2028 Mazda 2 and CX-3 face EV challenge

Having finally found some momentum in its electrified era, Mazda’s next-generation renewal of its smallest products is presenting some big challenges. Due by the end of the decade, the company’s all-new replacements for the Mazda 2 and CX-3 will need to wear many hats at the same time, and be flexible enough to accommodate conventional combustion, hybrid and all-electric powertrains. It’s no small feat.

In 2025, Mazda unveiled the Vision-X Compact concept at the Tokyo Mobility Show, showcasing a bubble-backed B-segment hatch that was an obvious primer for the long-awaited replacement for the current DJ-series Mazda 2.

While Mazda stayed mum on the Vision-X Compact’s power source, the presence of a tachometer behind its steering wheel suggested a combustion engine of some description would be part of the offering.

However, Mazda now tells carsales that a hydrocarbon-fuelled powerplant, whether pure combustion or a petrol-electric hybrid, won’t be the only thing to propel its next generation of compact cars. A purely electric Mazda 2 and CX-3 successor is indeed somewhere in the product pipeline.

Asked if the Mazda 2 and CX-3 replacement will be offered as a pure electric vehicle (EV), Mazda’s program manager for the all-electric Mazda 6e and CX-6e, Hiroshi Ozawa, was up-front.

“We have to, of course, but B-cars, EV B-cars and making that kind of vehicle is very, very difficult.”

The biggest stumbling block is the battery, which faces multiple pressure points when it comes to cost, energy density and packaging. The B-segment is already sensitive to price, battery packs only add to the bill of materials, and with compact-car platforms occupying a small footprint, there’s typically not enough room to integrate a battery with 400km-plus range either.

“If it’s okay to have a shorter range, then that’s okay,” Ozawa told carsales. “But if we want a ‘proper’ range, it may be difficult for the small cars.”

“It depends on how the target customers use our vehicles. Based on that insight, we decide how long the range should be. If the vehicle is small and it’s used for a city commuter, maybe 200km of range will be enough, especially in a country like Japan.”

Asked how far off Mazda is from a compact battery-electric vehicle (BEV), Ozawa said more work was still needed.

“We don’t have the right solution yet.”

But whether an all-electric next-generation Mazda 2 will be available at launch, believed to be sometime after 2027, or added down the line, one thing is clear: Mazda’s approach to catering to the compact-car market won’t be a one-powertrain-fits-all strategy.

“With the CO2 regulations, we have to come up with the solution [for] EV only. But we have this multi-solution strategy, so we will stick to that strategy. Even in China, it’s estimated that 30 per cent of vehicles will still be ICE.”

Asked if Mazda’s next-generation B-segment platform, which will underpin the next-generation Mazda 2 and CX-3, will be multi-powertrain, Ozawa was clear.

“Yes, of course, that’s something we definitely have to do.”

Engineering B-segment platforms is a difficult art in this day and age, with research and development costs typically similar to those of larger platforms, but per-unit profit margins substantially slimmer. Making a B-segment platform that can be pure combustion, hybrid and battery-electric isn’t impossible, but it sure isn’t easy, or cheap. Mazda’s own MX-30 managed that feat, yet it’s remembered more as a commercial failure than anything else.

But Mazda’s playbook may also draw on multiple models to satisfy the brand’s multi-solution (read: multi-powertrain) strategy, as it has done in the mid-size SUV space with the all-electric CX-6e, pure-combustion (for now) CX-5, and hybrid-capable CX-60. Its joint venture with China’s Changan Automobile, leveraged for the CX-6e and 6e, could yield a solution for the compact segment as well.

For many Japanese manufacturers, hamstrung by higher costs and a slower approach to embracing all-electric models, joint-venture strategies might provide the solution, or at least part of it. Mazda’s compatriot Mitsubishi will leverage a partnership with Taiwanese company Foxtron for its upcoming ASX VRe, due in Q4 2026, while Nissan has drawn upon its alliance with Renault for its new-generation all-electric Micra, which has unfortunately been deemed off-limits to Aussie motorists.

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