Fan favourite 7-seater SUV culled from NZ market

Tuesday, 15 August 2023

Those wanting a three-row SUV from Mazda will now have to go to either the CX-8 or the CX-90.

As two new SUV nameplates arrive at our shores from Japanese carmaker Mazda, one has been confirmed as departing at the end of 2023.

At the launch of its all-new CX-60 and CX-90, the first of the brand’s more luxury-orientated ‘CX’ SUVs, Mazda New Zealand confirmed that this year would be the last for the CX-9.

Mazda has revealed the new three-row CX-90, destined for a local launch in 2023.

The brand will continue to sell the CX-9 for the duration of the year, but indicated that it won’t be securing any future stock for 2024 and beyond. Customers wanting a 7-seater SUV, it indicated, are expected to be funnelled into either a CX-8 or a CX-90 in future.

The CX-9 has been offered in New Zealand since 2010, scoring its greatest acclaim when the current model arrived in 2016. Built on the same SkyActiv platform as the CX-5 and Mazda6, the second-gen CX-9 has long been popular amongst critics.

Whilst the CX-90’s arrival comes at the expense of the CX-9, the same cannot be said for the new CX-60 and its closest equivalent, the CX-5. Still Mazda’s most popular new model and having been updated last year, the CX-5 will March on into 2024 and beyond.

The first-gen CX-9 was tough to love, even when it was facelifted to look more like its newer ‘Kodo’ cousins.

As previously reported, the CX-60 and CX-90 represent the second and third plug-in models in Mazda’s New Zealand line-up. Both make use of a 2.5-litre SkyActiv-G four-cylinder petrol engine paired to an electric motor and a 17.8kWh battery.

In other SUV movements, Mazda New Zealand was non-committal on the topic of when its rotary range extender MX-30, named the e-Active R-EV, would arrive in local showrooms. The retro-flavoured electrified SUV is set to appear alongside the MX-30 BEV in the near future – to date the brand’s only pure BEV model.

Speaking of electric vehicles, Mazda New Zealand has earmarked 2025 as it's next big year for electrified vehicle growth. It says there will be multiple electrified models joining its line-up in two years’ time, although it was coy as to what those models would be and whether they would mostly be plug-in hybrids.

The brand went on to name 2028 as the year its new scalable EV architecture will land locally, adding that it will have multiple pure electric vehicle options in its line-up by 2030.

These comments echo wider commitments Mazda has made globally. In 2021, it announced it would launch 13 new electrified models (including three EVs) by 2025, with the CX-60 and CX-90 being included in that mix.