The Good, the bad and the ugly about Mazda’s latest crossover-cum-hybrid
The Good
The immediate impression is how seriously attractive a CX-70 will look in your driveway. A shallow attribute to be sure, but my oh my, it goes a long way with the neighbours and who amongst is going to reject some positive reinforcement of our vehicular choices.
How much range does the PHEV get?
The PHEV is surprising frugal as well. Officially, the combination of 173-horsepower electric motor and 17.8 kilowatt-hour battery is rated at 42 kilometres of electric-only autonomy. I never got less than 44 klicks and, on one occasion, the PHEV stretched its battery to a little more than 60 klicks. To be sure, this was in low-speed stop-and-go traffic which favours battery efficiency, but nonetheless, those are better numbers than expected.
How fuel-efficient is the Mazda CX-70?
Ditto with off-battery fuel economy from the 2.5-litre inline four. Officially, the CX-70 PHEV is rated at 9.4 L/100 km — 9.9 L/100 km city; 8.7 L/100 km highway. I never averaged worse than 8.2 litres despite speeding along the highway at a decent clip and once saw 7.7 L/100 km in more tepid driving. Again, decent numbers and certainly better than Transport Canada’s numbers suggest.
The combined powertrain — together good for 323-hp and 369 pound-feet of torque — was also pleasantly sophisticated while driving on the highway with decent — not vigorous — acceleration and quiet operation. Likewise, at speed, the 8-speed transmission’s shifting was smooth and unobtrusive.
For its part, the otherwise identical 3.3L MHEVs engine was also smooth and sophisticated, although being a turbocharged inline six, this proved true in both the city and the highway. It’s also fairly powerful with 340 horses and, coincidentally, the same 369 torques as the PHEV. Inline sixes are amongst my favourite engines and, tuned appropriately, very exciting to drive. This is not the case with the Mazda, there not being a lot of Zoom-Zoom going on. But it is exceptionally pleasant which I suspect is more important to most prospective SUV owners.
The Bad
The good thing about that is that the CX-90 is wonderfully competent which makes the CX-70 identically so. The downside is that the 70 loses that third row of seats without gaining anything. There is no benefit in luggage space, lift-over height or legroom in the second row of seats. We usually talk about three rows of seating compromising space allotment in a sport brute. In this case, however, there are no gains in space efficiency by eschewing said extra bank of seats. In other words, the market for the CX-70 seems to be for those who want to make an ethical point of not having a third row of seats. That would seem a fairly narrow demo to me, but Mazda Canada says it’s working because it’s attracting a new clientele to the company.
While the PHEV powertrain is, as I mentioned, smooth and sophisticated at highway cruising speeds, it’s not quite pleasant at low speeds. In the first three gears, the 8-speed automatic acts a little like a CVT and drones on a bit. And the battery-only operation can be a little clunky cause the electric motor is sandwiched inside the transmission unlike Toyota’s system in which it operates in conjunction with the ICE powertrain, not as a part of it. Technical splitting of hairs that may, but it makes a difference.
As lovely — and roomy — as the CX-70’s interior was, I really didn’t get along with Mazda’s infotainment system. Oh, the 12.3-inch screen is big and bright enough. But, it’s not a touchscreen, which as much as I like such systems to have buttons as well as this, this is the slowest processor I have seen in quite a while. It felt like the darned thing was running on a Pentium chip (Gen X and Y readers can Wikipedia that reference). Eventually, the requested radio station would pop up, but by then you’ve decided you’re better off hooked up to Apple CarPlay. Only, I had a Hell of a time consistently hooking my iPhone up. Often it was difficult to re-sync when I got into the car first thing in the morning. Sometimes the only way I could activate CarPlay was to phone somebody directly from my phone — before I drove away! — and then the computer would stay connected until the next time I got out of the car. Weird!
One last thing. Mazda’s solution to gear shift security is to have R-N-D all in a straight line with Park over to the left of Reverse. I was, you guessed it, forever shutting the engine off with the engine selector in R. And this wasn’t a habit that would get better over time. Like I said, I spent a month in the CX-70 and right until the end of my extended test, I was forgetting to leave the transmission in Park which, as you can imagine, made starting problematic. I’ve never had more trouble — Hell, any trouble — becoming accustomed to an automat transmission’s shift pattern as I did this layout.
The Ugly
If you read the opener, you’ll know there’s nothing ugly about the CX-70. We’re talking Carey Grant/Chris Hemsworth/Vanessa Williams/Isabella Rossellini levels of beauty here — and please note the diversity, equity and inclusion of my reference — the CX-70 being extremely easy on the eyes. It has some foibles — and believe it or not, the gearshift thing was the one that drove me to distraction — but, if you like its looks and can get past the reality that the only reason to buy it over the CX-90 is for what it doesn’t have, the new CX-70 is a wonderful way for five people (only!) to SUV around.
How much is the 2025 Mazda CX-70 in Canada?
The turbocharged version of Mazda’s CX-70 mild hybrid starts with the the GT-P model at $58,300 while my tester, a top-of-the-line Signature model, retails for $62,300. The PHEV version, meanwhile, is priced almost identically to the 3.3L Turbo. The GS-L of the 2.5 e-Skyactiv PHEV starts at $58,750 and the top-of-the-line GT costs $63,300. In other words, you can choose frugality or engine smoothness as your priority for roughly the same price. Motor Mouth will be watching closely for how Canadians vote. Mazda Canada also offers the mild hybrid/3.3L combination without the turbocharger for $49,750 in base GS-L trim and $54,350 in GT trim. We weren’t able to test either one of the non-Turbo models. And lastly, it’s worth noting that the top-of-the-line 3.3T and PHEV versions of the CX-70 cost about $1,000 less than their equivalent CX-90s. At least we now know the price of a third row of seats.
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