Mazda MX-30 Electric: it’s going to be a hard sell

My wife loved this electric city car, with its mild acceleration, fake noises and tiny battery. I begged to differ. So what’s new?

Limited range: it’ll do 224km between recharges

My wife, clearly, is a very strange person, someone whose taste is not merely questionable but bizarre. When it came to a life partner, she chose a high-performance model in a package so reminiscent of a Hollywood heartthrob that I have been accused of being a George Cloney, and yet when it comes to cars she admits that what she’s looking for is something “a bit gutless”.

I have spent a lot of time investigating her preference for vehicles that are underpowered, unattractive and wheezy, not only because I find it so impenetrable, but because it is, at least at some level, ruining our lives. (I think I’ve narrowed it down to the fact that her first love was a Holden Gemini, which she still considers the apotheosis of motoring, but there’s also a slim possibility she’s doing it entirely to spite me.)

The real-world effect of her peculiar tastes is that we don’t own a car because we can’t agree on one we could both live with, and I’m about as likely to give up and buy what she wants as she is to agree to sell our house and move into a Ferrari.

I was concerned that we were moving into a future in which she would decry all new cars as too thrusty and exciting and decide to hate them all, because every new EV I’ve driven of late has been genuinely quite fun, at least in the acceleration department, and as far removed from an early 1980s Holden with a 50kW four-cylinder engine as it’s possible to get.

And then I brought home perhaps the 5000th car that would end up dividing our opinions – Mazda’s first ever full EV, the MX-30 Electric, pictured here. My beloved loved it, thought it was “great fun to drive” and guessed, correctly, that all the interior materials she enjoyed were made from recycled PET bottles and non-cow ersatz leather.

From the front

She enjoyed the fake noises it makes when you accelerate and professed not to notice the weird hum-chimes it emits at low speeds to warn pedestrians of impending death, which sound like a reversing beeper designed by Jean-Michel Jarre.

While it looks and feels cuttingly contemporary (I particularly love the floating dash with its storage trays and cup holders made of cork), the MX-30 reminded me of a Holden Gemini, or at least one of the more modern, underpowered city cars my wife so desires.

Because they deliver 100 per cent of their torque at your slightest whim, most EVs have, almost by default, a bit of sports car zestiness to them, but Mazda has, bravely, fitted its MX-30 with a small battery, just 35.5kWh, which gives it only 107kW and 271Nm to play with.

... and the back

This tiddling battery not only means it is a little on the turgid side in terms of performance (it will get from zero to 100km/h… eventually)but that it offers a driving range of just 224km between recharges. By comparison, the Kia Niro EV I drove the week before has a 64kWh battery and a range of 455km.

And so I experienced genuine range anxiety in my week with the Mazda, to the point where I felt I should plug it into my house and recharge it once the battery hit 58 per cent and the range 100km. Using a standard 240V power socket – which, in EV terms, is a bit like trying to charge your phone using candle power – the car told me it was going to take 7.5 hours to fill her up.

Charging up

Using a 50kW DC charger, Mazda says the MX-30 Electric can charge from 20 to 80 per cent in just 36 minutes; a typical home wallbox charger could do the same in just three hours. This is supposed to be one of the advantages of this vehicle’s “right-sized” battery. Mazda says it also settled on the smaller battery because it makes the car far lighter, meaning it uses less energy and is better to drive. Vitally, as the company is trying to make a genuinely end-to-end eco-friendly vehicle here, it also means it will require less energy to dispose of at the end of the battery’s life.

Unfortunately, it’s going to require a lot of energy to sell this car to Australian buyers at a price of $65,490. Yes, it’s a city car, and the average daily commute is just 30km, but when some of your competitors are offering double your range (and a Hyundai Ioniq EV, at $49,970, offers 373km) you’re going to need Saul Goodman as your salesman to convince people.

The good news is that if you really love the style of the MX-30, you can buy one with a petrol engine for just $40,990. Green types would no doubt describe that as a “gutless” move, but that is a term my wife seems fond of. Perhaps she should have married a politician instead.

MAZDA MX-30 Electric

ENGINE: Single electric motor (107kW/271Nm); average 18.5 kWh per 100km

TRANSMISSION: 1-speed automatic, front-wheel drive

PRICE: $65,490

RATING: ★★½