As long as I’ve been reading and writing about cars, Mazda has served as a sort of anti-hero counterpart to the automotive giants, namely Toyota. Like, check any comments section of any sort of news information about any given Toyota (especially hybrids) at any time between 2003 and, well, now, and it won’t take very much time to find a guy calling someone sheeple for opting for a Prius rather than a stick-shift Mazda 6 hatchback.
In real life, it’s never been that deep, I promise. Mazda has been underrated in a lot of ways. The cars, trucks and crossovers have a reputation of generally being reliable, good-looking vehicles that are sharp to drive. The company deserves points for keeping the Miata alive, against all odds. Yet, in other ways, they’ve lagged behind. The brand’s powertrain development has been limited. It spent a lot of money on a big rear-wheel-drive platform and inline gas-powered six-cylinder engine and resurrecting the rotary, none of which seems to have paid off too much.
Its EV, PHEV, and hybrid efforts have been lackluster. After the Ford-based Mazda Tribute Hybrid was discontinued in 2011, Mazda had no electrified model until the MX-30 was introduced (and canceled) in 2023. In today’s world, Mazda is going to need some sort of electrification to stay relevant. That’s not easy for a small, independent company to do when you’re up against Tesla, BYD and Toyota, among others.
I would like to think the Mazda CX-50 hybrid is a sort of return to form for the brand. Instead of developing its own hybrid system from scratch or somehow shoehorning the CX-90 and CX-70’s RWD-based getup into the front-wheel-drive, transverse-mounted CX-50 wrapper, Mazda opted to go to its corporate partner and metaphorically ask to borrow a cup of sugar.
But Mazda assures you that the borrowed cup of sugar is going into a different recipe. The brand insists that enthusiast cred won’t be damaged, tacitly cementing Mazda’s underrated anti-hero status for the folks who will buy anything else except a Toyota.
I got one for a week, and around the same time I drove a RAV4 Hybrid as well. Was it as differentiated as Mazda said? Is it any good at all? I think for the most part, yes.
Gallery: 2025 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid
What is the CX-50 Hybrid?
The Mazda CX-50 is a compact crossover—no marketing bullshit here. It slots adjacent to the Mazda CX-5, which at its core is an older model that the CX-50 was meant to replace. However, it sold strong enough for Mazda to keep it around. It's priced marginally above its CX-5 stablemate, but still smack dab amid the ubiquitous compact crossover segment. For now, the CX-50 is a sort of stopgap, since a CX-5 hybrid is coming in a few years, with a proper in-house hybrid system.
Normally, the CX-50 would come with naturally aspirated or turbocharged versions of Mazda’s 2.5-liter four-cylinder, but when it came to hybridizing the CX-50, it turned to Toyota. Curiously, the CX-50 is made in the same Huntsville, Alabama factory as the Toyota Corolla Cross, but they use different hybrid systems.
The CX-50 lifts the whole hybrid system directly from the RAV4 hybrid. Yes, this means it uses the same 2.5-liter four-cylinder from Toyota (not related in any way to Mazda’s same-sized unit), the same eCVT with three motors (including one mounted on the rear axle for eAWD), and a 1.6 kWh Ni-MH traction battery that makes all that stuff work. In total, the CX-50 hybrid generates 219 horsepower and 163 lb-ft of torque.
Mazda’s engineers said they differentiated the two quite a bit. Of course, the Mazda CX-50 uses a Mazda chassis and suspension more in common with the Mazda 3 compact car, whereas the RAV4 is firmly in the Toyota space. The CX-50 Hybrid has the same interior features and exterior styling as its gas-powered sibling, save for some hybrid-exclusive wheels and a little blue badge that says hybrid. Mazda’s engineers said they did a lot of work making the CX-50’s implementation feel more in line with what a Mazda customer would want.
“To ensure more consistency between the CX-50 model line-up – 2.5 S, Hybrid, 2.5 Turbo – most of our work went into noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) tuning to bring the [Toyota Hybrid System] more in line with the experiences of 2.5 S and 2.5 Turbo so that if customers want to make the switch between different models they all feel related,” said Mazda representative Jake Stumph. He also said that if you get the optional Bose audio system, it continues to help cancel out some of the inherent noise of Toyota’s setup.
Driving the CX-50 Hybrid
In a Toyota hybrid setup, pedal demand isn’t always proportional to engine load, as the car’s onboard computerized systems do their own balancing act to ensure its engine and three electric motors all work in concert for ideal performance and economy. The result is a feeling of acceleration that I’ve equated to making a milkshake that randomly hits a lump of unmixed ice cream. It's smooth, but lumpy at the same time, if that makes sense.
Yet, this might be one of the smoothest implementations I’ve driven yet. Of course, under hard acceleration, the CX-50 will hold an engine note steady and drone on like any eCVT, yet the relationship between pedal demand and actual forward movement felt natural, if not downright responsive. It’s not often that a Toyota hybrid could be called responsive, save for maybe the new Prius Prime.
According to Stumph, this was intentional. “Mazda went to a lot of effort in tuning the CX-50 Hybrid so that it feels distinctly like a Mazda. The most obvious aspect is the accelerator pedal response and mapping, which has a much smoother and more precise ‘tip-in’ sensation allowing for easier low-speed driving when you’re trying to keep the vehicle in EV mode, for example. This tuning ends up impacting the overall performance and response of the powertrain,” he said.
Add in the CX-50’s well-resolved, surprisingly grippy handling dynamics, and engaging steering, and it might be the most fun-to-drive hybrid crossover in its price range right now.
Unfortunately, the CX-50 hybrid’s observed economy during a chilly week barely cracked 30 MPG mixed, down quite a bit from the 38 MPG mixed it is rated for by the EPA. The RAV4 Hybrid edges out the CX-50 on paper, with a combined rating of 39 MPG. The CX-50 hybrid is still predicted to use less fuel and emit fewer emissions into the environment than its gas-powered variants—233 grams of CO2 per mile to the 335 of the purely gas car.
Verdict
We are primarily an EV and technology publication that dabbles in hybrids, so I won’t go out of my way to encourage hybrids when we should be weaning off gas entirely. Nope, not gonna do it. But I think the CX-50 is an important vehicle for several reasons.
For starters, its an olive branch for the Mazda lifers in search of a compact hybrid crossover that doesn’t cost all that much. Mazda smartly priced the Hybrid between its gas-powered cousins, starting above the standard 2.5-liter but below its turbocharged cousin. If you want an identical CX-50 Hybrid Premium Plus like my tester, expect to pay $42,065 including the destination fee. Which in today’s prices, isn’t so bad.
Secondly, it flies in the face of the criticism that shared powertrains or parts will equate to cars that feel identical. As the world further electrifies, I expect parts like batteries, motors, and even gas engines (as they’re phased out) to become somewhat standardized. The real tricky problem will be figuring out how to differentiate vehicles among brands and in lineups when they’re all using the same basic equipment.
Coincidentally, I ended up with a 2025 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid directly after the CX-50. These cars share the same basic powertrain, yet they don’t feel all that similar at all. Only car geeks would know that the two cars share the same heart.
That’s a good thing, especially for Mazda.
Contact the author: Kevin.Williams@InsideEVs.com
