The current BT-50 won’t be the last Mazda pickup as the Japanese automaker plots a replacement.
Mazda may be better known for making stylish crossovers and one particularly tiny little roadster, but the Japanese automaker still builds a truck. And despite the pickup segment becoming increasingly crowded, Mazda has confirmed that it plans to make another one. The next-generation BT-50 is coming, with the company’s Australian managing director, Vinesh Bhindi, confirming there’s a future for the workhorse.
Asked whether Mazda needs a BT-50 in today’s increasingly fragmented truck market, Bhindi responded in an interview with CarsGuide with a simple “yes.” When asked if that means a new one is coming, he again said “yes.”
The current BT-50 arrived in 2020 and is essentially an Isuzu D-Max underneath its Zoom-Zoom styling, a departure from the Ford Ranger underpinnings of its predecessor. Mazda has already confirmed that it doesn’t develop trucks entirely on its own, so the most obvious route for the next-generation model would be to continue its partnership with Isuzu.
2025 Isuzu D-Max
That would make a next-generation BT-50 closely related to the next D-Max, which is expected to arrive around the same timeframe. The current partnership therefore looks like the path of least resistance, although Mazda hasn’t officially announced the technical details yet.
Mazda’s chief designer Eiji Kimoto isn’t saying much about the new truck either. He designed the current BT-50 and is also working on its replacement. When asked whether the new model would represent a major departure from today’s truck, Kimoto kept his cards close to his chest: “Please look forward to it.” That’s about as close to a teaser as we’re getting for now.
With Mazda’s growing relationship with Chinese automaker Changan, there’s another potential route for the next BT-50. Mazda already sources the 6e and CX-6e from its Chinese partnership, and Changan could lend its K50 Hunter to serve as the basis. There are already talks of more models with Chinese roots.
The K50 Hunter is a range-extender hybrid with a 31-kWh battery, dual electric motors, four-wheel drive, and a claimed total range of 641 miles (1,031 kilometers). Its 2.0-liter turbocharged gasoline engine doesn’t drive the wheels directly; instead, it acts as a generator to juice up the battery pack.
It would certainly make for a rather interesting Mazda pickup, and it wouldn’t be the first range-extending model. The MX-30 Skyactiv-R already has an engine with no mechanical connection to the wheels, as does the Chinese version of the CX-6e, the EZ-60, although that one doesn’t use a rotary.
Don’t hold your breath for a range-extender, though. Mazda Australia has indicated that the BT-50 will remain focused on the traditional truck buyer rather than chasing the lifestyle-oriented hybrid crowd. The company’s strategy is to stick with customers who actually use their trucks for towing, hauling, and off-roading.
That means diesel power remains the most likely answer for the next BT-50, at least at launch. Mazda isn’t ruling out electrification forever, but there are no immediate plans for a battery-electric or plug-in hybrid BT-50.
I’d argue that’s a sensible approach. The truck market may be changing rapidly, but plenty of buyers still want a relatively simple workhorse that can tow a lot, carry a lot, and survive somewhere considerably less civilized than a shopping-center parking lot. The current BT-50 certainly isn’t going anywhere immediately, with the replacement expected to arrive in 2028.
The idea of a Mazda truck might surprise some, especially if their mental image of the brand is limited to the MX-5 and sleek crossovers. But Mazda has decades of pickup-truck heritage. The company has been building four-wheel trucks since the late 1950s, so the BT-50 isn’t some recent experiment.
Looking further back, its first vehicle was a three-wheeled truck, the Type-DA launched in 1931, so there’s nearly a century of truck-building heritage.
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