There's something special about having a review car that is a later model of a vehicle you've owned. Not only are you far more familiar with the quirks and personality of the vehicle, but you also know what needed to be upgraded and improved. Eight years ago I purchased a 2017 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring and found there was a lot to like, particularly downsizing from a Toyota Highlander. Fuel efficiency! Easy parking! Tons of futuristic driver assist tech! Earlier this year, I replaced it with a 2026 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid, finding it to be a logical follow-on of the same basic vehicle by size and functionality.
I considered the 2026 Mazda CX-5, but somewhere on the road between the 2025 model and the all-new 2026 third-generation CX-5 design, Team Mazda took an enormous leap and got rid of almost every single dial, button, and switch in the vehicle, including the beloved center-console Commander controls. It also had no hybrid or PHEV option, something I required for my new vehicle. Sure, it's cheaper to manufacture a vehicle with fewer moving parts, but what about the driver experience?
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It's worth highlighting that the CX-5 has been Mazda's best-selling vehicle not just in the United States but globally. Introduced for the 2013 model year, it was also the first Mazda designed from the ground up around the company’s SKYACTIV technology and Kodo design philosophy. It's long been a strong contender for best compact SUV and has helped lift Mazda sales and visibility. They've sold over 1.6 million CX-5s in the US alone, and the model accounts for a whopping 25% of Mazda's global sales. It's a fair question to ask how much a major interior redesign impacts the drive experience.
Consequently, when Mazda's PR team offered me a week behind the wheel of a 2026 Mazda CX-5 Premium Plus in eye-popping Soul Red Crystal Metallic, I was quick to jump at the chance. My old car, redesigned. And as a bonus, the exterior looks pretty dang similar:
In this instance, the photos don't do the Soul Red justice; it's gorgeous in real life and I was unsurprised when a couple of people openly admired the color in parking lots. Otherwise, it's pretty darn similar in appearance to the many previous model years of the CX-5, with the major changes reserved for the interior. Well, that's not true, because on the rear of the vehicle, the trademark Mazda logo is replaced by a well-spaced set of letters spelling out "M A Z D A".
The vehicle is assembled at the Mazda facility in Hiroshima, Japan, with more than 90% of its components sourced from companies in the island nation, but Mazda is a surprisingly global manufacturer. Among their close partners are Isuzu (who makes the Mazda BT-50 pickup truck), Suzuki (who also makes vehicles for Mazda in certain overseas markets), Changan Automobile (they jointly manufacture and sell Mazda brand vehicles in the Chinese market), and Ford (at one point Ford owned 33% of Mazda, but now they collaborate as co-owners of AutoAlliance Thailand). At the top of this list, however, is its close partnership with Toyota: My CX-50 Hybrid uses Toyota's RAV4 hybrid system and was made in Huntsville, Alabama in the same plant that produces the popular Toyota Corolla Cross.
Anyway, back to the vehicle. The real changes aren't apparent until you sit in the driver's seat and realize that almost every button and control has vanished from the center console and dashboard:
The "M A Z D A" lettering on the steering wheel is bold, but it's the absence of buttons that was most startling to me as a former CX-5 owner. They still live on the steering wheel crossbar and on the driver's door handle area, but otherwise, it's pretty barren. This is made up for with the expansive 15.6-inch infotainment touchscreen...
It's basically the same size as my laptop, and it's big and bright. As shown, there are three driving modes for the 2026 Mazda CX-5 Premium Plus too: Sport, Normal, Off-Road. Like every CX-5 made for the US market since 2022, it's also all-wheel drive, powered by the Mazda I-ACTIV AWD system. I found that the drive was almost exactly like my older CX-5, from the underpowered launch from zero to the quiet, comfortable cruising speed and easy advanced driver assist technologies.
The vehicle sports a 2.5L Skyactiv-G engine with 187 horsepower and 186 lb-ft torque and 6-speed automatic transmission. It's not a vehicle that leaps forward when the light turns green, but it never felt unsafe as it gradually came up to speed on the highway or passing slower drivers as needed. One place that was disappointing, however, was fuel efficiency. Rated at 24/30 with an average of 26mpg, I landed at 26.3 mpg after a week of driving. This is lower than my 2017 CX-5 got, which I had locked in at 27.4 mpg. In this day and age, it was disheartening to have the redesign lower its fuel efficiency over the same model from almost a decade ago. Aren't we supposed to be getting better and better fuel efficiency?
By far, one of my favorite features of the Mazda lineup is the Commander control suite as part of the center console. With its infotainment navigation dial and separate volume dial, it's the easiest and most intuitive way to control the infotainment system of any vehicle manufacturer I've tried. And it's completely removed from the 2026 CX-5. In fact, by comparison the above photo is a shocker with almost zero buttons visible.
If you're used to a climate control center and discrete buttons, go back and look at that infotainment photo again: All of those controls have been subsumed by the Infotainment touch screen interface. There are no buttons. At all.
But... things change. Ok. At least the steering wheel controls are quite similar:
If you're not a Mazda fan, you'll be wondering "what's that Mi-Drive" feature? "Mazda Intelligent Drive Select (Mi-Drive) is Mazda’s selectable drive-mode system, coordinating transmission behavior and the i-ACTIV AWD system to suit different driving conditions. The 2026 CX-5 offers Normal, Sport, and Off-Road modes." Those three drive modes I showed earlier? They're part of the Mi-Drive system. Not an autonomous driving feature, alas.
Before we leave the cockpit, here's the rather sparse instrument cluster display. This is with additional information included too; at its most basic this mostly features a big, blank spot in the middle of the 10.3-inch display. The vehicle also has a system for detecting roadside signage and displaying the current speed limit, but I never got that to work with this particular vehicle. Likely user error: These modern all digital-interface cars are complicated!
One great improvement is that there's more rear legroom. The spec shows less than an inch of additional space, but the redesign still offers more knee room for rear passengers, and it was noticeable and much appreciated by my occasional rear passengers. The real improvement, however, is in the rear cargo space:
With the seats up, there's 16% more cargo space than the 2025 model. Lay down those seats and it's 12% bigger than the previous generation. The CX-5 has always had the rather unusual 40/20/40 rear seat configuration, by the way, versus the far more common 60/40 split. Not sure it's that big a deal, but the configuration with both seats up and the middle section down does offer an interesting option for passengers who need a bit of separation.
Ultimately, I found some of the redesign aspects a big improvement, particularly rear legroom and cargo space. But that presumably Tesla-inspired digital interface change and the loss of not just standard buttons and dials with climate controls but the removal of the entire Infotainment Commander system feel like a revision too far. It's austere when it should feel elegant, and I constantly found myself wrestling with the climate controls and frustrated by the endless tapping on the glass while driving. I hope that a future iteration of this new design restores some of the key controls, but as-is, I feel affirmed that I made the right decision jumping to the CX-50 as my next Mazda rather than another CX-5.
2026 Mazda CX-5 Premium Plus, powered by a 2.5L SKYACTIV engine. BASE PRICE: $38,990. Options Included: Premium Paint. AS DRIVEN: $41,080.00
Disclosure: Mazda loaned me the CX-5 for a week in return for this candid write-up. This article originally appeared on PlanetDave.com with the title The 2026 Mazda CX-5 Premium Plus has No Buttons! and is republished here with the express permission of the author.
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