A few months ago, we shared the upgrades made on the Thai-spec Honda City Hatchback. We also told you that it was just a matter of time before Honda Cars Philippines brings the new-look model here in the country. Well, that time has come.

Today, HCPI officially launched the new City Hatchback at the Bonifacio High Street Activity Center. So, what has changed, and what makes this new hatch better?

Let’s start with the obvious. First, a new and bigger honeycomb grille up front. Along with it is a redesigned bumper where a new lower air intake can be found. The latter protrudes a little bit more, while new-design air dams can be found at both ends.

This bumps the car’s overall length by 20mm to 4,369mm. Along with other changes, the car is now 2kg heavier at 1,143kg. Minimal changes were done on the sides, like a new set of 16-inch Berlina Black alloy wheels. It also comes with side skirts, accentuating the sporty nature of the RS variant.

The rear end looks largely the same, save for a more aggressively styled faux diffuser on the lower part of the bumper.

A new color, Sonic Gray Pearl, adds to the list of available finishes: Ignite Red Metallic, Platinum White Pearl, Meteoroid Gray Metallic, and Brilliant Sporty Blue Metallic.

Minimal changes can also be found inside. While the gauge cluster looks largely the same as the outgoing model’s, the new one features a 4.2-inch TFT display. You can also notice that the rearview mirror has a bigger base housing several sensors and cameras.

Speaking of sensors, aside from the added walk-away auto door lock feature, the biggest update that the City Hatchback gets is the Honda Sensing suite of advanced driver-assist systems. This includes adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation braking system, lane-keep assist, road departure mitigation, lane-departure warning, auto high beam, and lead-car departure notification.

Powering the car is the same 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine making 119hp and 145Nm of torque. This is paired exclusively with the same continuously variable transmission.

The new Honda City Hatchback retails for P1,189,000, and is available at all Honda dealerships nationwide.

It would have been nice to get the powertrain options that our Thai friends got—especially the e:HEV version—since we source our units from Thailand. We can only hope that HCPI makes this possible soon.