Review: 2025 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid may not be moving enough

Among mainstream, gasoline-fueled vehicles, with only a few exceptions, our advice to most shoppers has become simple: If there’s a hybrid, get the hybrid. 

There’s now a hybrid in the Alabama-built Mazda CX-50 lineup. And after spending a couple of days with it, yes, that advice holds—with a few caveats. 

The most important piece of context needed here up front may be that Mazda doesn’t, like rival automakers in the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Ford Escape or, soon, Subaru Forester, see the hybrid system as creating the flagship of the lineup. Instead it fits the CX-50 Hybrid between its 2.5 S and Turbo models. 

Hybrid transplant for Mazda’s mainstream middle

First things first, the CX-50 Hybrid carries forward with the advantage already held by non-hybrid CX-50 versions: It looks great. The CX-50 has a profile, stance, and styling details that all fit together cohesively. It neither looks like a plus-size compact SUV nor a nipped-and-tucked take on a bigger SUV, the sides are sculpted just right, the cladding is quaffed and minimal, and it doesn’t have awkward angles. 

You’re unlikely to pick out the Hybrid from the non-hybrid from a distance, except for unique alloy wheels. The CX-50 Hybrid’s exterior is discreetly raised 1.4 inches (35 mm) while providing the same ground clearance, and it gets commensurate “higher-profile body cladding” (really a subtle change) to signal that and perhaps help it fit more easily alongside non-hybrids.

The CX-50 Hybrid also carries over nearly the same overall dimensions and packaging. It has 7.8 to 8.1 inches of ground clearance, and it’s the 19-inch wheels featured in my test Premium Plus that provide that extra bump. 

After the admiration for this handsome exterior fades a bit, it starts to become clear that this isn’t quite as roomy of an interior as the CX-50 suggests on the outside. Versus any of those rivals, the CX-50’s EPA passenger volume of 97.0 cubic feet is markedly less; and it doesn’t make up for it with its cargo volume of 29.2 cubic feet, or 56.3 cubic feet with the rear seats folded.

Trades off space vs. rivals for a pretty profile

Considering the CX-50 longer bod, it took a few walkarounds to understand that there’s a simple answer to where the space goes. The CX-50 looks great because more of its profile is dedicated to the hoodline and less to the cabin. 

At 185.6 inches long and riding on a noteworthy 110.8-inch wheelbase, the CX-50 is a few inches longer than rivals like Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, or Subaru Forester, and within an inch or so in most other key dimensions. 

That said, it’s still plenty roomy for four. Get adults into the front and rear seats and this is an interior that will do six-footers in the front and rear seats. Although the seats don’t feel quite as back-supportive as those used in the Mazda 3 or CX-5, they’re quite good versus what you’ll find in other affordable vehicles. 

The hybrid’s 1.59-kwh nickel-metal-hydride battery pack has minor impact on space. It’s positioned under the rear seat. Thus, rear passengers sit closer to the floor but higher from the ground. It results in slightly less legroom, but it’s such a small difference that cross-shoppers might not even pick it out. Most of the Hybrid’s floor structure is unique to it, and the front frame rails are set more widely apart—so don’t expect it to carry over the standard CX-50’s federal five-star and IIHS Top Safety Pick+ status quite yet. 

39-mpg AWD hybrid system, familiar numbers—from Toyota

What’s under the hood is a completely different engine than the Mazda one powering non-hybrid versions of the CX-50. Mazda calls this an “eCVT,” but it’s a planetary torque-split device allowing several bands of effective ratio spans to enable different electrified torque and efficiency demands. 

Here, the 2.5-liter Toyota inline-4 makes 176 hp and 163 lb-ft of torque, with all-wheel-drive provided only via a rear electric motor, making 54 hp and 89 lb-ft of torque. Altogether, the Toyota hybrid system makes the same combined 219 hp and 163 lb-ft of torque—the same output numbers as in the RAV4 Hybrid.

It earns EPA ratings of 39 mpg city, 37 highway, and 38 combined. Although this first sample of the CX-50 Hybrid suggested that those numbers might be a little optimistic, buyers can look forward to impressive efficiency in everyday driving with this practical crossover. 

Curb weight of the CX-50 adds up to 4,008 pounds, according to Mazda. That’s 267 pounds more than a non-hybrid CX-50, or about a hundred pounds more than a Turbo. The CX-50 Hybrid is rated to tow 1,500 pounds—less than other CX-50 models, but enough to avoid a pickup for crosstown weekend-project hauls and the like. 

CX-50 Hybrid real-world mpg proves diesel wrong

Mazda spent years attempting to bring a turbo-diesel engine to the U.S. market, and then when it arrived in the 2019 Mazda CX-5 SkyActive-D, it provided slower acceleration and only marginally better mpg. Now the CX-50 lays out the foundation of an argument that Mazda should have been looking to hybrids all along. It definitely accelerates to 60 mph quicker than the 8+ seconds of the base CX-50, while topping that model’s 28-mpg combined EPA ratings—at a price premium that’s going to pay off at the gas pump within a few years. 

So to get a feel for why Mazda bailed on its own diesel and turned to Toyota, I took the CX-50 Hybrid on the exact same loop I took the somewhat smaller, underwhelming CX-5 diesel on a few years earlier: a nearly 175-mile loop that includes fast-moving, dynamic-driving backroads and steep highways skirting Oregon’s Mt. Hood, with the last 60 miles near the 70-mph flow of traffic. In all, I averaged 35 mpg—significantly better than the 31 mpg the diesel model had managed in the same kind of driving.

I then also took the CX-50 out on a 53-mile loop that I’ve run a number of different hybrid on, with 700 feet of elevation gain and loss plus a mix of gentle under-65-mph freeway driving, suburban stop-and-go, and rolling-hill backroads. On this, I averaged 39 mpg, which is several mpg less than I’d seen in the CR-V Hybrid and RAV4 Hybrid on this same loop under comparable conditions. 

Like many hybrids, the CX-50 Hybrid is a very efficient cruiser provided you keep within a certain sweet spot. At a steady 70 mph, my test vehicle settled into an average right around 35 mpg. But hiking the speed up to 75 mph appeared to drop mileage to 32 mpg. 

“Signature driving dynamics” of a different sort

Mazda has a reputation for providing sportier, better-driving vehicles, and the CX-50 has Mazda’s “signature driving dynamics,” according to the brand. As someone who loves the Miata, recommends the CX-30, and appreciates the new CX-70 and CX-90—and the frugal value of Toyota’s hybrids—I’m not sold on the hybrid CX-50. 

What I found disappointing right from the start was that the hybrid system feels very conservatively tuned—in a way that doesn’t always go along with attempts at a lively personality in the look, feel, and packaging of the vehicle. 

Dynamically, if Mazda is trying to sell more hybrids or more EVs in the near future, this doesn’t move the driver in any enthusiastic way. 

While you can take a standard CX-30 or a CX-90 plug-in hybrid off on a backroad and find an unexpectedly vivid, spirited driving experience, this is simply not what you get in the CX-50 Hybrid. Versus direct rivals, the CX-50 doesn’t drive with the graceful dynamics and above-and-beyond steering and suspension response of the rest of the Mazda lineup, although ride quality is decent on its relatively softly tuned suspension, with struts in front and a torsion-beam layout in back. 

There’s no Sport mode (that’s left for the Turbo); you can choose from Normal, Power, and Trail, and the Power mode. Power mode kept the engine on nearly all the time and eliminated the slight lag while waiting for it to fire up for full power, but it didn’t make the CX-50 feel any perkier ultimately. You can order up lower “gears” simulated with the hybrid system, but they don’t provide all that much more engine braking or regenerative braking for hills or curves. 

The hybrid transplant improved the weight distribution of the CX-50 to 55/45 front/rear. But don’t think of that or the CX-50 Hybrid all-wheel-drive system as adding anything to driving dynamics in most situations. Its tuning feels more benign even than that of the RAV4, or other Mazda hybrids. and I felt no torque delivery to the rear wheels in tight corners on a rain-slicked road—to the degree that, where the rain switched to snow up on Mt. Hood, I pulled off on a snow-covered gravel turnout to verify that yes, indeed, this was all-wheel drive. There, at low speeds and gentle throttle, it offered up precise traction to the rear wheels as needed. Trail mode optimizes grip in low-traction situations such as that, but it wasn’t even needed there. 

Just as my fellow editors pointed out about the non-hybrid CX-50, this is a loud interior, and there doesn’t seem to be markedly more padding for the hybrid. It booms at highway speeds on anything but perfect surfaces, with road noise, not engine noise, coming up through the back of the vehicle into the cabin—making me think that backseat passengers might have a rather fatiguing experience on long trips. 

Mazda CX-50 Hybrid goes for value

For 2025, the whole CX-50 lineup gets more features without increasing MSRP. The CX-50 Hybrid is offered in Preferred, Premium, and Premium Plus trims. The $35,390 Preferred gets heated vinyl seats, a power driver’s seat, rain-sensing wipers, a wireless phone charger, and a power liftgate. The $38,820 Premium gets a panoramic sunroof, a power passenger seat with memory settings, black roof rails and exhaust tips, 12-speaker Bose audio, additional driver-assistance tech including adaptive cruise control, and optional red leather seating. The $42,065 Premium Plus—the one I tested—gets 19-inch alloy wheels, cooled front seats, a heated steering wheel, and power folding side mirrors. 

With some additional equipment versus non-hybrid models, the CX-50 Hybrid Preferred costs $2,320 more than an equivalent non-hybrid CX-50 Preferred—or $3,670 more than the base non-hybrid CX-50 Select. Hybrid versions of Premium and Premium Plus CX-50 trims cost $3,400 and $2,550 more, respectively, than non-hybrid versions. 

For the most part this is a pretty well-designed interior, with a simple reconfigurable gauge cluster, good lines of sight, and cupholders and bins in sensible places—although the CX-50’s wireless phone charger blipped back and forth between charging and not charging not just with my iPhone but two other test devices. 

The CX-50’s infotainment system includes a 10.3-inch touchscreen, but it revolves around a hierarchical menu system that may continue to leave you flabbergasted even after you get to know it. How do you channel-surf and simply go up and down channels on SXM, for instance, or return back to the channel you were on if you switch accidentally? There’s a whole lot of clumsily backing out several menu steps for contextual “next steps” that should be a click away. The system does have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration. That worked great and you may find yourself relying on it, as Mazda’s system seems to have lost some functionality in recent years. 

Mazda includes a full suite of active-safety features here, including automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitors, and remarkably non-invasive active lane control. But on a simple lead-and-follow adaptive cruise, that system didn’t pass the test when traffic slowed slightly, the vehicle I was following changed lanes, and another vehicle was directly ahead. 

CX-50 Hybrid: Not a niche this time, but not Mazda’s future

Mazda has in recent years seemed a little lost with green vehicles, like with its Mazda MX-30 EV that failed to deliver its potential, and with a whole suite of technologies, like SkyActiv-X and SkyActiv-D engine tech, and a rotary range extender, that failed to even arrive in the U.S. 

The CX-50 seems like an easy opportunity for Mazda to counter the more exciting side it’s shown with its perky, nicely tuned CX-90 plug-in hybrid, but the CX-50 Hybrid just doesn’t have the personality we expected. 

After spending a couple days with it, on one hand it feels like the mass-market, efficiency-oriented model that Mazda should have had in the lineup before either of those high-effort tech oddities. But on the other hand it doesn’t have the personality we expected, even given the limitations of the hybrid system going into it.

The CX-50 simply doesn’t have the built-in refinement of the Honda CR-V Hybrid, and it doesn’t feel like it even has the perkiness of a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid.

Beyond first impressions and the curb appeal, I’d much rather be in a Honda CR-V Hybrid. The Honda has a torquier, quicker-reacting powertrain; it handles better; its cabin feels more upscale; and it makes better use of its space. 

The automaker is however on-path to a sales record, and it boasts that 2024 is shaping up to be its first year selling more than 400,000 vehicles annually. It has a record owner loyalty of over 50%, and it expects to sell 100,000 CX-50s in 2025, with Hybrid models making up 40% of that. 

Could that path be a little more moving? We’ll leave that question to Mazda—and the adventure to you.