Mazda has officially announced that the Mazda EZ-6 liftback developed with the help of Changan will not be a Chinese exclusive — the new product will enter the European market this fall.
The Mazda EZ-6 premiered in April this year at the Beijing Auto Show — the new product was developed as part of the Changan Mazda joint venture, and its production began in July at a plant in Nanjing (Jiangsu Province), but sales have not yet begun. The Mazda EZ-6 is essentially a replacement for the third-generation Mazda 6, which has already left most markets and debuted in 2012 at the Moscow Motor Show.
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The Japanese company had plans for its own fourth-generation Mazda 6, but its development was curtailed in 2022 for economic reasons: key markets were seeing a steady decline in consumer interest in traditional sedans and station wagons, so Mazda decided to focus on crossovers. Instead of an authentic new «six», a re-badged «Chinese» appeared, namely the Deepal liftback, stylized as a Mazda.
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Deepal is, as a reminder, a subsidiary brand of Changan, launched in 2022 with the technological support of Huawei, which supplies Deepal with electronics and software. Deepal produces near-premium electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids with good equipment and relatively affordable prices. The liftback, on the basis of which the Mazda EZ-6 is made, has two faces: in China it bears the indexes SL03 and L07, while the Deepal L07 is, in fact, an improved version of the Deepal SL03.
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The Deepal SL03/L07 is based on the EPA1 modular platform, designed primarily for electric vehicles. Plug-in hybrid versions are designed in a sequential manner: the 1.5-liter gasoline engine installed in the front is not mechanically connected to the wheels and operates as a generator, charging the traction battery. All Deepal SL03/L07 versions are powered by an electric motor mounted on the rear axle, while the EPA1 platform also allows for the production of all-wheel drive dual-motor models.
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The technical characteristics of the Mazda EZ-6 have not yet been officially announced, but in the spring this model appeared in the electronic database of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Trade, so some figures are already known: electric versions have an electric motor with a capacity of 258 hp, hybrid versions — 218 hp. The power of the gasoline engine in hybrid versions is 95 hp. The overall length of the Mazda EZ-6 is 4921 mm, width — 1890 mm, height — 1485 mm, wheelbase — 2895 mm.
Externally, the Mazda EZ-6 is quite different from its related Deepal SL03/L07, almost all the external body panels and lighting have been replaced, the interior has also been thoroughly redesigned, although, of course, the general layout is the same as that of its Chinese “brothers”. The press release says that specialists from the European division of the Japanese company went to China to tune the driving characteristics of the Mazda EZ-6, which means that Mazda customers in Europe are unlikely to be disappointed with the handling of the new liftback.
We add that last year Mazda, according to its own data, sold 186,705 cars in Europe, which is 23.4% more than sales in 2022, and in the first half of this year, 95,083 cars were sold (-1% compared to the same period last year). In China, Mazda sales in 2023 amounted to 84,949 cars (-21.4%), in the first half of 2024 — 41,688 cars (+31.3%). The largest market for Mazda is the United States, where its sales in the first half of this year amounted to 202,487 cars (+10.2%), but the liftback of Chinese origin has not yet been announced for the States.
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