Mazda’s all-new CX-8 appears almost certain to become available in Australia after making its global public debut at the Tokyo motor show.
Officially, Mazda Australia has confirmed the large seven-seat diesel SUV, scheduled for release in Japan during December, is now available for our market and it will make a decision on its local future within two months.
Marketing director Alastair Doak said the CX-8 was under serious consideration to join the CX-3, CX-5 and CX-9 in Mazda Australia’s SUV line-up.
“CX-8 is now available for the Australian market, so it’s now up to us to decide if we want it in our line-up or not and we’ll make that decision by the end of the year,” he told motoring.com.au.
“We’re absolutely delighted with CX-9. It’s selling in great numbers, its market share has improved and we’re seeing new customers come to the Mazda brand that we didn’t have previously.
“It ticks all the boxes, so the question is: ‘is there room for another [large] SUV?’. We’ve got to work out if there’s a place within our range for it. If you have two, what kind of [sales] cannibalisation will there be and how much will be incremental?”
However, Doak said the CX-8’s 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel would be a unique proposition alongside the larger CX-9 seven-seater, which is available exclusively with a 2.5-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder.
“CX-8 is slightly smaller than CX-9, but the interesting thing about CX-8 is that it’s diesel-only, so it has a very clear point of difference,” he explained.
Doak would not say where the CX-8 would be positioned in relation to the CX-9, which is priced between $43,890 and $64,790, but confirmed it wouldn’t come cheap.
“Because CX-8 is designed and developed for Japan, it means it’s limited in terms of grade line-up and so forth, so if we took it, it would mean we’d be locked in to their kind of model range, so it would be a pretty high specification sort of vehicle and that has implications on price point. They’re the things we’re working through at the moment,” he said.
However, Doak indicated that the opportunity to finally offer a large seven-seat diesel SUV to rival models like the Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento, Skoda Kodiaq and Volkswagen’s upcoming Tiguan Allspace could be irresistible for Mazda Australia.
“Diesel by itself makes it more expensive, so it certainly wouldn’t be a cheap seven-seat SUV – it wouldn’t play that role for us – but at the same time it will be a full seven-seat SUV and not a 5+2 like some of the new players in the segment, so that gives it an advantage.”
As we’ve reported, the CX-8’s sole twin-turbo diesel, matched as standard with a six-speed automatic transmission, has been tuned to deliver 140kW/450Nm (up from 129kW/420Nm in the CX-5 and Mazda6).
Riding on an identical 2930mm wheelbase as the CX-9, the CX-8 is 175mm shorter at 4900mm, as well as 17mm lower (1730mm) and 129mm narrower at 1840mm – the same width as the CX-5 - making it more of a long-wheelbase, seven-seat CX-5 than a shrunken CX-9.
The CX-8 comes with 239L of boot space with the rear seats in place, or 572L when stowed – 238L less than the larger CX-9.
Meantime, Doak ruled out a local release for the smaller China-only CX-4 model, which is positioned above the CX-5 in terms of both size and price – at least until its successor emerges in about five years, based on Mazda’s redesigned ‘SKYACTIV II’ platform.
“We’re only small so we have limited resources, and where it would fit in to our range is another question. But I’m hopeful for cars like that in Australia, but it won’t happen in this generation,” he said.