2006 Mazda Mpv Lx Mini Passenger Van 4-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

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Mazda planning not one but two new crossovers for U.S.

Mazda has already announced plans to unveil a brand new crossover at the Geneva Motor Show, but it turns out there's another one in the pipeline set to satiate the appetites of a crossover-mad U.S. market. Speaking at the Chicago Auto Show, Mazda North America CEO Masahiro Moro told reporters the brand has another model planned for production at the $1.6 billion plant under construction with joint-venture partner Toyota in Huntsville, Ala. It'll be "a new crossover SUV which is exclusively designed for the North American market," Automotive News quoted Moro as saying. While it'll be a different product from the one debuting next month in Geneva, the two vehicles will share some architecture. The company is reportedly still finalizing the concept for it. Currently, Mazda sells three crossovers in the U.S.: the subcompact CX-3, the compact CX-5 and the larger CX-9. Together, the three vehicles, which constitute half of the tiny automaker's vehicle lineup, posted sales of 195,778 for 2018, up 15.8 percent from 2017. They accounted for nearly two-thirds of the brand's total vehicle sales of 300,325. Production is expected to start at the new Alabama plant in mid-2021, Moro said, and add capacity for 150,000 units of crossovers. The plant is expected to employ up to 4,000 workers with a total capacity of 300,000 vehicles a year. Toyota plans to build the Corolla there alongside Mazda's crossovers. Mazda last week released the teaser pic shown above of its forthcoming new crossover headed for Geneva. It could be the next and slightly larger version of the CX-3, which will use the Skyactiv Vehicle Architecture that also supports the new Mazda3. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

VW Q3 Financial Woes, 2015 Tokyo Motor Show | Autoblog Minute

Consumer Reports pulls its Tesla recommendation, the U.S. Copyright Office offers a ruling affecting car owners, VW gets hit hard with third quarter losses, and lots of exciting news from Tokyo. Autoblog's Senior editor Greg Migliore reports on this Autoblog Minute Weekly Recap. Tokyo Motor Show Mazda Subaru Suzuki Tesla Toyota Concept Cars Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video Tokyo 2015

Mazda CX-9 Luggage Test | How much fits behind the third row?

We recently tested the luggage-carrying capability of one of the most spacious three-row crossovers, the Hyundai Palisade, and now it's time for one of the smallest. The Mazda CX-9 may look terrific and drive even better, but that zest comes at the expense of cargo capacity, as we're about to see. The big culprit is that rakish liftgate, which not only robs the CX-9 of luggage space, but third-row headroom as well. It's pretty dungeon-like back there despite competitive legroom, and there aren't any air vents or USB ports, either. But this is about cargo capacity, so let's see how much luggage will fit inside. According to the specs, the CX-9 has 38.2 cubic-feet with the third-row lowered. That's far less than the Palisade's 45.8 and Honda Pilot's 46.8. It's actually even less than the five-passenger Honda Passport (50.5).  The test car came with a $100 cargo mat, which is velcroed to the seats and folds OK with it, but the carpet also takes up some extra space ... and the CX-9 needs as much as it can get.  To raise the seats, lean inside and pull up/back on those two handles. There is 14.4 cubic-feet of space behind the raised third row. On paper, that is indeed one of the smaller amounts in the segment, but in practice, it seems even smaller.  You can free up space by removing the rigid floor panel. If you need to carry multiple pieces of luggage, it's almost a necessity.  OK, so I have two midsize roller suitcases, both of which would need to be checked. Then there's two larger carry-on roll-aboards and one smaller one. As a bonus, there's my wife's quasi-fancy weekend bag. It was a struggle to fit three of them aboard, and Tetrised together two formations. The first uses all three carry-on bags with the cargo floor removed. And no, the fancy bag won't fit atop the blue one because it'll run into the liftgate window. A smaller tote would definitely fit, however.  This is how I could fit one of the bigger check-in bags. The liftgate just barely closed. Again, you could fit a small tote atop the blue bag, plus some other items in the lower outboard regions.  OK, so how could you fit everything aboard? Lowering half of the 50/50-split third row is a must, obviously. Both big check-in bags then stack atop each other, and then stack the other four atop each other with the cargo floor in place.