Mazda CX-30 Confirmed for Mexican Production
Mazda’s Salamanca plant is adding the CX-30 to its production line, ensuring its cars-and-crossovers strategy launches as planned. With the Mexican facility already manufacturing the Mazda3, it’s not a shock to see the compact added to the factory lineup as the pair utilize the same platform. In fact, Salamanca is already undergoing retooling to make sure it can incorporate the CX-30 and there were swirling rumors that the company’s official factory announcement would happen sometime this month.
While no formal announcement has been made, the company confirmed the move with Automotive News on Wednesday. Miguel Barbeyto, president of Mazda Mexico, said the facility had been selected partially due to the CX-30’s role as a global product. Mexico has free-trade agreements with numerous nations that Mazda believes will help it efficiently distribute Mexican-made product throughout Europe and North/South America.
From Automotive News:
The Salamanca plant has a capacity of 250,000 vehicles a year and also builds subcompact cars: the Mazda2 sedan and hatchback and the Toyota Yaris sedan and hatch. Mazda and Toyota have a production agreement at the plant, and the Yaris is a slightly modified version of the Mazda2.
Mazda also is building a U.S. plant in a joint venture with Toyota Motor Corp. that will produce a different Mazda crossover beginning in 2021. Mazda has not announced that vehicle, but it’s likely to be bigger than the CX-5 and smaller than the three-row CX-9. Toyota will build a distinct crossover that it also has not announced.
Slotted just above the subcompact CX-3, the CX-30 is intended to help Mazda maximize plant utilization. But with the popularity of traditional cars waining, it’s more likely to take center stage at the facility. Barbeyto even said the super-sexy Mazda3 hatchback would be moving out of Mexico and into Japan to help make room for the new crossover.
It’ll be hitting our streets in 2020, equipped with Mazda’s new Skyactiv-X engine. Older gasoline and diesel power plants will also be available, though not in all markets.
[Images: Mazda]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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Mazda: "If we keep digging deep enough and flipping the harvested matter against the wall, something - SOMETHING - will stick and arrest our falling USDM volumes."
I am not a Mazda guy but those tail lights look like rocket/jet engine exhausts. It should be a Pontiac. Why Mazda just do not rename it self to Pontiac.