Better late than nEVer: How Mazda will accelerate its electric car plans to catch up to Tesla, Hyundai and others

Australians will have to wait at least another 18 months before Mazda introduces another all-electric model.

The country’s second best-selling brand has been notably slow in joining the electric vehicle market, only introducing the all-electric MX-30e in the middle of 2021. This was around the same time that the company’s global chiefs revealed its Sustainable Zoom-Zoom 2030 strategy, which confirmed it will launch at least three more EVs between 2025 and 2030.

In contrast, several of Mazda’s marketplace rivals such as Hyundai and Kia have launched multiple EVs and have plans for several more before 2025. 

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Mazda Australia managing director Vinesh Bhindi wouldn’t be drawn into revealing any details about what we can expect from the next EV and when it will arrive, only confirming that it will be sometime after the calendar turns to 2025.

Seemingly part of Mazda’s delayed arrival into the EV market was its investment into its proprietary Skyactiv-X compression ignition technology, which it saw as a cheaper and quicker way to cut emissions. However, its lack of sales success combined with legislation in the key US and European markets that has incentivised EVs has seemingly forced Mazda’s tactical change.

But Bhindi dismissed the suggestion that Mazda had mis-read the changing market and pointed to the relatively slow uptake of EVs in Australia.

“In Australia it’s about six to eight per cent,” Bhindi said. “We will have some sort of government policy on this, decarbonisation, it’s imminent. I don’t think it will be a technology mandate, it will be a CO2 target.

Mazda is increasing its range of hybrid models including the CX-60 SUV.

“But other parts of the world are already there and hence some of these technologies are meeting what the legislators are pushing for in their region for their reasons. Mazda always said it will have a multi-solution approach. It’s growing, in China it’s huge; in Europe it’s more mature in the electrification technology requirement; in the US the Biden Administration has got ambition, they’ve got some targets.

“So we will have the right technology at the appropriate time to meet that demand, which is what Mazda Corporation has been saying.”

EV sales in Australia are up more than 275 per cent year-to-date to May, according to the latest new car sales data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. However, as Bhindi noted, despite the sharp sales increase EVs still account for just 7.0 per cent of total sales, so Mazda still has time to catch up.

He also made the point that Mazda is increasing its range of hybrid models, including its new generation of six-cylinder vehicles, beginning with the CX-60 and CX-90 this year. Bhindi said the company is on-track to have 40 per cent of its line-up with some sort of electrification soon and that figure will increase in the coming years.