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Who would compare a Jeep and a Mazda? Most people wouldn't ever cross-shop the two. But
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00:00You wouldn't typically hear Mazda and Jeep used together in the same sentence but the truth is
00:05both have gotten so competitive that we have no choice but to compare them.
00:11The CX-50 actually does ride like a sports car in that when you go around a corner the suspension
00:17leans and there's not a ton of body roll. The suspension is divine. Feels great, soaks up all
00:24the bumps. Very comfortable. Definitely tuned more for an off-road application I think.
00:36Hybridized and ready for just about anything, today we are comparing the 2025 Mazda CX-50
00:42against the 2026 Jeep Cherokee to see which is best. What are their interiors like? How do they drive?
00:48What are their amenities? We shall find out. New for the 2025 model year is the CX-50 hybrid which
00:55addresses some of the efficiency concerns we had about the non-hybrid 2024 model year cars.
01:01In this case, Mazda did the smart thing and simply outsourced the job to Toyota. Powering the all
01:07wheel drive CX-50 hybrid is Toyota's turbocharged 2.5 liter four-cylinder hybrid setup that makes a total
01:14system output of 219 horsepower. It returns an EPA rated 39 miles per gallon in the city, 37 on the
01:22highway and 38 combined, up from the non-hybrid turbo CX-50's 23 miles per gallon in the city, 29 on
01:29the highway and 25 combined. Not great. All that's wrapped up in elegant Mazda styling inside and out.
01:36And if you've been around modern Mazdas, this really shouldn't come as a surprise. The CX-50's
01:42additional exterior plastic cladding suggests ruggedness and utility, but its capacities fall
01:48rather short. It has an 850-pound payload capacity and a 1,500-pound towing capacity.
01:55This particular test car came in the top-tier Premium Plus trim, which gets you leather seats,
02:00heated and ventilated front seats, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, head-up display, wireless Apple
02:06CarPlay and Android Auto, a wireless phone charger, and the 10.25-inch center display.
02:12Total as-tested price comes to $41,995.
02:18After a brief hiatus, Jeep brings back the Cherokee for the 2026 model year. Built on new vehicle
02:24architecture and coming standard with all-wheel drive and a hybrid powertrain, the Cherokee has
02:29been seriously overhauled. It'll fill the space between the Compass and the Grand Cherokee.
02:35The new Cherokee marks Jeep's very first standard hybrid in the U.S. It's a turbocharged 1.6-liter
02:41unit helped along by two electric motors to produce a total system output of 210 horsepower. It returns an
02:48EPA-rated fuel economy of 42 miles per gallon in the city, 33 on the highway, and 37 combined.
02:54Useable capacities are also much better than the Mazdas. Like the Mazda, the Jeep has an 850-pound
03:02payload capacity, but it has a far more usable 3,500-pound towing capacity. Despite being a brand
03:09new car, the Cherokee looks pretty much like every Jeep you've ever seen before. That is the power of
03:16heritage-inspired styling, I suppose. The interior is the biggest change of all, however. In addition to
03:22increased passenger and cargo space, seeing as this Cherokee is larger than ever, all trims get the
03:2810.3-inch driver display and 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen. The cabin is filled with interesting
03:35shapes and textures, though the separate climate bar below the touchscreen feels pretty cheap to the
03:40touch, like a piece of flimsy plastic stuck over the controls. Also, check out that almost ellipsoid
03:47steering wheel. I have a feeling that'll be interesting once I start driving. Anyway,
03:53this particular Cherokee comes in the Overland 4x4 trim, which gets you wireless Apple CarPlay
03:58in Android Auto, heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, an acoustic windshield, and
04:04adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go. An additional equipment package for $1,495 adds
04:11ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, and a surround-view camera system. And since the Overland
04:18is also the most expensive Cherokee trim you can buy, its as-tested price comes to $48,085,
04:25which is quite a bit more than the Mazda. So there you have them, the CX-50 hybrid and Cherokee on paper.
04:32Time to get out there and see what they're like from behind the wheel.
04:42First off, Mazda CX-50, a masterclass in recognizing when someone, Toyota, is better at something than
04:50you are and taking full advantage of it. To start, the steering wheel is small and feels good in the
04:56hand. And really, no matter what driving mode you're in, the steering remains tight and weighty, which is
05:01kind of rare in this segment. It makes it very enjoyable. Also, it has kind of that hallmark Mazda-ness
05:08to the steering, which tells me that Mazda actually did work to make this car feel like the rest of its
05:14cars. So that's impressive. The CX-50 also rides kind of like a sports car. The suspension leans and turns,
05:22there's not a ton of body roll, and it's fairly good at mitigating choppy pavement. You still feel it, but it
05:29doesn't ruin your day or anything like that. The brakes are strong, but they kind of do this strange
05:34thing when you do go to use them. They feel a little wooden. As in, it feels like there's something
05:39between the brake rotor and the brake caliper. Not sure what. That might be just one of those hybrid
05:45regen braking things that hasn't been ironed out yet in this car. Power is good, especially low-end power,
05:54seeing as it's a hybrid. And also, top-end power is pretty good. So if you're trying to accelerate
05:58from a fast speed to a faster speed, the car will be able to do it. Like, maybe you're trying to get
06:03ahead of somebody on the highway. Mid-range power is where things fall off a little bit. Say you're
06:08bombing around the canyons and you're trying to, like, power out of a corner, you're going to have
06:13to wait a little longer for that acceleration to come on. But again, it's a still pretty fun car to drive.
06:19Tech is where the CX-50 falls short. We'll start with cruise control. So it does have adaptive cruise
06:27control, which means you can set a follow distance and a speed, and the car will follow the flow of
06:32traffic. I found that it accelerated very aggressively when slower traffic moved out of the way.
06:38That's generally something I've seen with less refined, older adaptive cruise systems. So maybe this
06:45system hasn't gotten a recent update, and there's also no lane keep assist at all. So you're just
06:51on your own with keeping the car in the lane. Not terrible, but when everybody else has lane keep
06:56assist and you're the only one who doesn't offer it, it kind of sticks out. Second, the screen up here,
07:01this is not a touch screen. A lot of people this week have been, like, trying to touch it. It is not
07:07touch screen. You control it via this little click wheel down here, which admittedly feels good in the
07:11hand. But if you're trying to, like, enter an address, oh my god. Trying to type with this thing
07:16is bananas in 2025. I understand that a lot of people just get into this car and they plug in
07:22Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, and they're on their way. But it is still a click wheel if you want to
07:27interact with the interface. However, after spending some time with it, I have to say it's not terrible.
07:33I mean, you don't have to look down to see what your hands are doing. There's an easily accessible
07:36back button. You can bump the wheel up, down, left, right if you need to. And what's even better is
07:43this screen is perfectly within your line of sight. So you don't need to move your eyes very far from
07:47the road in order to use it. So perhaps in not updating the system, Mazda has actually come out on
07:54top in terms of user interface. That's an interesting thing to think about. Finally, the ergonomics of the
08:00CX50 are okay. They aren't stellar. I like to say that this car is the best car of 2018 and I still
08:08hold to that. The air vents are a little on the small side, but there are physical buttons for
08:14the climate, so you don't have to be distracted when you're using it. But there's a few strange choices
08:20about cubbies, as in there aren't enough of them, and your phone kind of goes under your elbow, which
08:27means maybe you kind of lose track of it. You can't see it very easily. Bigger phones might have
08:32problems fitting on this wireless charge pad. So it's definitely a dated interior, not by no means
08:37a bad one, just dated. So after driving the CX50 around all morning, it feels sort of like it writes
08:46checks it can't cash. And I know that sounds like a bad thing, but just like, just hear me out.
08:50All of the stuff that it does that is sporty, the fast steering, the grabby brakes, the low end power
08:58indicates a sporty car. So it encourages you to go fast and you can. But if you're going anywhere
09:04beyond five tenths, it might fall apart a little bit. It is a mainstream car and that becomes clear.
09:09But for most people, that doesn't matter. Most people just want a car that gets good gas mileage,
09:14can fit all their stuff and is a little more fun to drive than the competition. And so on that front,
09:20the CX50 delivers. Sure, its interior is a little dated, but for the people who staunchly do not want
09:28touch everything, the latest shiny technology, this is it. I can see the appeal here very much.
09:43And now for the Jeep Cherokee, which is like night and day from the Mazda.
09:49To start, I loathe this steering wheel. It's a strange shape, it's lumpy, it's thick,
09:57it doesn't feel good in the hands. What was so wrong with just a circle? Like literally remaking
10:03the wheel. And this is connected to a steering system that is sloppy, it's numb, it's not communicative,
10:10regardless of driving mode. End to end, not my favorite, not that great. Doesn't loan a lot of
10:16confidence to driving the Cherokee quickly. And the thing is, I can feel that this car has more to
10:23give. I'm just, I'm just afraid to reach for it just because of the steering doesn't communicate
10:27very well. So I don't really know what the front of the car is doing. In better news,
10:32the suspension is divine. Feels great, soaks up all the bumps, very comfortable, definitely tuned
10:39more for an off-road application, I think, because it is a little wobbly when you do quick weight
10:45transfers. And sitting here in this seat, it feels kind of like you're sitting atop of everything
10:50rather than in the car, which is interesting. So brakes, rather squishy, and there is some dive
11:04in the car. But in emergency maneuvers, you don't need to worry about anything happening unexpectedly,
11:11just kind of numb the brakes. There is actually pretty good linear power throughout both low-end,
11:17mid-range, and top-end. Again, it is not a quick car. It's not particularly fast car, but it'll do
11:24all the things that you need it to do. And curiously, it doesn't even really feel like a hybrid. It feels
11:30like just, you know, another one of those rather underpowered four-cylinder cars. As far as technology is
11:35concerned, this is a brand new model. So it has all of the bells and whistles. We tried out the adaptive
11:42cruise control both at night and during the day, and one of our editors actually reported at night
11:48the lane keep kind of had the steering wheel shimmying a lot to keep the car in the lane. So we
11:53tried it again during the day, and it was bang straight. So maybe that can be fixed during a software
11:58update. This is also a very much a pre-production model. That could be pre-production issues. We're not sure,
12:05but that was just something to keep an eye on. What also I thought was curious was this car doesn't
12:10have an eco drive mode. It has, you know, auto sport and a bunch of drive modes for loose gravel
12:17situations like snow and dirt. No eco mode. So that's interesting. And finally, as ergonomics and layout
12:25is concerned, it's probably one of the most elegant ones that we've seen out here so far. Of course,
12:31there's the two screen layout, but Jeep has actually managed to make it so that they are distinct and
12:36they're not just one slab pasted across the top of the dashboard and that's that. They're also
12:41positioned low and out of your line of sight. So you can use them, but they are not completely
12:45distracting from the act of driving. And throughout the cabin, there are interesting materials,
12:50interesting textures. It's very upscale. The one thing that I am kind of annoyed by, and you know,
12:57the Lexus RX is guilty of this as well, is the door handle is no longer a physical latch. It's a
13:04electronic button. Again, then this is not just a Cherokee issue. It's a broader industry issue. I
13:11don't know who had issue with just unlatching doors. And now that we're all of a sudden seeing all these
13:18electronic door buttons, it feels like a safety hazard. If you're, you know, having an emergency
13:24situation and you're trying to grab for the door handle because you've forgotten that it's a button,
13:28there is a redundant latch over here towards the front of the door,
13:32but why don't they just have latch? I'm not really sure.
13:40The most interesting thing that has arisen in driving this Cherokee is how invisible it makes
13:47its hybrid powertrain. And by that, I mean, there are no badges anywhere. There's no settings anywhere.
13:53They indicate that it's a hybrid. It is perhaps the most invisible hybrid powertrain that I have seen
13:59in almost any car. And my suspicion of this is perhaps that this is the natural culmination of
14:06hybrid powertrains, that it is just so normal that you don't feel the need to call it out. Or maybe it's
14:13the pill in a peanut butter way of getting hesitant buyers into hybrid cars is just by hiding the fact it
14:20is a hybrid. I don't know. You can decide that one. But seeing as we have driven both cars,
14:26it is time to get out and pick a winner.
14:36Admittedly, this was an unconventional comparison, but you know what they say, variety is the spice of
14:43life. Ultimately, we have decided to name the Mazda CX-50 as the winner of this comparison.
14:50Now, the Jeep has two great things going for it. The first is its slick interior. And the second is the
14:56fact that it is a Jeep. People who love Jeeps will keep buying Jeeps. But if you pulled back from that
15:02idea just a little bit, you'd see that the Cherokee is frankly quite expensive. I didn't love how it drove.
15:08And as much as I am enamored by new tech and everything like that, I do have concerns about
15:14potential reliability issues. And given that this is a Stellantis product, I think that's a fair thing
15:19to be worried about. The CX-50, on the other hand, despite running around with an interior that's like
15:2410 years old, does the admirable job of being an affordable car with widespread appeal. It's a tried
15:30and true formula and falls back on that old saying of why fix what isn't broken. Anyway, that is our
15:37comparison for today. Thank you so much for watching and we will catch you on the next one.
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