Current generation Mazda MX-5 ND to end in 2025, you're not going to like its hybrid replacement
Hans · Aug 9, 2023 02:09 PM
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NE generation 2025 Mazda MX-5. Rendered image by Best Car Web
The current ND generation Mazda MX-5 made its global debut in 2014 but it didn’t go on sale until mid-2015. Soon, the world’s best-selling roadster will be a decade old. The MX-5 is due for a replacement and a new NE generation model is expected by 2025.
If you’ve been following the global automotive trend, you could already predict that the end is near for the MX-5, also known as the Miata in the US.
Environmental regulations are changing, and so are today’s car buyers.
Organic feel, analogue controls. MX-5 drivers are a dying breed
The new generation of excessive screentime youths have little interest in cars, at least not in a traditional sense.
Unless the car in question can drive itself, has a big touch screen, comes with Internet connection, and can be plugged in to charge – basically a smartphone on wheels, and everything the Mazda MX-5 hates – it’s a lousy car.
Purist drivers who still know how to operate a manual transmission and understand what it means when a car is described as rotating around the driver’s waist are a diminishing (and increasingly ageing) group.
The ND generation MX-5 will be last roadster in the world to still offer a pure, unadulterated, organic, and analogue driving experience.
Its replacement will have to adopt some form of electrification – a peace offering to keep European Union bureaucrats eager to kill off combustion engine cars, to give them a bit more breathing space.
Just as Porsche has said that even if the all its cars become electric, the 911 will never be a battery EV, likewise Mazda with their MX-5.
If every Porsche pays homage to the 911, then the MX-5 is the one car that gives Mazda’s its reason to exist.
However, Mazda is expected to compromise by offering the next generation MX-5 as a mild-hybrid. Not even a full-hybrid, but a mild-hybrid.
Simplicity and keeping weight to its bare minimum are part of the MX-5’s DNA, so a heavy battery that dilutes the purity of an organic sports car’s driving experience is ruled out.
Japanese publication Best Car Web says the next NE generation 2025 Mazda MX-5 will retain the 1.5-litre and 2.0-litre engine options, and offer 100 PS per litre output, aided by mild-hybrid electric boost.
Closer to home, Bermaz Motor only sells the retractable hardtop 2.0-litre RF variant of the Mazda MX-5. The 6-speed manual sells for RM 276,200 while the 6-speed automatic transmission variant is priced from RM 278,200.
Over 15 years of experience in automotive, from product planning, to market research, to print and digital media. Garages a 6-cylinder manual RWD but buses to work.