The Mazda CX-50 Hybrid Makes Good Even Better

This is the 2025 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid, and it's the brand new hybrid version of Mazda's compact CX-50 crossover. That's a good thing because the CX-50 is already an excellent SUV with great benefits, and now there's a more efficient version. Today, I'm going to review the new CX-50 Hybrid and show you all of its quirks and features. Today's video is sponsored by Cars and Bids, which is my online car auction website for modern enthusiast cars. So far, Cars and Bids has sold almost 500 million dollars worth of cars. All sorts of special, interesting stuff like this, and this, and this, and this. If you're looking to buy or sell a cool enthusiast car, do it at carsandbids.com. All right, time for the quirks and features of the new Mazda CX-50 Hybrid, starting with a brief overview. So. The regular non-hybrid CX-50 starts around $31,000, which is fairly reasonable pricing for a vehicle in this segment, but it's also fairly slow with just 187 horsepower. Now, you can upgrade to the CX-50 Turbo. That has 256 horsepower. That's a big number, but so is the price tag. It starts around $42,000. This, the CX-50 Hybrid, is actually a pretty good middle ground. Base price around $35 $35,000, and this hybrid four-cylinder engine gives it about 220 horsepower, so right in the middle. The CX-50 hybrid also comes standard with all-wheel drive. It's not optional. All the hybrids, all-wheel drive is included as standard, and fuel economy is around 38 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, which is a pretty impressive number. Now, on paper, the CX-50 The Mazda CX-50 Hybrid is quite competitive with its two closest rivals, the Honda CR-V Hybrid. and the Toyota RAV4 hybrid. So like I said, this starts around $35,000 with 38 miles per gallon. The CR-V hybrid starts around $36,000 with around 40 miles per gallon. And the RAV4 hybrid starts around $34,000, also with around 40 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving. So this is right there, a couple miles per gallon behind, but barely discernible and pricing directly in line with those big dog rivals. Now, one especially interesting thing about the CX-50 Hybrid is that the powertrain is shared with the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid. And I'm not saying that the CX-50 Hybrid's four-cylinder hybrid engine is similar to the one in the RAV4 Hybrid. It is the very same. In fact, it's Toyota's engine. Now, that's not because Toyota owns Mazda or anything like that, but rather, this car is built in a factory that was made in a joint venture partnership with Toyota in Alabama. builds the Corolla Cross at this factory, Mazda builds the CX-50, and they both monitor and manage the factory together in a partnership. And as a part of that partnership, the CX-50 hybrid uses the RAV4 hybrid's engine. Like I said, slightly better fuel economy in the RAV4 hybrid. That might be by agreement or gearing or aerodynamics or some combination of those things, but regardless, same powertrain shared in this vehicle. But the CX-50 has one big advantage over the RAV4, and frankly, over a lot of other compact crossovers, and that would be the way it looks. A lot of other small SUVs are fairly similar, fairly plain, and fairly derivative. They're just not exciting or interesting, but the CX-50 looks great. I love the exterior styling. These flared rear fenders especially are cool. They make it seem more muscular than a compact crossover has any right to be. And I even like that. The rear fenders flare out to these vents behind, almost looks like an old-school rally car. Now, these vents are fake. They don't actually do anything. They're not even hollow, so they're not even vents. They're just trimmed, but they do look cool. And you have the same thing in front, directly in front of the flared front fender. You also have a little plastic vent, although in this case, it is hollow. It opens, so air can move through it, and frankly, I think it looks pretty good. But as a general rule, I think the exterior styling of the CX-50 is very Very nice, like a lot of other Mazda vehicles. And when it comes to cool looking exterior details in the CX-50, another one is the turn signals. You put on the turn signal and you can see it sort of fades when it turns off. It clicks right on and then fades off. Every little pulse of the signal. It does that in back, but also in front, you have the same click on and then fade off, which frankly just looks cool and also kind of classy. It really does add sort of a luxury air to this car. And it does it in the gauge cluster too. You put on the turn signal and it clicks on and then fades off to mimic what's going on outside the car, which frankly is a rather cool touch on this car and other newer Mazdas. But I'm getting ahead of myself by moving inside before we discuss the overall interior of this car, because that is an absolute high point. The interior quality and materials are fantastic. When you look around here, there's a lot of nice stuff that doesn't really belong on a car in the $40,000 price point. The seats are these beautiful perforated leather, soft feel with nice black trim and contrast stitching. Same deal on the dashboard. Nice leather with contrast stitching. It all looks so good. There's a great use of aluminum on the steering wheel, the climate vents, and a lot of other places, and gloss black trim as well. This interior is really high quality for a compact crossover and certainly a step above what you would find in a Honda CR-V or a Toyota RAV4. It feels almost luxury car nice in here. Now, with that said, the interior is not quite perfect, and there are a few drawbacks. One is the placement of the cupholders, which frankly are just a little bit too far forward. If you have a very tall drink, it's going to conflict with your climate controls right in the center here, and it's a little bit out of reach, especially considering the gear lever, which is another drawback of this interior. Most high-end vehicles with interiors like this have an electronic gear selector, something push buttons or a dial or something you turn, either way, electronic instead of this old school gear selector that you actually move into gear. Not only does this take up a lot of space, but the advantage of an electronic one is that it can automatically shift into park when you open your door, and the car will automatically stop. It's a good safety benefit that you can't get with an old-school gear lever that you have to move into place. But by far the largest drawback of this interior, at least in my book, is the infotainment system. The screen is mounted up here. It's small and pretty far away from the from the front seat occupants, and it's not a touchscreen. You have to... Control it using this dial in the center console and these buttons around it all control the screen now a lot of other automakers Tried this when big screens were becoming common and one by one they've all abandoned it In favor of touchscreens, which are preferred by most consumers, who are used to using touchscreens on their phones, their iPads, whatever, but Mazda still clings to a screen that's far away, and this dial in the center. They say it's safer because it's right down below your line of sight, as opposed to a touchscreen you gotta look down, but frankly, I think it complicates everything. The good news, though, is that if you hook up your phone for Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, it then becomes a touchscreen! Even though the infotainment system isn't a touchscreen, it is if you're using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. But the drawback there is, it's still pretty far away to reach for any of the controls because it wasn't set up to be a touchscreen in the first place, a bit of a drawback. The other tech drawback in here is the gauge cluster screen, which frankly just isn't really all that great. The screen part is only the very central gauge, and it doesn't really do all that much. You can't get a navigation map in here, for example, or the music that's playing, and you certainly can't have both displayed at once like you can in some cars with fully digital, fully configurable gauge clusters. So we're a little bit behind on tech in here. With that said, we do have a heads-up display in this car, which is a nice feature that you don't often see in this segment. Regardless of whether you get the nicest version of certain models, some don't offer it at all, but you have it here. Now, a couple of other interesting interior quirks in here. For one, this button marked Auto Hold is a cool feature. You turn that on and you come up to a stoplight. You can take your foot off the brake and the car will auto hold you in place when you're stopped, which is nice. You don't have to just sit there with your foot on the brake. Another feature that a lot of cars don't have in this segment, it's common on higher-end luxury cars. Another nice touch is this button here marked EV. If you press that, it goes into EV mode. Now, this is not a plug-in hybrid or a... traditional EV. It's just a hybrid car, but if you go into EV, it can at least try to drive in fully electric mode for as long as it possibly can before the gasoline engine has to kick in. One rather unusual item in here is this little switch to adjust your drive mode and strangely there's no eco mode You only have P Power for performance, normal, regular, and then trail for, I guess, maximizing your off-road capability. Unusual not to find an eco mode in the efficient hybrid version of this car, but that's the situation in here. By the way, one other drawback worth pointing out, the key, you can see, this is the key, and it's very upscale. It's just one flat piece with the Mazda logo, no buttons cluttering things up. It looks cool, but it's not particularly functional. In order to make it look like this, they had to integrate the buttons on the side, where they're very small and kind of difficult to both see and press. Again, a nice upscale look, but in execution, it's not really all that great to actually use. And next, we move on to the back seat, a few interesting items back here. For one, it's not exactly huge in back. You don't really expect a giant backseat in a compact crossover, but... This is pretty tight, even for one of these. Knees are pushing up against the seat. My head is right on the ceiling. It's a little tight back here. It's doable. It's fine, but it's a little tight for kind of larger adults. Obviously, it'd be fine for smaller adults or kids, which is primarily who's going to be in the back of these cars. Still worth pointing out. Now, the other thing worth mentioning back here is the back seat is just as nice as it is up front. You still have the same... Plush, perforated leather with nice trim and contrast stitching, it still looks good and surprisingly high quality back here, and they didn't really cut costs in back, except... On the door panel, you can see one big plastic piece in back, where up front, you have this nice piece of leather with cross-stitching. They didn't carry that into the back, but it still looks very nice back here and feels nice, especially for a car in this segment, and that's also true when you consider the amenities. You got rear climate vents back here, which isn't always a given on a compact crossover in the back seats, and you also have two USB-C ports for charging devices, which is nice. One thing I don't like back here is you don't have any cupholders integrated. integrated into the door panels. The only cupholders are on the center armrest. You fold it down and they're right there. That's fine unless you have a center passenger back here and then you don't have access to any cupholders at all and you just have to hold your drinks. What a shame. And finally, we move on to the cargo area back here. Open up the nice power tailgate, and you can see the cargo area, which is reasonably large. Decent size for this segment, and because the CX-50 doesn't have some tapering, sloping roofline like some cars, you also have a pretty nice high and wide flat space where you can stick stuff. Decent cargo space back here. And there's even some extra storage pockets. You can see over on the left, you have a little storage compartment Over here for I Items, if you don't want them rolling around in the middle, same deal over on the right. Another little storage compartment for smaller, maybe more fragile or breakable items back here, which is nice. Now, you don't have any extra storage under the floor. That's where you can see a spare tire is mounted, which is also nice to have. But frankly, I think that's okay. This is about the cargo space you would expect from a vehicle like this. One other item worth pointing out that's nice to have, this little latch on the side of the cargo area drops down the seats. And you can see you pull it and the seat goes down. Instantly and fully and you have the same thing over on the other side pull it and it goes down now You don't have a powered seat recline back here The seats won't rise back up unless you go around to the back and move them up yourself But it's still nice to have these latches that make it easy to fold down the seats if you're loading in larger items Like you sometimes are all right driving the CX-50 hybrid I was a big fan of the CX-50 the regular one when I drove it. There's a lot to like about this car I really love the styling I already thought the regular Mazda CX-5 looked good, and I think most people think that, but I think the CX-50 looks even better, which is especially interesting because it doesn't, it's not just an evolution of the CX-5, it's pretty... Pretty radically different design with wider hips, lower roof, wider car. They changed everything, and yet they still managed to make it look really good. Getting inside and driving, there's a couple of things that I really like in general about the CX-50. Number one is the interior materials quality. Like I mentioned, it feels luxurious in here. In addition to that, the moment you start driving, you realize the steering feels tight, which is something that Mazda's kind of known for. They've made a, you know... kind of performancey steering feel to their cars and giving it like a a nice sporty feel with tight steering it really feels like you're making good change when you when you steer around curves and and you feel sporty and and and and engaged with the car you could say i personally have never been as much of a whoa mazda makes cars that handle great kind of person as a lot of other car journalists i think a lot of that is marketing i think the cars do handle a little bit better than their rivals but i've never really felt it's like i get in a mazda small crossover and think, wow, this is the Miata of small crossovers. But with that said, it does handle reasonably well. Body roll is pretty controlled and it's a little bit more engaging, especially from a steering perspective than something like a RAV4 or a CR-V, which frankly is just a little bit duller. Interior noise levels are okay. They're fairly normal for this class. They're not any better than RAV4 or CR-V. So you're sitting in this interior, which is better than RAV4 and CR-V, and you're not going to be getting like a nicer kind of road feel, I would say. And that's also true for comfort. This car doesn't feel like less harsh on the road. None of these cars are very harsh. The driving experience on none of these cars feels like rough or difficult, but despite the luxury car sort of interior that this has, it definitely does not give you like a Like a coddling luxury car type of ride. And frankly, I wouldn't expect it. In fact, I wouldn't even really expect the luxury car interior. They already go above and beyond there. The rest of the stuff is just sort of normal for the class, which is totally fine and totally reasonable. Now, one of the big questions I think people are going to have about this car is power and performance because of this new hybrid powertrain. And I think people are going to think, okay... Does this give me the opportunity to get a, you know, CX-50 turbo level of performance, but with CX-50, you know, base model fuel economy or even better? Like, is this really the best of all worlds with more power than the base model, but better fuel economy? Is this like a CX-50 turbo on a budget? And the answer is not really. Instead, how I would frame it is that the regular CX-50 is kind of slow. Uh, to be honest, the non-turbo one is kind of slow for the class. The CX-50 Turbo is fast for the class, and this is only just kind of normal against like the CR-V and the RAV4 and that kind of thing. Um, so when you floor it in this car, you're not feeling like this absolutely takes off like a rocket. The CX-50 Turbo is unusually quick for a car in this segment, but this one is. Is again, just sort of normal. So you do get better gas mileage than the other CX-50 models, which is great because it's a hybrid. And you get better performance than the base model, which is great because the base model is kind of disappointingly slow. There's really no way this car is bad. When I get in this car, I don't think to myself, I really wish there was some, you know, big change that they made in some capacity. The infotainment tech being the dial instead of a touchscreen, that's definitely... Not ideal, but I think you do get used to it and it becomes not that big of a problem. It certainly is not what I would do, and I think that most consumers prefer touchscreens. They're used to using them in their phones, their iPads. Almost every other car has switched to touchscreens. But I wouldn't call it bad, and otherwise the car is very competitive. And so I think there's a lot to like here. There's a little bit even to love. And there are compelling reasons to choose this car over rivals or at least compare it very closely with rivals that are very established, very good cars like the CR-V and the RAV4. And so that's the new 2025 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid. This is a very competitive offering in the compact Hybrid SUV world with decent power, good fuel economy, attractive styling, decent technology, nice interior materials, and if I were considering a vehicle in this segment, it would be a tight race between this and its closest rivals. Anyway, now it's time to give the new CX-50 Hybrid a Doug score. And the Doug score is here, 46 out of 100, which puts the CX-50 here, near the bottom of this list of competitors, but that makes sense as the Doug score is intended to favor performance cars, and so the more exciting CX-50 turbo does better. The one you want, though, depends on your needs, and I think most people would be happy to give up a little turbo performance for hybrid fuel economy. Either way, the CX-50 is an excellent small crossover.