2026 Mazda CX-5 Earns IIHS Top Safety Pick+ Rating

The all-new 2026 Mazda CX-5 — the brand's best-selling model in the U.S. — has earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) highest safety rating: Top Safety Pick+ (TSP+). This certification underscores Mazda's continued leadership in active and passive safety.

With this award, Mazda now has nine 2026 model-year vehicles earning TSP+, more than any other automaker. The CX-5 also marks Mazda's 100th TSP+ designation since IIHS launched its safety awards program in 2008 — making Mazda the first manufacturer in the organization's history to reach this milestone.

In 2026, IIHS fully updated its evaluation criteria: it added a rear-seat dummy (representing a 12-year-old child or small adult) to the moderate overlap front crash test and introduced a stricter chest injury scoring system. It also strengthened requirements for pedestrian crash prevention, rear occupant protection, and automatic emergency braking (AEB) performance — all aimed at raising occupant protection standards and accelerating adoption of proven collision-avoidance technologies.

To qualify for Top Safety Pick+, a vehicle must earn 'Good' ratings in both small overlap front and moderate overlap front crash tests, plus the side crash test; all trims must feature headlights rated 'Good' or 'Acceptable'; and standard forward collision warning and AEB systems must achieve a 'Good' rating in vehicle-to-pedestrian testing and at least an 'Acceptable' rating in vehicle-to-vehicle 2.0 testing.

Jennifer Morrison, Mazda North America's Vehicle Safety Strategy Director, noted that this achievement reflects the company's 'human-centered' engineering philosophy, systematic structural optimization, and standard-fit advanced safety technologies. The 2026 CX-5 comes standard with blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, automatic emergency braking, and lane departure warning — all enabled by integrated cameras and millimeter wave radar sensors covering high-frequency daily risk scenarios.

The new model starts at $31,485 (including destination), up $940 from the current model. The price increase reflects upgrades including an enhanced smart cockpit (larger display screen), improved connectivity features, comprehensively upgraded active and passive safety equipment, and optimized interior space layout.