Mazda has a brand new “delight level” within the U.S. with its Huntsville, Ala., plant, which is able to begin producing the made- for-America CX-50 crossover in January, Mazda North America CEO Jeff Guyton instructed Automotive Information.

After ending U.S. manufacturing almost a decade in the past as a part of Mazda’s breakup with Ford Motor Co., the Japanese automaker hopes to leverage its new joint-venture manufacturing facility with Toyota as a model message when speaking with shoppers.

A big U.S. manufacturing facility communicates a permanence on this market, Guyton stated.

“Having manufacturing within the U.S., and having that house base in Alabama, offers you an consciousness that there’s something substantial in regards to the firm right here,” he stated final week.

“We need to clarify to those who the [CX-50] product is designed primarily for North America and we make use of lots of people,” Guyton stated. “There’s a delight level round that facility that goes past simply constructing a brand new automobile.”

The Alabama plant will give Mazda 150,000 models of capability to develop within the American market with a bigger compact crossover that enhances the present CX-5, the automaker’s bestselling automobile within the U.S. and globally.

Guyton dispelled hypothesis that the CX-50, which has a extra rugged look, would possibly change the CX-5 in just a few years. An identical state of affairs occurred when Mazda launched the subcompact CX-30 in early 2020 and Mazda discontinued the smaller CX-3 a yr later.

“The CX-5 goes to remain,” Guyton stated. “The CX-3 was simply too small for the U.S. I am not seeking to change the CX-5 with the CX-50. I very a lot need to take extra of that 3 million-unit phase,” Guyton stated, referring to the small-crossover market the place the CX-30, CX-5 and CX-50 compete with fierce rivals.

In Mazda’s estimation, the CX-5 is the extra city, subtle providing whereas the CX-50 is for the outside journey life-style.

“The CX-5 has carried out an ideal job of attempting to be all issues to all individuals in that phase,” Guyton stated. “There’s quite a lot of methods the CX-50 is designed for extra actions.”

The CX-50 may even be Mazda’s first hybrid within the U.S. market, though the automaker has not but supplied any particulars on the electrified model or its attainable launch date. The gasoline CX-50 will arrive in showrooms early subsequent yr.

Guyton stated that Mazda’s strategy to electrification is that the U.S. electrical grid must be upgraded for mass EV adoption. Plug-in hybrids make sense in some instances, he added, as a result of they permit drivers to make brief journeys on battery energy whereas having a gasoline engine for longer journeys.

Mazda is concentrated on a “multi-solution strategy” that may finally embody extra electrical automobiles.

Within the meantime, Guyton stated, the model has a collection of automobiles that may come out on its new “massive platform” structure.

The 4 future automobiles have been designed with additional area for a plug-in hybrid system, Guyton stated. In addition they will function a brand new inline six-cylinder engine on a rear-wheel-drive structure.

The entire new choices within the Mazda lineup will permit the model to develop globally and within the U.S., Guyton stated.

“We do need to develop within the U.S. And our ambition is type of 450,000 by the center of the last decade,” Guyton stated. U.S. gross sales have been 278,552 in 2019 earlier than the pandemic.

“CX-50 and the large-platform automobiles might be huge elements of that progress,” Guyton stated. “Having the massive and the small platforms in the best way that now we have them creates extra effectivity for us. So we are able to meet extra clients’ wants globally.”