'll buy without electric propulsion of some kind. I think Honda's 2-motor hybrid drive may be more future-proofed than a lot of the competition, allowing for increased performance/flexibility as battery tech advances.

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[syncro87]

I expect the civic is the last car I'll buy without electric propulsion of some kind. I think Honda's 2-motor hybrid drive may be more future-proofed than a lot of the competition, allowing for increased performance/flexibility as battery tech advances.

This is a great point. It might not be too long into the future when the majority of new cars are hybrid or pure electric. Cars that operate purely under ICE power will become less common at some point.

 

[a c i d.f l y]

This is a great point. It might not be too long into the future when the majority of new cars are hybrid or pure electric. Cars that operate purely under ICE power will become less common at some point.

As soon as the price/performance eclipses an ICE, and available charging stations, and charging becomes as fast or faster than fueling. Longer way off than folks think, but will definitely occur in my lifetime.

 

[charleswrivers]

Longer way off than folks think, but will definitely occur in my lifetime.

Agreed. I read a lot of stuff calling for electrics to eclipse ICE cars by 2025... even 2030. Even when the tipping point occurs that a pure ICE car is the minority for new sales... there's still untold hundreds of millions of ICE cars in the world. It'll be a long time before newly manufactured other-than-pure-ICE cars largely displace them largely on the road... and I don't think I'll live long enough not to see ICE cars be somewhat common, even if when I'm an old man and the pure ICE cars are being driven by enthusiasts.

 

[Manual]

VW says about as many as 1/3(approx, 3 million out of 10.7 million(?)) will be EV's by 2025, (80 models) and all 300 models will have an EV option by 2030. This is some indication that by 2030, if you're not buying some type of EV you're behind the times, .. although I expect europe will (will continue) to go "EV" sooner than the US market.

http://europe.autonews.com/article/...ld-evs-in-16-factories-in-zero-emissions-push


VW's "supercharger" network is starting in the US this year. Looks to be about 1/4 of the size of Tesla's current charging infrastructure.

http://www.hybridcars.com/vw-install-100-fast-chargers-walmarts/

 

[Swordfish]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say by the time we hit the 2030s, cars will be so integrated in tech that gets obsolete quickly and with economies of scale for the electric car side of the house that the current Civic will be well far behind the pack of what will likely be a mix of all electrics/hybrids/ICEs with a bunch if tech to squeeze the most range/performance per gallon. I think in the salt belt the thin skinned cars coupled with Honda's poor paint jobs will will rust to nothing. Self driving will likely be widespread, if not mainstream. A fast charging infastructure will likely be well developed too... though I'm not 100% Tesla will make it much into the next decade.

I see a slew of 10-15 year old Honda's going strong... but more and more I see cars as being pretty disposable. I'm not a big advocate for electric cars persay... but honestly I think high torque electric motors will make performance of middling ICEs seem lame.

Back here on Earth and not in the clouds, I recall a requirement existing that a auto manufacture has to provide parts for cars at least 10 years after production is ceased. I don't recall where I read that as it's been years... I think with regard to GM after Olds/Pontiac folded and that is was a regulation that existed beyond that circumstance. The Accord, Civic and CRV all share the same powertrain essentially... so parts will be easy to come by in salvage yards a *long* time. When I last had a Z31, an '86 in '08 when production had ceased in '89... I was doing fine. I'm doing fine with my Z32, still finding mostly NOS, though at a premium for a '94 now in '18. The Civic and, even more its powertrain, is a very, very common car/powertrain. If I can keep a 24 year old rarish Z-car going... a Civic will be no sweat. I think it'll be wildly obsolete though. A 1995 car to a 2005 car is not going to be the same as a 2018 car to a 2028 car with regard to it's tech and power train. Honda just dipped their toe in the water with a small displacement lean burning direct injected turbo engine. They're late to the game on all those technologies... they just wrapped it in one package. Nissan is going variable compression. Mazda going HCCI. BMW (I think... maybe someone else) was doing factory water injection as a possibility. Theres a push for raising octane rating in the US beyond 93 at the pump... though the Civic could actually stand to gain from it. That to say nothing about the electric/hybrids. It's an exciting time for cars.

I know everybody gets excited about new tech and the new developments on the horizon, but I'm probably living in the 90s here. As I have gotten older I have come to realize that if it's not broken don't fix it. I still think the best quality Japanese cars were in the 90s and early 2000s. Now I think the quality has slipped and the Japanese are just riding on their reputation not actual product. Case in point: Tesla. There's a guy I know with a Model S. Spent around $80,000 on the car and it has tons of creaking inside and his doors don't line up. They are off by close to a quarter inch.

 

[charleswrivers]

I know everybody gets excited about new tech and the new developments on the horizon, but I'm probably living in the 90s here. As I have gotten older I have come to realize that if it's not broken don't fix it. I still think the best quality Japanese cars were in the 90s and early 2000s. Now I think the quality has slipped and the Japanese are just riding on their reputation not actual product. Case in point: Tesla. There's a guy I know with a Model S. Spent around $80,000 on the car and it has tons of creaking inside and his doors don't line up. They are off by close to a quarter inch.

I'm with you on Tesla... and is why I said I don't know how long Tesla will survive. Still... we're seeing a slow but consistent push for more economy on ICEs... and hybrids and electrics are in there too. HCCI exploiting the design benefits of diesels... the variable compression... its pretty wild stuff. There's nothing special about Tesla... other than them getting people to invest (too much) money for them buying an old car factory and making a battery factory to make run of the mill high capacity Lion batteries at an economy of scale to make the price (more) reasonable. They make a car that has big motors so they have outstanding performance compared to your Volts/Bolts/Leafs/etc... but yeah... their quality control is horrendous. It's groundbreaking that they exist and what their trying to put into the package... but the pieces are parts are in no way groundbreaking. They're being sustained by cash they got from the govt, selling stocks and bonds and not from sales themselves and may go the way of Delorean before too long. We shall see.

We'll see how it plays out through the '20s. We've seen entries for plug in hybrids and pure electrics from a lot of makers other than Tesla.

When I think of the 90s going through into 00... the biggest things I see is the death of iron where possible, replaced with aluminum and 4 valves/cylinder superceeding 2 where possible and some refinements to restore performance back to the pre-emissions/fuel crisis fiasco of the 70s that made the 80s suck hard until they we're able to marry them all together and performance came back.

This are moving/changing more drastically/quickly now than then. The K series in it's performance trim was and is an awesome engine... but it's an engine of yesterday, made relevent for performance by offering it with a turbo on the R. Exhaust VTEC died for emissions for gen 9 and it's fuel economy can't compete when made to be powerful enough to be competitive, though I will say the 2.0t for the Accord seems to be a good balance of power and economy all the while on 87 octane. I'm honestly not sure where the NA K20 stands and why it exists today. Sure it works. It works today as it did as the 7th gen Sis engine and the base RSXs engine... but it's really just a slightly more refined version of the K20A3 from over 15 years ago... but it's old stuff. There just seems no where else to go with it.

I'm not down on things of the past. I have my old, inefficient, laggy VG30dett in my Z. Made of iron and heavy (and durable) as hell. I love it... buts it's old stuff and from a perfomance and efficiency stand point is completely obsolete compared to modern engines. It was killing it in the days of Fox body 5.0s and pre-LT GM V8s. A modern Coyote 5.0 would crush it... and a 10th gen Civic would likely beat an old stock twin turbo Z with just a reflash... certainly from a roll... and Honda just took the DI which was sort of new-mainstream a decade ago, grabbed a small turbo and slapped it in the tiny displacement L engine that was moving the Fits around for efficiency's sake... and kept performance by going FI. It's a good showing this generation... but nothing groundbreaking on the scene. I do think we're going to see a lot of cool stuff in the '20s be mainstream. Too many companies are looking to try too many new things. A ~200 hp ~30 mpg K series engine existed from the RSX to the Civics from '02 to '15. By the end of it's run... the Civic was critically panned.

Old stuff, built well, still works great. It still works today as good as it worked when it was new. Still, repackaging the same old thing as other things around you advance and trying to sellsit new will kill you as a company. If they had stuck another K24Z7... maybe adding DI and gaining a couple MPGs and 10-20 HP in the process of a timing advance... I think they would have had a *great* engine... but I think it would have been panned. Low 30s for mpgs wouldn't work when 40-ish has been kind of the number to reach for awhile. While those of us with 1.5ts wouldn't have had the headroom of being factory FI... a factory tuned K24 with DI would have likely been faster than ours... and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some engineering examples generated and tested but scrapped as they could get competitive numbers from them.

...sorry. This is the stuff that really piques my interest with cars. *No one* at work is a car guy. Bunch of losers...

 

[a c i d.f l y]

VW says about as many as 1/3(approx, 3 million out of 10.7 million(?)) will be EV's by 2025, (80 models) and all 300 models will have an EV option by 2030. This is some indication that by 2030, if you're not buying some type of EV you're behind the times, .. although I expect europe will (will continue) to go "EV" sooner than the US market.

Being able to drive from Austin to Houston without recharging, and the fact that gas is a LOT cheaper over here...

 

[Gruber]

VW says about as many as 1/3(approx, 3 million out of 10.7 million(?)) will be EV's by 2025, (80 models) and all 300 models will have an EV option by 2030. This is some indication that by 2030, if you're not buying some type of EV you're behind the times, .. although I expect europe will (will continue) to go "EV" sooner than the US market.

http://europe.autonews.com/article/...ld-evs-in-16-factories-in-zero-emissions-push


VW's "supercharger" network is starting in the US this year. Looks to be about 1/4 of the size of Tesla's current charging infrastructure.

http://www.hybridcars.com/vw-install-100-fast-chargers-walmarts/

I predict these Hondas will not be made obsolete by EV before they fall apart.

Purely electric cars have been the bright future already since decades... I don't understand what makes people believe they will soon arrive. Which exactly technological breakthroughs happened that would make it true? What new technology came ? No new batteries since a long time. What's possible today that wasn't 20 years ago? or even much earlier except mild improvements of the lithium technology?

Nobody still made money selling electric cars, and they are still often "lease only". The only thing that continuously gets more optimistic for electric cars are the government wishes.

It's like windmills. Windmills have been designed since at least 150 years ago and practical working large scale windmills were built, among others, in Russia in 1920's, in the USA in 1940's... and they kinda worked. A lot of talk over decades, and they are still practically insignificant today...

 

[rraayy3]

1. i hate the fact that so much time is being wasted on the development of autonomous cars
- it's dangerous, unnecessary, and an absurd waste of resources.
- I would never be able to trust a robot to adjust to potholes/traffic/detours/change in weather etc. and just "sit there" while a robot drives me.

2. the new civic is a perfect blend of fun, fuel efficiency/emissions, etc. And I can throw snowboards in it without thinking twice. I will have this car until it no longer runs.

3. companies haven't even perfected "driver assisted technology", most people i know with it find it incredibly annoying and ultimately not needed/useful. Watch the road, you don't need beeps and flashing signals telling you you're drifing out of your lane or a car stopped ahead of you.

4. i love the hatchback sport - so, so much.

5. "the future" is always more promising in theory. i thought we were supposed to all be on hoverboards and flying cars by now?

 

[DeVo]

i also don't expect to have this car for its entire lifespan. i'm sure in 5-10 years honda, or another brand, will convince me to trade up

 

[a c i d.f l y]

The major improvement in battery tech is the speed with which they charge. That's one of the primary obstacles. Used to take an overnight charge, and now Tesla has a semi that drives 300 miles on a 30 minute charge. New phones? Used to take all night to charge the massive battery (compared to old Nokia phones that had small batteries but very low power drain comparatively), now charge in two hours.

LKAS and collision warning has saved me from minor rear ending a couple times already. Automatic cruise control is also incredibly awesome for long drives. Means I can actively watch for idiots doing chaotic things and less on maintaining speed or within my lane. It has its perks. The wheel slightly jerking when you're in a lane that has turn offs is annoying, but tolerable. It will also keep me in the lane on its own at 90mph.

Once robot powered driving has become so efficient, I could see it one day becoming a requirement on major roads. "Automated only" roads and the like. They don't get tired, and monitor the road 100% of the time. Some folks are spooked by it. Others simply like to be in control. Personally if the majority of cars were automated I'd feel a lot safer. Most people suck at driving, and aren't like Civic owners who tend to be active drivers. Passive drivers who hardly pay attention, and spend most of their time talking on a phone or those who text and drive annoy the hell out of me. Get out of the way, stay in your lane, or at the least maintain speed, ffs.

And speaking of weather, lol, everyone knows people forget how to drive when there's the lightest amount of rain, let alone snow, and we already have heavily advanced traction control systems that help a lot. Pair that with top of the line sensors, radar, camera, lasers, etc etc, and driving in those environments becomes a lot easier and safer. If it would keep folks from rubbernecking, even better.

I look at how the masses drive, not my individual driving. 20 years, no accidents, no speeding tickets. Even your average person has a speeding ticket in the last five years. I see how other people drive, and it amazes me how risky some folks are. Cross three lanes of traffic, no turn signal, in heavy traffic while speeding; driving the wrong way on a turn about (has literally happened to me on several occasions); driving 20 under on a 75mph road, and worse.

So yeah, I say bring on our robot overlords. But let me have the option to drive myself.

 

[a c i d.f l y]

i also don't expect to have this car for its entire lifespan. i'm sure in 5-10 years honda, or another brand, will convince me to trade up

I won't get an X.5 (the 2019+, which might be the XI), but we'll see what the 12 offers. Have had plans to get a Tesla, but waiting for the tech to be a little more proven, and an increase on available charging stations. Most Walmart, HEB, and Whole Foods locations have plug in parking spots, but living in Texas, finding a charging station between major cities is still a challenge. About 5x as bad as owning a diesel, but you can guarantee every truck stop gas station will offer diesel.

Though who knows, I owned my last Honda for 10 years and it was already 12 years old, so I may hold onto this one. Especially after the money I've out into it. 'Course my income will dictate that. Wasn't making 1/4 as much when I bought my 96 Civic, lol.

 

[charleswrivers]

Again.. Not a tech snob. I have a 24 year old Z car and a 17 year old pickup truck.

The telephone was around about a century before the cell/smart phone came out. I grew up with a rotary dial phone. Now, I have no landline... but I do have a smart phone. I think the changes for the automobile industry will follow that.

Or not. I'm no Madame Cleo.

There's a lot of things that haven't happened that we're supposed to happen by now since I was a kid. No hoverboards. No one on Mars. Still... we have actually come quite a long ways since EV1. 3400 mAh Panasonic 18650s aren't a nuclear battery... but they're a heck of a lot better than lead acid or NiMH... and that's been in the last 20 years. There is a bit of a foothold in the market segment... and it's growning.

I *don't* believe it's going to happen by 2025, but we'll see another round of major ICE advancements hit the road. Honda will certainly be well into gen 11 for a Civic. Tesla will be thriving or done with someone snatching up some of their assets. If we went 50/50 ICE/EVs sales in (insert random year here)... ICE would still dominate the roadways from all the cars sold in the past.

I'm not personally a fan of self driving. I think I'm an outstanding driver. I also see a bunch of asshats driving... or folks driving paying more attention to the aforementioned smart phones than the road. We've got ~40000 road falialities in the US a year with scores more injured. We may not have gone to Jupiter in 2001 in the Discovery, but maybe the HAL 9000 can drive a car for us by 2051 and not kill us. I don't want something to drive my car for me... but honestly, if Soccer mom with her 3 kids wants to look at her phone rather than drive her 4500 lb minivan... I'd want *something* to be driving it in its lane and not into my awesome driving self.

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

 

[syncro87]

Which alludes to the beauty of the Civic vs pretty much any other car. The number of excess parts, OEM offerings, far outweighs every other vehicle. Only the Mustang comes close.

I think there are a number of vehicles that will have parts support as long as a Civic will. You'll likely be able to keep a full size Chevy or Ford pickup on the road until the end of time, if you want to badly enough. Tons of them built every year, tons on the road of all age ranges, people tend to keep them for years, which ensures long term parts and service support, even old beat up trucks have a market in the work arena. A lot of people mod them, huge aftermarket. I wouldn't be surprised if the average Silverado (or Tahoe) might stay on the road longer than the average Civic, actually. I'm not saying the S is more reliable, I'm saying that people might keep them going longer before junking them.

You could probably throw the Jeep Wrangler in that category. Toyota Corolla. VW Golf, perhaps, especially worldwide. Toyota Tacoma. In North America, Dodge Caravan might be on the list of vehicles you'll probably see on the road with a giant mutated cockroach driving it after humanity has wiped itself out, because that roach can probably scrounge repair parts for it from an the irradiated remains of a shopping mall parking lot.

If I had to predict a vehicle that you could keep on the road the longest, just based on which vehicle would be supported the longest in parts, etc, I'd say full size domestic pickup if you're in the USA.

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