Honda Using Turbos in Next-Gen Civic

2015 Honda Civic Si Coupe (Credit: Honda)

You likely already know about Honda’s 2.0-liter Earth Dreams engine that it will use in the new Civic Type R. Unfortunately, we still have yet to receive word on whether or not the Type R will make it to American shores, but according to a report from Automotive News, we are bound to get a turbocharged Civic soon. Too bad it is not the Type R though.

Automotive News spoke with the soon-to-be-retired Yoshiharu Yamamoto, who is currently the head of global research and development for Honda. In this discussion, Yamamoto said that smaller turbocharged engines are the future for the Civic. The apparent plan at this point is to develop a 1.5-liter turbocharged four-pot with various states of tune.

According to Yamamoto, the turbo 1.5 will be able to produce the same horsepower as Honda’s 2.0- and 2.4-liter engines, but its fuel economy will be better and its torque curve will be more manageable. Fortunately, there will still be some naturally aspirated Hondas available, but Yamamoto did not go into details of which ones will remain turbo-free and what the product mix will be.

What we do know is that Honda has dumped $340 million into its Anna, OH engine plant to prepare it to build these turbocharged engines. That sort of investment likely means that there will be a good portion of Honda’s models that will carry this engine.

Though production numbers and release date are still officially unknown, a supplier told Automotive News that the plan is to build 200,000 1.5-liter engines per year, and that production will start in the fourth quarter of 2015. That 200,000-unit production is a drop in the bucket, as Honda sold nearly 1.4 million cars in the U.S. in 2014, so it’s likely that these 1.5-liter engines will make up less than a quarter of the brand’s U.S. sales.

We’ll bring you more details as they become available.