That car the industry is slowly but steadily shifting to electrified powertrains is not a novel trend anymore. Almost every echelon, from the budget-friendly sub-compact to the alien-looking supercar is getting either a hybrid or an out-and-out EV these days.

Honda, for example, wants to field a fully electrified lineup - made of hybrids and EVs - by 2022 in Europe, as emissions standards are becoming more and more strict. This, however, won't affect the incoming Civic Type R, which is good. For now. At the same time, the new Type R might become the last Honda to feature a pure-gasoline powertrain.

We know that there's a new Civic coming after last year, Honda showed a Civic prototype in sedan form aimed at the U.S.-market. The production version is expected to debut sometime this spring or in early summer and it will also include a hatchback derivative. It's that platform that will underpin the new Type R which, Autocar reports, is going to retain the 2-liter, turbocharged K20C1 engine, albeit with a list of fresh tweaks meant to add more oomph and better fuel efficiency.

This aspect holds both encouraging sings and reason for sadness among enthusiasts.

The current Type R is arguably the best of the hot hatch bunch and most of that recognition comes from the engine-gearbox symbiosis. Sure, 316 horsepower (in Europe-bound versions of the current Civic Type R) sounds like a lot of power, but without a proper gearbox to harness every drop of performance, it wouldn't mean much.

Fortunately, Honda worked its magic with the fabulously-slick six-speed manual of the Type R and it shows. Add in the raucous exhaust sound, the fact that the car starts up in Sport mode as default, and the alien looks, and you get a pretty well-rounded package that will be very hard to beat by a hybrid (or even an EV) in terms of the pure feelings it triggers while driven properly.

That said, we've got absolutely no doubt that the new Civic Typer R will be a formidable machine. What happens once it transitions from new to old, well, that's a story yet to be written. Will its successor be a performance-oriented hybrid inspired by the NSX? Or will Honda go full electric on the Type R? We can't quite offer an answer for the time being, but we can tell you this: times are changing.