搜尋歷史
熱門搜尋
經銷商登入 / 註冊
According to reports from Australian automotive media, Mazda is actively expanding its electric vehicle lineup through cooperation with Chinese partner Changan Auto, and Mazda 6e and CX-6e are the representative works of this cooperation. Although both cars use technology and platforms provided by Chinese partners, Mazda insists that these products must still meet the brand's own quality standards, rather than simply putting Mazda badges on Chinese models.
In fact, Mazda has responded more than once to the quality of cars produced in China. Manabu Osuga, Mazda's Global Sales and Marketing Supervisor, previously stated in an interview with Australian media that since Mazda holds a 50% equity stake in the Chinese joint production base, the brand can regard this factory as part of Mazda's own manufacturing system and introduce Mazda's production processes, manufacturing management, and quality assurance systems.
This means that even if vehicles are not produced in Japan, Mazda still has a responsibility to ensure products meet its own requirements, rather than leaving the manufacturing standards entirely to partners. Additionally, Hiroshi Ozawa, head of Mazda's Nanjing production base, also pointed out that the local factory adopts Mazda's production processes, and the automation level of Chinese automotive factories is already quite high, long gone are the past production models that relied heavily on manual labor.
From Mazda's perspective, car quality depends on production technology, part specifications, quality management, and inspection systems during the manufacturing process, rather than judging solely based on the country of production. Therefore, Mazda has quite high confidence in the quality performance of China-made models.
Of course, the manufacturer's guarantee does not equal that the vehicles have already proven to have the same long-term reliability as Japan-made models. Especially for new-generation electric vehicles, they still need to undergo actual market use, long-term durability testing, and after-sales maintenance performance in the future to further prove their reliability.
The most obvious examples at present are Mazda 6e and Mazda CX-6e. Both models are products developed in cooperation between Mazda and Changan, and they share part of the technical foundation of Deepal models under China. Among them, Mazda 6e is called Mazda EZ-6 in the Chinese market, and it has a close technical relationship with Deepal L07; as for Mazda CX-6e, its name in the Chinese market is Mazda EZ-60, and its technical foundation is related to Deepal S07.
However, although adopting the electric vehicle technology and platforms of Chinese partners, Mazda has not simply put its own brand logo on existing Deepal models. Mazda still participates in vehicle exterior design, interior material selection, and chassis tuning, hoping that these models will continue to retain Mazda's brand characteristics in terms of driving feel and overall design.
In particular, the Jinba Ittai (Vehicle and Driver as One) driving philosophy that Mazda has always emphasized is also a core element the brand hopes to retain in electric vehicle products. Even though there are significant differences between electric vehicles and traditional internal combustion engine models in power output, weight distribution, and driving characteristics, Mazda still hopes to establish its own driving feel through steering, suspension, and power response tuning.
Mazda's choice to deepen cooperation with Changan is actually the result of being driven by the realistic market environment. Compared to larger automotive groups like Toyota and Volkswagen, Mazda's R&D resources are relatively limited. If it must independently develop a complete electric vehicle platform, battery management system, electric drive technology, and smart in-vehicle system, the capital and time required to invest would be considerable.
At the same time, Chinese automotive manufacturers have already accumulated rich experience in electric vehicles, battery technology, and intelligent systems. Therefore, cooperating with Changan allows Mazda to directly utilize existing technical foundations, shorten product development cycles, and reduce R&D costs at the same time.
On the other hand, Mazda can also focus more resources on areas where it excels, including exterior design, cabin texture, and driving tuning, etc. This cooperation method can not only improve development efficiency but also help Mazda enter the fiercely competitive global electric vehicle market faster. For Mazda, rather than spending a lot of time independently developing all technologies, it is better to utilize partners' mature technologies, and then add its own design and engineering concepts.
It is worth noting that the challenge Mazda currently faces is not entirely a quality issue of Chinese manufacturing, but whether consumers can still feel Mazda's consistent brand characteristics from these models. Taking Mazda 6e as an example, some Australian automotive media believe after test driving that it has excellent exterior design, comfortable riding performance, and competitive pricing, but in terms of in-vehicle system operation, physical button configuration, and tuning of some active safety systems, it still has obvious differences compared to traditional Mazda models.
This also shows that even if manufacturing quality meets Mazda's requirements, the vehicle's driving experience and usage habits may still change due to differences in development platforms and technical architectures. For consumers who have long driven Mazda 3, CX-5, or Mazda 6, what they are familiar with is not just the brand's manufacturing quality, but also the vehicle's steering feel, suspension performance, and interior operation logic. These are all parts Mazda must continue to strive to retain in future China-cooperated models.
With Mazda 6e and CX-6e gradually entering overseas markets, the cooperation between Mazda and Changan is likely to continue expanding. Previously, overseas media pointed out that Mazda may use more existing Chinese electric vehicle platforms to develop new products in the future, including more affordable pure electric SUVs, but related product planning still needs official confirmation from the manufacturer.
This means that in the future, when consumers purchase Mazda, they may come into contact with more products that adopt Chinese electric vehicle technology, are produced by Chinese factories, but have been designed and tuned by Mazda itself. From a market strategy perspective, this allows Mazda to accelerate the pace of catching up with competitors in the electric vehicle field while reducing the financial pressure brought by independent R&D. However, Mazda must also ensure that the brand does not gradually lose its product characteristics due to sharing technology.
In fact, with the global automotive industry supply chain becoming more international, simply judging car quality by the country of production may no longer accurately reflect a car's actual performance. Whether vehicles are produced in Japan, China, Thailand, or other countries, what truly determines quality is always the manufacturer's technical capabilities, production management, quality standards, and supplier systems.
Mazda's choice to cooperate with Changan does not mean the brand is prepared to give up the Japanese manufacturing concept it insisted on in the past, but is seeking a more efficient development method in the electric vehicle era. However, what Mazda can currently prove is that the Chinese production base adopts its quality management system, and whether vehicles can continue to maintain Mazda's consistent reliability after five or ten years of use still needs time to verify.
For consumers, where a car is actually manufactured may not be the only factor to consider. More importantly, whether it has good quality, reasonable pricing, and whether it still retains the driving experience that Mazda was once admired for.
