When you think of Mazda, what pops into your head? Two-door sports cars, like the Miata and RX-7? Weird experiments, like the RX-8 and MX-30? Sports sedans, like the Mazda6? All interesting products in their own right, but these days, Mazda’s big into SUVs. Of the 12 models the brand offers in the U.S., SUVs account for eight of them. That shift, coupled with its embrace of electrification and successful upmarket pivot, appears to be working out well for the Japanese automaker especially here in the States, where it smashed its 1986 sales record of 379,883 cars (all those rotaries!) by about 45,000 units in 2024, with a total of 424,382.
It’s the result of a multifaceted effort, as Mazda’s CEO of North American operations, Tom Donnelly, recently explained in an interview with U.S News & World Report. On the marketing side, models like the CX-50 tap into an outdoorsy vibe—think Subaru, but a little more high-end. That reframing is worlds away from the company’s “zoom-zoom” mantra of the aughts, but it’s proven very popular today. So popular, in fact, that the company can get away with selling two SUVs, in the CX-5 and CX-50, that appear to serve the same segment but actually attract different demographics.
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