The big news from Mazda in the last year has been its family of premium SUVs led by the CX-60 and CX-90. But with both of those cars now in the market – the CX-60 for Europe, Australia and Japan, the bigger, three-row CX-90 for North America – some of the tech has trickled down into the little 3 hatch and sedan.
Most obviously, all but the lowliest versions of the 3 get a new infotainment screen that looks just like the one in the posh SUVs. In reality it’s slightly smaller, measuring 10.25 inches rather than 12.3 inches, but that’s still an improvement over the 8.8-inch display in the pre-update 3. Don’t bother reaching out to touch it though: like the screens in Mazda’s other cars this one works only via the rotary controller on the console or though voice commands unless you’re parked.
Entry-level cars stick with old USB-A charging sockets, while the fancier ones get more modern USB-C ports, but since a wireless charging tray and wireless Apple CarPlay is also available you might not need to use them. Other tech changes include a driver monitoring system that uses audio-visual alerts to snap you back to attention and pedestrian detection.
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Also new is the ability to remotely start the engine on cars equipped with automatic transmissions from your smartphone. The My Mazda app can additionally be used to pre-set the cabin temperature before a drive and will send you alerts if the car is driven beyond speeds or times you can store in the cloud.
So there’s some useful tech there, but you won’t immediately know it from the outside because Mazda has opted to leave well alone despite the 3 coming up to its fourth birthday. The sole exterior design upgrade appears to be a new “ceramic metallic” paint option.
There’s no word on when these changes will filter through to European and North American 3s, but since the updated Mazdas will be released in June in their home market and July in Australia, we can be sure they’ll be with the rest of us within a matter of months.
