Mazda Rx8 Shinka Red W/ 2 Tone Leather Seats, Shiftable Automatic W/ Triptronic on 2040-cars

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IIHS Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ awards get tougher: Here are the latest winners

Automakers love to trumpet the accolades from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, but the agency keeps making its best grades harder to achieve. For 2020, it is raising the bar again, requiring a better score in the passenger-side small-overlap crash test, wider availability of top-performing headlights, and automatic emergency braking systems that effectively avoid collisions with pedestrians, in addition to its previous benchmarks. Why the 2020 criteria is harder: To be named either a Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+, the required performance in the passenger-side small-overlap crash test has been raised from Acceptable to Good, meaning that the model must achieve Good ratings in all crash tests. The Nissan Rogue, for example, scored an Acceptable in the passenger-side small overlap crash, and so it loses its Top Safety Pick rating for 2020. To achieve either of the top ratings, a vehicle's automatic emergency braking system must effectively avoid hitting pedestrians as well as other vehicles. (The automatic emergency braking system can be optional, but then the award applies to the model only when so equipped.) Any vehicle whose automatic emergency braking system does not include pedestrian detection would lose its TSP or TSP+ rating for 2020, the Ram 1500 being one example. To be named a Top Safety Pick+, the model can have no variant with headlights that achieve less than an Acceptable rating (most new cars have different headlights — often LEDs — that are exclusive to upper trim levels).

Mazda posts second-quarter loss, but gets a rebound in North America sales

TOKYO — Mazda on Thursday posted a 7.59 billion yen ($73.4 million) operating loss in the three months ended Sept 30 as sales contracted amid the coronavirus pandemic. The loss, calculated by Reuters from the company's half-year result, compares with an 18.9 billion profit in the same quarter last year and a 45.3 billion yen loss in the first three months of the business year, which was its worst in quarter in 11 years. Mazda posted a smaller loss in the second quarter after it benefited from a rebound in sales in North America, its biggest market. Vehicle sales there rose 1% from a year earlier.  Sales in the United States have slipped approximately 1% so far in 2020 as compared to 2019, despite strong sales of the CX-9, CX-5 and new CX-30 crossovers.  Japan's No.5 automaker kept its full-year forecast for an operating loss of 40 billion yen. That is better than the average full-year estimate for a 53.3 billion yen operating loss from 17 analysts polled by Refinitiv. For the full business year the maker of the CX-5 SUV crossover and Mazda3 sedan kept its full-year prediction for global vehicle sales to fall 8.5% to 1.3 million units, the lowest in seven years.

Mazda engineers urging execs for more RWD models

According to Edmunds, Mazda engineers are pressuring the company to create more rear-wheel-drive models, in an effort to better differentiate itself from its rivals. This push is reportedly coming from middle and senior engineers within the company, and these folks at Mazda believe this rear-drive strategy would allow the automaker to produce more distinctive, fun to drive cars. Mazda discontinued the rear-drive (and rotary-engined) RX-8 a few years ago, leaving the MX-5 Miata as the company's only RWD offering.
As enthusiasts, we're fully on board with Mazda offering more rear-drive cars, but unsurprisingly, the company's top management isn't exactly keen on the idea - and with good reason. First and foremost, the cost associated with redesigning fresh architecture for new models would be very high, and considering the fact that Mazda hasn't exactly been raking in the dough lately, an expensive new venture like this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. What's more, Mazda's latest front-drive models - the Mazda3, Mazda6 and CX-5 - have been very well-received, and are helping the company gain sales momentum.
But that doesn't mean there aren't other options. Edmunds reminds us that Mazda is already partnering with Alfa Romeo on the next-generation Miata, and if this collaboration is successful, perhaps the relationship could bear additional fruit. After all, Alfa Romeo is said to be working on returning to its rear-wheel-drive roots, so Mazda's engineers might be able to make a case for more RWD goodness after all.