2022 Honda City RS – price, specs, interesting features. Worth the buy?

After much hype and anticipation, the Honda City RS, or to call it by its full name, the Honda City 1.5L RS e:HEV (it really is quite the mouthful) was officially launched in March last year. All the extra letters in its name shows its hybrid nature, and as such, the Honda City RS sits at the pinnacle of Honda’s B-segment range.

2022 Honda City RS – price

This segment of the market is notoriously price sensitive, and yet, the Honda City 1.5L e:HEV is priced at an eye-raising RM105,950.45. That’s RM15k more than Honda City 1.5L V Sensing, which is its closest sibling in the stable. The prices of all the Honda City-s are as follows:

Honda City 1.5L S - RM74,191.27
Honda City 1.5L E - RM81,664.82
Honda City 1.5L V – RM86,561.45
Honda City 1.5L V Sensing – RM90,212.36
Honda City 1.5L RS e:HEV – RM105,950.45

The price of the Honda City RS was just a few thousand ringgits away from the now-no-longer-sold Honda Civic 1.8 S, but since the latter has left our market, it is the Honda City RS that will fill the void in this price range.

2022 Honda City RS – why so expensive?

If one looks at the specification sheet, you’ll find that there isn’t much between the Honda City RS and the Honda City V Sensing. The main difference in the price, then, is the hybrid drivetrain of the Honda City RS.

The compact sedan has Honda’s advanced two-motor i-MMD (Intelligent Multi-Mode Drive) full hybrid powertrain, which drives the car most of the time while the petrol engine is mostly used to recharge the batteries and will only power the car at high speeds. This powertrain is significantly improved over the old hybrid system of the previous Honda City Hybrid.

Mated to this advanced engine system is a… well, it’s not a conventional gearbox, but an E-CVT. That’s just the system’s name, and in truth it is much more complex than that.

You can read more about the Honda City RS’s E-CVT here.

In our review of the car, the car achieved a fuel consumption of 4.2 l/100km, over a total distance of 1,000km. This is close to Honda’s claimed economy of 3.6 l/100km.

2022 Honda City RS – features and safety

Of course, as the halo model of the lineup, the Honda City RS must come with every creature comfort and safety system as well, and these things are also the reason why it carries that price tag.

We particularly like the new 8-inch infotainment screen that has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay integration, which is executed without flaws, and matched nicely with the 7-inch TFT information cluster. Instead of a full leather upholstery, the interior is executed in half-leather, with red stitching to bring attention to its RS aspirations.

As for safety, the entire suite of Honda Sensing ADAS is available along with Honda LaneWatch. This includes features like Forward Collision Warning, Collision Mitigation Braking System, Lane Departure Warning, Lake Keep Assist System, Road Departure Mitigation, Adaptive Cruise Control, and Auto High Beam. These features are available on the Honda City V Sensing as well, but the Honda City RS also has Honda Connect, which is absent on every other variant.

Let’s conclude

Our conclusion remains the same – the Honda City 1.5L RS e:HEV has a lot going for it, despite being a little over RM100k. It’s the only non-national car to have so complete a safety suite, and it is the most affordable hybrid at the moment, with the Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid, priced at RM137k, being the closest green competitor.