Testing relentlessly and building the strongest and safest cars we can gets us closer to achieving an accident-free world. To ensure we’re building the safest vehicles possible, we put each model through various intense tests over several years until it meets the highest safety standards. Only then do we release it into the world.
The Mazda Safety Testing Laboratory is a busy – and noisy – place. New models are put through more than 100 different crash tests to ensure they meet the very highest safety standards. A truck is crashed into test vehicles at different angles and at speeds of up to 90 km per hour and cars are thrust into solid concrete walls to simulate typical vehicle collisions.
But it’s not just collisions Mazda vehicles are prepared for. We’ve put a whole slate of other testing protocols in place to monitor and improve our vehicles against a barrage of hazards, both environmental and human.
Mazda vehicles are put through planet Earth’s most extreme conditions in our Climate Testing Laboratory. During development, all new Mazda vehicles spend up to a month in this lab, being driven at high speeds on the rolling road, or simply left to bake in searing temperatures that reach 54°C. A matching chamber in the same lab chills to -40°C, ensuring our vehicles are fit for Canada’s coldest zones. In both chambers, endurance tests measure performance and emissions ensuring Mazda vehicles are ready for anything Mother Nature throws at them.
“I aim to deliver products that perform perfectly, without any malfunctions caused by climate factors, in all markets around the globe.”
SHO SHIMAMOTO
Engineer working at the Drivability & Environmental Performance Development Group
Mazda’s impressive aerodynamics are fine tuned in the path of a 200 km per hour blast of air, to improve high-speed stability, while reducing wind resistance with increased insulation and improved door and window seals. Since 1983, when Mazda built the aerodynamic testing facility at its Miyoshi proving ground just north of Hiroshima, every production model has passed through its doors.
Perhaps the most unusual of all testing environments, this chamber is designed to simulate the constant buzz of all of the electronic components that come in a modern Mazda. That’s typically up to 100 computers broadcasting on an increasing number of frequencies and wavelengths that need to be protected from potential malfunctions. Inside this space our engineers bombard vehicles with radio waves to ensure they’re safe from harmful electromagnetic waves, anywhere in the world.
Our new-generation cars have fared extremely well in independent safety assessments around the world. In 2021, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety awarded its highest TOP SAFETY PICK+ award to every single Mazda model tested, for the second year in a row.