2021 Honda Civic Interior

The 2021 Honda Civic has a spacious cabin filled with mostly high-quality materials, right down to its soft-touch plastics. However, some reviewers claim that its overall quality and design could use an update and that the upgraded infotainment interface is hard to use.

• "Inside, every Civic boasts top-notch quality, clever storage and a relatively large cabin." -- Autotrader
• "Now, the Civic does show its age with its frustrating infotainment and safety technologies, as well as its interior's materials quality and design (especially compared to the Mazda3 and Nissan Sentra). We also never warmed to the busy, vent-riddled styling (the Honda Insight hybrid manages to be much prettier despite sharing the same bones)." -- Autoblog
• "The cabin also houses plenty of soft-touch plastics and other quality materials." -- Kelley Blue Book (2020)

Cargo

The Civic's cargo capacity varies by body style, but both sedan and hatchback variants provide lots of room for your belongings. Most sedan models have 15.1 cubic feet of trunk space. The Touring trim has slightly less, at 14.7 cubic feet. Hatchback models have up to 25.7 cubic feet of cargo space behind the back row (22.6 in Sport and Sport Touring trims) and 46.2 cubic feet with the rear seats folded down. This compact car also has useful small-item storage spaces inside the cabin.

• "Inside, you'll find the Civic offers more passenger and cargo space than most." -- Autoblog
• "The Civic has a number of cleverly designed storage cubbies throughout its cabin, and the sedan's trunk is one of the biggest in the class." -- Car and Driver
• The hatchback also benefits from one of the larger cargo areas in its segment." -- Autotrader

Seating

There's seating for up to five people in all Civic models except the R-Type, which seats four. Regardless of which body style you choose, the Civic offers spacious seating for a compact car, though its sloped roofline limits rear headroom for taller occupants. This Honda is easy to enter and exit thanks to its large door openings, and outward visibility is good for the driver. The seats are pretty flat, but reviewers note that there's still a good amount of cushioning.

Cloth upholstery is standard, while leather-trimmed upholstery, an eight-way power-adjustable driver's seat, a four-way power-adjustable passenger seat, a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob, heated front seats, and heated outboard rear seats are available.

If you want to install child safety seats, you'll find two complete sets of LATCH connectors for the rear outboard seats and a tether anchor for the rear middle seat. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave the Civic’s LATCH system the second-highest rating of Acceptable for its ease of use. The system is pretty user friendly, but the lower anchors are too deep in the seats.

• "The seats in normal Civics are also a bit on the flat side, but they do feature stylish upholstery and have a reasonable amount of cushion. The Type R … has more aggressive front seat bolsters that hold you snugly, but aren't so firm that you feel pinched or poked." -- Autoblog
• The interior of both the sedan and hatchback is on the roomier end of its class." -- Car and Driver (2020)
• "The Civic's interior is cavernous. The sleek roofline reduces rear headroom somewhat, but otherwise the cabin is so spacious that four adults will have no problem fitting comfortably for long road trips." -- Edmunds (2020)

Interior Features

The Civic’s standard infotainment system is basic and user-friendly. It features a 5-inch display, four speakers, Bluetooth, and a USB port. It also has physical knobs and buttons that make it easy to operate when the vehicle is in motion. However, the available infotainment system is more difficult to use. It includes a 7-inch touch screen, eight speakers, and an additional USB port. This system is heavily reliant on touch controls, and the interface can be slow to respond to user inputs. Luckily, the upgraded system comes with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

Other standard features include automatic climate control, forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, collision mitigation braking, road departure mitigation, lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, and automatic high-beam headlights.

The Civic’s list of available features also includes satellite radio, HD Radio, navigation, voice recognition, and an upgraded stereo with 10 or 12 speakers. Push-button start, remote start, proximity keyless entry, dual-zone automatic climate control, a moonroof, and blind spot monitoring are also optional.

See 2021 Honda Civic specs »

• "Two types of infotainment systems are available. Low-trim models get a very basic system with a small screen and old-fashioned physical buttons and knobs for navigating through different functions. It does feature Bluetooth, a USB port and a media player interface, but is not compatible with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. The second version comes with a 7-inch touchscreen, which is sluggish and not user friendly. We're not alone in our dislike for it, either, as owners have been hammering it for years in surveys. The good news is that it does include Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which are both much easier to use than the Honda software." -- Autoblog
• "Where the Civic is showing its age is in the infotainment system. Its largest screen is 7 inches, and while Honda finally added a volume knob a couple of years ago, most other functions rely too much on touch." -- Autotrader
• "And the infotainment display is large and easy to read at a glance." -- Kelley Blue Book (2020)