Mazda poised for a record-breaking year

CALIFORNIA: Mazda Motor Corp is wrapping up a banner year in an overall sluggish auto market, and its United States sales chief expects that momentum to extend into 2025 – even without a fully electric vehicle (EV) in its line-up.

Buoyed by demand for its gas-powered compact crossovers and mid-size sport utility vehicles (SUVs), the Japanese company is on track to deliver more than 420,000 vehicles in 2024, a 16% rise, said Mazda’s North American operations president Tom Donnelly, breaking a record set in 1986. It aims to sell 450,000 vehicles in 2025, he said.

“We’re growing our business in what has largely been a stable industry” in terms of volume, he said in an interview, crediting the popularity of Mazda’s mainstay compacts and the inroads made by its mid-sized SUVs.

Overall new car sales in the United States are set to grow 2.3% in 2024 to about 15.9 million vehicles, Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book has projected.

Mazda’s US volume tops luxury brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz, but still well below peers like Subaru, Kia and Nissan.

This year’s surge marks a major turn-around since 2019 when sales hit a six-year low of 278,552 vehicles.

Mazda has tiptoed into the hot market for gas-electrics with three models: a standard hybrid version of the CX-50 compact crossover and plug-in variants of its CX-70 and CX-90 SUVs.

The CX-50 hybrid uses technology from strategic partner Toyota Motor Corp and all three have received mixed reviews.

Donnelly said Mazda plans to develop a new in-house system for an expanded range of hybrids and test the waters with a fully battery-electric vehicle (BEV) by 2027 – its first in the United States since the short-lived, limited distribution MX-30 EV.

“BEV penetration is at 10% right now and, given recent events, not likely to accelerate much beyond that,” he said.

“We’re not a brand that is out there making a bold proclamation about 100% by any particular time frame.”

Import-heavy Mazda’s biggest seller in the United States is one of its oldest vehicles: the CX-5 compact crossover model manufactured in Japan, which Donnelly said is due for a makeover in the next 12 to 24 months.