The Development and Expectations of the New Mazda3

The Mazda team has recently developed a brand new Mazda3 from the ground up. Normally, a small car in this class is developed from an existing platform and made smaller, but this car has been completely redesigned and developed from the ground up. The transition and growth of a new car to become one of the most affordable and fuel-efficient vehicles on the road usually come at a high price, but Mazda has the plan to keep the cost to consumers down where we expect it to be so that we can enjoy the drive.

The Bundled Mentality

The idea behind the development of the new Mazda3 was to use bundled planning. This means that all models that will be developed and share the platform of the Mazda3 will share many of the development resources and efforts already in place. This allows the Mazda team to put all of their efforts and resources into creating the right car from the platform while knowing this platform will be used for other models and will continue to pay dividends in the savings offered because the information and items needed for the next model will already be in place.

Production Savings as Well

Not only has Mazda employed the use of a platform across several of the models offered from the brand, but they also work to keep the same standards on the production lines for every vehicle built on the same platform. This means they make the locators the exact same for the body, tires, and engines for every vehicle that’s built on that platform. This allows for serious cost savings and makes it easy to avoid retooling when you don’t need to. These steps toward savings might be exactly what other brands should use going forward.

Suppliers Make a Difference for Mazda Too

The relationship with automakers and their suppliers is typically a straightforward one. The automaker provides the drawings and specifications for the parts to the OEM provider and they build the components to meet those conditions. Mazda takes this a step farther in the development of a new vehicle and a new platform by meeting with the suppliers at the drawing sage to allow them to offer their input. This allows for a reduction in the number of prototype parts that are required to get the part right during the development of the vehicle and the platform.

The Customer Relationship for Mazda

Another aspect of what Mazda enjoys for the development of vehicles that can help them offer what we want at the right price is the relationship their engineers have with cars and with their customer base. The team at Mazda seems to truly enjoy cars and their jobs and have more contact with their customers than engineers of rival companies. This allows the Mazda engineering team to know what they should offer and how the vehicles should perform when being driven on the road. From start to finish, Mazda is developing their vehicles the right way.