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Mazda's Hofu plant builds its ten-millionth car

Ten million is a lot no matter which way you cut it, and no matter what you're talking about: Ten million dollars, ten million miles, ten million people... certainly ten million cars. And that's the milestone that Mazda's Hofu plant in Yamaguchi prefecture of Japan has just achieved.
The Hofu facility has been in operation since 1982, and was supplemented with a second plant on the same site ten years later. Hofu reached a million units built in 1986 and five million in 2002. But with production now at 482,100 units per year, it took less than twelve years to double that previous milestone.
The magic ten-millionth car was a new Mazda6 (known locally as the Atenza), which is built at Hofu Plant No. 2, while Hofu Plant No. 1 gears up for the new Mazda3 (aka Axela). Scroll down below for a related press release.

Why Mazda did so well and Volvo so poorly in Consumer Reports survey

The poor performances of Tesla and all three domestic automakers got the headlines in Consumer Reports magazine's latest reliability survey, but there were other results that caught our interest. Tiny Mazda notched the biggest gain among the 29 brands included in this year's list, leap-frogging nine spots to No. 3. Buick, which was in the top 10 last year, fell 11 spots to No. 19, the biggest decline of any brand. And then there's Volvo, a brand often vaunted for its quality and reliability, dropping six spots to dead last. What gives? For starters, all three brands benefited or suffered in large part due to their relatively small portfolio of vehicles. So when raves or complaints rolled in for even one particular model, as was often the case, it weighed heavily on the entire brand. That's especially true when it involves a relatively high-volume, hot-selling model such as the Buick Enclave (more on that in a moment). Mazda fared as well as it did despite the CX-3 losing Consumer Reports' influential "recommended" status due to problems with its climate system, including leaks from the condenser and refrigerant unit that triggered a service bulletin from the automaker in late 2016. Deputy auto editor Jon Linkov said that scratch didn't hurt the overall brand, since the CX-9 crossover and MX-5 Miata both jumped up to replace it on CR's list of newly recommended vehicles, thanks to several back fixes Mazda made to both models. For Buick, the redesigned Enclave SUV earned a "Much Worse Than Average" rating after owners reported problems with the new nine-speed automatic transmission it shares with the Chevrolet Traverse as well as some issues with the climate system. There were issues with rough shifting, plus complaints about the torque converter that necessitated fixes to the computer or outright replacement. "Again, similar stuff that we saw with the Traverse: both first-year vehicles, similar powertrains," LInkov said. He said all-new vehicles or redesigns typically fare poorly in CR's reliability survey due to issues that are hard to suss out before vehicles go into everyday use by consumers. The top-selling Encore and Envision fared well, Linkov said, but were outdone by the Enclave's problematic transmission components. The Enclave was Buick's second best-selling model through September at 35,227 units. Then there is Volvo, about which there is one word to sum up its woes: infotainment.

2015 Mazda3 interior spied for the first time

In terms of exterior appearance, not much has changed from the last time we spotted the next-generation Mazda3 out testing. Oh, sure - we can see plenty of details that clearly show the new Kodo design influence (that front end reminds us a whole lot of the sleek new Mazda6), but these latest round of spy shots don't really show us anything we haven't seen before. Oh, wait, yes they do - the interior.
Feast your eyes on the Mazda3's insides, showing a vastly reworked interior that also takes cues from the automaker's most recently refreshed products. We can see that there's a simple, clean center stack with a slim row of heating and cooling functions, and up top there's a large, presumably touchscreen display, with redundant controls found just aft of the shifter.
We expect that the 2015 Mazda3 will debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show this September, packing both petrol and diesel engines. A sedan variant is also in the works, and should debut shortly after the hatchback.