UK Mazda CX-5 Biofuel Launch Shows Japan Still Loves Combustion

Japan’s big car makers have spent decades treating battery electric cars like a dinner guest who arrived early and started nicking the silver. They smile, nod, produce a concept, then go straight back to defending engines with hundreds of moving parts, hot explosions and a dealer service department waiting to send punters a bill.

Story by LUKE.

Mazda is now launching the all-new Mazda CX-5 in the UK with a fleet powered by SUSTAIN 100 95 RON E10 biofuel. Mazda says the fuel has no fossil fuel component and is made from second-generation biomass such as food waste, agricultural waste and other non-food by-products. The public-facing picture is so pretty, with CX-5s, MX-5s, Scotland and neat white drums saying SUSTAIN. It also looks painfully tin-eared, and as the price of BEVs continues to fall, completely unsustainable.

Biofuel is not automatically nonsense, not as such. The best version uses waste or non-food biomass and can lower greenhouse gas output in sectors that are hard or too expensive to electrify. Aviation, heavy shipping and old cars have a stronger argument, but a nondescript, mass-market family SUV is a much harder sell because the obvious alternative already exists. It is called an electric motor, and it does not need petrol, crop waste, algae, synthetic fuel, a combustion chamber or a press event barrel to explain itself. Sequestering CO2 only to release it again is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

The new CX-5 uses a 2.5-litre e-Skyactiv G petrol engine with 24V Mazda M Hybrid technology, mild hybrid, mind you. It makes a modest 141ps and 238Nm, with the front-drive version taking a glacial 10.5 seconds to gently canter to 62mph. Mazda says the SUSTAIN fuel needs no modification and causes no change in performance. But, the larger question is why the all-new CX-5 still needs this argument in 2026. While they polish the combustion cycle to a mirror finish, the 2026 sales data shows a brand in a slow-motion skid, with double-digit declines in the US and Japan. It is a high-stakes gamble on a “Multi-Solution” future that risks leaving them as a quaint pastiche, a boutique relic in an increasingly electric world.

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ABOVE: Mazda CX-5 launch cars show off SUSTAIN biofuel branding during the UK media event.

Mazda’s Multi-Solution Approach sounds wonderfully grandiose and frightfully reasonable until you notice how often multi-solution means another route back to combustion. Japan’s major brands have been especially fond of this posture. Hybrids, hydrogen, synthetic fuels, algae fuels, biofuels, e-fuels, better engines, clever engines, cleaner engines. Anything, darling, so long as the engine survives the meeting. The 6-speed automatic that comes with it is also destined as a museum piece.

The problem is not that second-generation biofuel has no place, who cares? The problem is scale, cost, land, water, infrastructure and who gets to use the good stuff. First-generation fuels can collide with food production and land use. Better waste-derived fuels avoid some of that, but they do not magically create a petrol station network or a limitless waste stream. SUSTAIN says the bespoke fuel for this Mazda event can deliver more than 80% greenhouse gas saving during the drive compared with fossil fuel, then it says this exact fuel is not commercially available. They should take that comedy routine on the road.

Brands have a nifty way of making things credible by creating launches that cost into the many hundreds of thousands. Flights, very expensive hotels, logistics of car transport, expensive booze, and a food bill delivery courtesy of Gordon Ramsey only add to the carbon footprint. A journalist driving a CX-5 through Scotland on special fuel tells buyers almost nothing about what they can buy on Tuesday morning at the local servo. Most CX-5 owners will still stop at a normal pump, fill with normal dinosaur and go home in a normal combustion SUV. The marketing says transition, the driveway says oil company share preservation.

Mazda has form with SUSTAIN with the UK heritage fleet using the sustainable fuel blend since 2023. An MX-5 ran circuit laps in all four UK home nations, and four MX-5s drove from Land’s End to John O’ Groats. CX-30s went from the Baltic to the Arctic. For classic cars and enthusiast machines, that is so terribly charming. Keeping beloved old Mazdas running with less fossil carbon is a sweet idea.

Putting the same halo over the new CX-5 is a different kettle of carbon. This is a somewhat dreary mainstream SUV, and Mazda risks looking like the last romantic polishing brass on a sinking ship already down to the gunnels. China and Europe are not twiddling thumbs while legacy brands reshuffle Titanic’s deck chairs. BYD, Tesla and a flood of dedicated EVs have already made the argument a blood sport.

Mazda says the all-new CX-5 is available to order in the UK now, with first customer deliveries due in summer. It could be mistaken for the original CX-5, so it will no doubt be termed inoffensively styled, comfortable and beautifully made, because Mazda usually gets those bits right. But a 2026 family SUV launched under a biofuel buffet feels less like a future and more like a wheel spin at Casino Monte Carlo.

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