Last updated on April 22nd, 2020 at 11:33 am
Mazda has entered the game. The Japanese car manufacturer revealed the MX-30 – an all-new 100% battery electric vehicle (BEV) – at the illustrious Tokyo Motor Show. The crossover SUV has a driving range of around 125 miles, Mazda RX8-style doors and has ecological materials inside the cabin.
The car will arrive in European dealerships during the second half of 2020 and will come to the UK in 2021. We'd expect it to cost around £30,000 – you can register your interest through Mazda's website.
Premiered at the car show, Yasuhiro Aoyama President & CEO of Mazda Motor Europe said: “As with all our products, our designers and engineers had a very clear goal for our first battery-electric vehicle. It had to have stand out design, be great to drive, something that is key part of Mazda’s DNA and makes us unique when compared with competitors, and most importantly, make a positive contribution to reducing emission across the entire life cycle of the product. Alongside the electrification technologies we are introducing across our range, being a smaller manufacturer we focused all our efforts on creating an electric car that we anticipate will be a second car where the range of our vehicle will meet customers’ needs”.
Mazda MX-30: Exterior design
The crossover SUV has a fetching design: accentuated headlights give the MX-30 some personality, while the rear taillights have a futuristic look. Its ‘suicide doors' (or ‘freestyle doors', as they put it) has got everyone talking, however. Last seen on the 2003 Mazda RX8, the new all-electric SUV opens its doors to car enthusiasts. A keen eye will pick up that the rear doors are far smaller; to the point where they don't have a handle. It'll be interesting to see how accessible the rear seats are in comparison to a conventional 5-door SUV.
Elsewhere, Mazda opts for plastic wheel arches, side skirts, and front and rear bumpers. Practical but not aesthetically pleasing.
Mazda MX-30: Interior
Inside, Mazda has gone for eco-friendly materials, whereby vegan substances are used in place of real leather. In fact, there's some environmentally sourced cork featured in the floating centre console. That's certainly different.
The dashboard has a modern-look: an LCD screen sits above the centre-console, while another is located behind the steering wheel; a smaller, third one resides by the gear selector – the touchscreen display is used solely for climate controls.
Mazda MX-30: Performance
Very little information has been shared about the SUV's driving characteristics, however, we are told that it'll be based on the e-SKYACTIV powertrain. Unsurprisingly, water-cooled batteries will be laid across the vehicle's floor, which Mazda claim “enhances the overall body stiffness and provides excellent response to the driver's input”.
The Japanese manufacturer also claims the car has a responsive feel but more importantly has engineered a sound system inside the MX-30 that replicates motor torque and pressure. The technology is aided by Mazda’s G-Vectoring Control (GVC), which has been modified and has been fittingly renamed to ‘electric G-Vectoring Control Plus'.
The MX-30 is tipped to come with a 6.6kW domestic charging cable and a 50kW CCS-style connector, which gives the SUV fast-charging capabilities. One thing is for certain: the SUV will have a WLTP driving range of 125 miles. That's not quite as impressive as some of its competitors, but the manufacturer claims this “exceeds the 30-mile average daily drive of the European customer”. At least, that's based on a survey conducted by Ipsos Mori, who sampled 12,072 adults across selected European markets in March 2019.
As for the SUV's dimensions: it'll be 4.395m long, 1.795m wide and 1.57m tall.
Mazda MX-30: Price and availability
The car is expected to cost around £30,000. It'll be available in the second half of 2020. UK customers will have to wait till 2021 to get their hands on the SUV. Register your interest for the vehicle through Mazda's website.
