2023 Mazda3: Performance and luxury at a budget price

2023 Mazda 3 is one of our favorite compact cars. It manages to combine an upscale interior with excellent driving dynamics at a price that remains highly competitive with contemporaries such as the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla.

Especially when you move up to Mazda 3's higher trim levels and Turbo options, it emerges as a legitimate alternative to an entry-level luxury car.

Driving enthusiasts will find a lot to like about the Mazda 3 as Mazda still offers a good six-speed manual transmission on the hatchback model.

What's new in 2023?

For 2023, Mazda will ditch the base 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, but upgrade the standard 2.5-liter naturally aspirated engine to increase power. A 5 horsepower increase means a power increase to 191 horsepower, while torque remains the same at 186 lb-ft.

In addition, for 2023 Mazda is re-introducing a cylinder deactivation system (which was originally available but has since been discontinued), resulting in improved fuel economy compared to last year.

Mazda 3 interior and automotive technology

The interior just makes you say "Wow!" The Toyota Corolla or Hyundai Elantra, which are actually pretty good, look and feel like they should cost significantly less - especially when comparing top trim levels.

However, whichever trim level of the Mazda 3 you're considering, the key to its "wow factor" is how Mazda's design eliminates visual clutter by reducing switches and effectively hiding air vents and door handles. It just looks special. Honda got close to that with the new Civic, but the Mazda 3's interior is still nicer.

It is also functional. The steering wheel, which looks sensational, is a pleasure to hold in your hands. There's plenty of room on the center console, and Mazda's tech interface, which has lagged behind the competition due to key usability issues, has been tidied up.

The instrument screen is large and clearly visible. Its control knob is large, unlike BMW's iDrive, and is ergonomically located on the center console. However, this is not a touch screen, as Mazda engineers decided that finding the touch control icons could be distracting.

They weren't wrong, and the screen above is certainly easier to read at a glance. However, there are a lot of people who don't like this setup and prefer the touch screen like all Mazda competitors have.

In particular, the lack of a touch screen can make it difficult to select icons in Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which were designed for touch control. It's not for nothing that the Mazda CX-50 now allows touch controls when using CarPlay and Android Auto, but this improvement unfortunately hasn't made it to the Mazda 3 yet.

Mazda 3 fuel economy and performance ratings

Every 2023 Mazda 3 is powered by a naturally fuel-injected 2.5-liter inline-four with 191 horsepower and 186 lb-ft of torque.

All versions are equipped with a six-speed automatic transmission as standard, but the top-of-the-line Premium Hatchback can be equipped with a six-speed manual transmission (front-wheel drive only), which is the enthusiast's choice.

Front-wheel drive is standard with the automatic transmission, and all-wheel drive, unusual in this segment, is an option.

Fuel economy is 30 mph combined for most automatic and front-wheel drive versions, but the base model tops out at 31 mph. Even the base model with AWD delivers 30 mpg combined, but that drops to 29 mpg on the Premium trim.

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