HONDA HAS MADE a mid-development change of course for the next generation Civic, the new plan being to make it smaller, lighter and less expensive.

Speaking recently with industry paper Automotive News, Honda CEO Takanobu Ito confirmed that the Japanese carmaker has stopped development of what was set to be a larger and more expensive new Civic.

“We are taking more time to rethink the new Civic and all our models,” Mr Ito told Automotive News. “We had to revisit our development work and our planning to comply with the change in the environment.”

Honda’s Chief Operating Officer for Automotive Operations, Tsuneo Tanai has directed the carmaker’s designers and engineers to make the car smaller, lighter and more fuel efficient than the project currently in development.

Neither Tanai nor Ito offered any insight on a launch date for the new Civic.

“The team is struggling. We are injecting more manpower to meet our target,” Mr Ito said.

The Civic has been a vital platform for Honda in recent years, forming the basis for the CR-V and the Japanese-market Stream and Element models.

A disruption in the development of the next-generation Civic is likely to result in delays to these model lines as well.

An updated, facelifted CR-V is due to arrive in Australia early next year.

Ito said that, around the middle of the decade, the carmaker had grown concerned with the rising price of oil and construction materials.

When the global financial crisis hit last year, Ito was instrumental in Honda’s axing of its V8 and rear-wheel-drive programs (leading to the end of next-generation NSX plans).

[via Automotive News]