Mazda MX-30 Electric 2022 review: long-term

The MX-30, in the brand’s signature ‘Soul Red’ lustre, is replacing my previous long-termer, the Nissan Leaf e+.

The little Nissan was a tad smaller and more traditional, but packed a significantly larger battery, with around 385km of range on a single charge.

That was appropriate for most scenarios – even coastal holidays, provided you planned your route, so I was particularly keen to see if this Mazda could be as convenient.

The ride home is immediately impressive. The Mazda feels great with its array of interesting cabin materials, and the electric drive features are even smoother than those on offer in the Leaf.

While you still get a quaint analogue power dial, the digital dash and dual screens in the cabin feel far more sci-fi than the Nissan.

And the recycled cork materials, seats clad in synthetic leather and cloth, and the interesting door cards and centre console all give the Mazda the feel of an upmarket EV, even more than its alarming $65,490, before on-road costs, price tag might suggest.

While I adjusted to the Mazda’s milder regenerative braking tune on the way home, I was also reminded of this car’s more immediate usability flaws.

As nice as it is having widescreen Apple CarPlay on the 8.8-inch media panel, it’s non-touch, and requires clumsy operation via a dial located in the centre console.

It’s sort of okay for flicking through apps and the relatively simple Mazda software, but trying to enter an address in your navigation suite of choice? No thanks.

The next issue I ran into was opening the doors when I got home. Who would have thought something so simple would be an issue? The MX-30’s clamshell rear doors are a throwback to some great Mazda ancestors like the RX-8 but trying to use them in a tight unit parking spot proved painful.

You have to open the front door so far to get the rear one to swing out there are times where you won’t be able to access the rear seats. What a shame.

Other EV quirks include a huge storage area under the centre console (which immediately became home to all sorts of loose objects) which also features a full-size power outlet (I’m hoping this will come in handy), and elsewhere it gets paddle-shifters on the wheel to adjust its four levels of regenerative braking. Neat.

In terms of distance travelled the first 500-plus kilometres travelled in our first month were largely spent kicking around town, to the shops, and visiting relatives.

The Mazda proved to be excellent for these urban duties. It’s nice and quiet at city speeds, with engaging steering and at times surprisingly firm suspension making it a hoot for darting around traffic in.

It also feels very light for an EV, thanks to that small battery pack, with what I would consider even better handling than its combustion CX-30 relation.

No range issues in the first month, either. Distance travelled was largely urban and there are two (free) AC charging units close to me, so no cost to charge for November.

Spending largely urban time behind the wheel with the regen setting maxed out also let the Mazda best its own combined energy usage claim of 18.5kWh/100km, showing 16.3kWh/100km for the month. That lands it close to the efficiency I scored in the Leaf.

This situation usually had the car floating around the 80–140km range mark with top-ups every couple of days.

Once you get in the rhythm of plugging in at the shops it becomes a largely forgettable exercise, and generally I found I had range to spare if I needed to do a day with a bit more driving involved.

Will it be enough to venture beyond the city limits though? You’ll have to wait until December’s instalment to find out.

Acquired: November 2021

Distance travelled this month: 549km

Odometer: 1292km

Cost to charge in November: $0

Average energy consumption for November: 16.3kWh/100km 

Our second month with the MX-30 has seen it fall into its specific role for us – a second car.

While weekly test cars have been allowed to come and go, the MX-30 sits in our car spot and gets used more frequently over shorter distances to the shops, relatives’ houses, and nearby walking spots.

While this has allowed it to largely stay in its constantly charged comfort zone, we also took the chance to properly range-test it for the first time.

Making sure it was topped up to the brim the night before, the MX-30 was to accompany us from Sydney’s North Shore to some family who live in Mittagong, some 130km to the south.

The Mazda displayed 190km of range at 99 per cent from the time we left, and 16.0kWh/100km of consumption on the dash.

During the journey, the car behaved quite admirably on the open road. To my ears at least, it was less noisy at freeway speeds than my previous long termer, the Nissan Leaf. And the sound system proved to be excellent at drowning out what noise was left.

Not sparing any luxuries on a hot day, we even ran the air conditioning for the majority of the trip.

They don’t call the region of our destination the Southern Highlands for nothing, though. The freeway journey there along the Hume Highway has less topographical variety than the journey north to Newcastle (the route I took the Leaf on for its range test), but it is, overall, a steady uphill gradient.

This very gradually took its toll on the Mazda. The constant pushing and no regeneration meant every now and again it would adjust the remaining range down.

It wasn’t as alarming as when I tested the Leaf, but by the end of our 130km journey, I had just 30km to spare from what should have been close to 200km of range at a full charge (a loss of around 40km for those counting).

Could I have boosted this a little by not using the air con? Maybe. Turning the air conditioning off close to our destination only yielded four extra kilometres of range according to the car’s computer though, so not enough to make a significant difference.

It was interesting to see how different this was from the Leaf, which at any given time would shave at least 10km off the remaining range if you dared to touch the air conditioning.

With just 30km of range left, we had our lunch, and proceeded to the nearest charger, a free NRMA Tritium unit, capable of 50kW.

This was our next ‘early EV’ experience, as the single charger was already in-use on arrival, to a bright red Nissan Leaf, no less. The charger reported that the Leaf was near-finished though, so we grabbed something to drink and waited for its owner to return. A few minutes later, our Mazda was charging up.

It should have taken around 36 minutes at 50kW, but the station decided to fault (for reasons beyond my comprehension) halfway through, so I had to reset it at the 30-minute mark, for a total of 50 minutes of charging.

At about 93 per cent battery (and 175km of range on the dash) we set course back for Sydney. The mostly downhill trip on the way home yielded interesting results.

For the majority of the trip, the consumption gauge for the Mazda was very low, and upon arrival I was surprised that we still had nearly 60 per cent of battery and 110km of range left on the clock.

If the car’s computer is to be believed, then, it had less than half the consumption on the way home than it did on the way up. This was fascinating, as you wouldn’t see such a stark difference in consumption in a combustion vehicle, and a reminder of how useful regenerative braking can be.

As rosy as this situation was, the MX-30 simply wouldn’t be able to accompany us on our yearly trip up the coast during the Christmas break.

We had plans to go to Forster from Sydney, some 305km from our home, and while the maths seems okay (200km of range should be fine with at least one charger on the way, right?) the varied topography (specifically, frequent uphill climbs) along the route proves difficult for EVs.

I had already proven this, with at least 40km of range lost on a similar journey with my previous Nissan Leaf long termer which had a more comfortable 385km of range on a full charge.

The issue is, there are no public fast chargers along the northern route between Sydney and Wallsend in Newcastle, a 150km distance. This simply leaves no margin for error in the MX-30, so it’s not a trip I’m willing to risk.

This situation is a reminder of the need for more EV infrastructure. A single fast-charger in a place like Gosford or Tuggerah would be enough to bridge the gap and make the trip (even though it would add at least an hour and a half to our journey).

It makes what is otherwise a common trip for Sydneysiders risky, not just in the MX-30, but a collection of other more affordable EVs, like the base-model Nissan Leaf (which can make it, just) or MG ZS EV.

Ultimately then, our MX-30 would need to be left at home, and my combustion tester, a Peugeot 508, would be rolled out instead.

The amount covered for the last month was less than I wanted as a result, but still decent, with the MX-30 covering all suburban duties plus our trip to the highlands, at 556km.

Consumption for the month has also dropped slightly to 16.2kWh/100km. It will be interesting to see if I can get the car into the 15s before I return it.

The MX-30 also incurred its first cost-to-charge for the month, with a fast charger session required to maximise the range for my trip to the highlands. At less than $10 though, it’s hardly a hit to the back pocket.

Acquired: November 2021

Distance travelled this month: 556km

Odometer: 1848km

Cost to charge in December: $8.50

Average energy consumption for December: 16.2kWh/100km 

In the MX-30’s third month with us, I still find myself learning little things about it. With the CarsGuide review schedule starting to fill up as the year kicks in properly, it didn’t see as many kilometres in the preceding months.

My partner had become quite attached to it, telling me she finds it easy to drive, relatively easy to see out of, and that the cabin is generally a pleasant place to be.

She also became a total pro at charging the thing up, on several occasions proudly announcing she’d managed to get it close to 100 per cent from her trips to the local shops.

It stayed at a high state of charge for much of the month, as the low total distance on offer from a full juice builds up your habit of plugging it in everywhere. And we didn’t really have the need to take it on the freeway.

It would occasionally even influence where I would choose to stimulate the economy. No charger? No business. Perhaps this is a word of warning to shopping centres of the near future.

She also loved how slick and upmarket it felt compared to our previous long-term Nissan Leaf e+. It’s not that she didn’t like the Leaf, judging it easy to park and noting it “didn’t have the stupid rear doors” of the MX-30.

But she added the Mazda’s smooth drive characteristics and nicer cabin design felt more in tune with an EV in 2022.

The mild annoyances with this car persisted, though. The rear doors are very frustrating in side-by-side parking scenarios, the 6.6kW AC inverter makes it tough to keep those charge levels up.

You find yourself constantly wondering if you can make a return journey with the required amount of range to spare, which often made me reach for the keys to an alternate set of wheels.

Again, this month I had to plan around the fact that the MX-30 would struggle to make it from Sydney to the closest northern high-speed charger in Newcastle, as our weekend adventures took us to Nelson Bay, a further 55km to the north.

In the end (and despite AC chargers being available at the hotel), I elected to take a combustion car instead.

My partner would roll her eyes at this and say, “not very convenient, is it?” No, it isn’t.

While it feels the part, 200km of range on a full charge (slightly less actually, but we’ll get to that) is not enough for an Australian motorist, really.

In its role as a ‘second car’ it’s fine, but perhaps not even suitable for a couple like us which appreciates weekend sorties.

I discovered other things about the MX-30, even this far into my long-term experience, experimenting more with the regenerative braking modes, which yielded interesting results.

While I’d become accustomed to simply maxing out the two levels of regen on offer, after having spent some time with the modes in the opposite direction, it became obvious the paddles controlled more than just regen, they were in effect different drive modes.

Bumping the paddle shifters up twice puts the car in more of a ‘sport’ mode. Not only does this setting remove regenerative braking, it steps up the responsiveness of the electric motor.

I’ll admit, it has even more power than I had expected. The seemingly ordinary motor outputs of 107kW/271Nm are plenty to propel this little SUV with some vigour, even overwhelming the front tyres without too much input.

This mode proved to be useful for overtaking and conquering steeper hills, but notably began to shred battery efficiency, with my drive mode experimentation pushing the final number for the month to 16.8kWh/100km, from 16.3kWh the month before.

Dividing this into the battery capacity yields you around 190km per charge instead of the car’s WLTP official 200km claim.

The dash indicated as much, showing a variance between 170km and 190km when a 100 per cent state of charge was achieved.

During my last month with the car, I swapped it for a week with Matt Campbell, who gave me a steer of his top-spec Kia Sportage. You can read what I thought of that car over on his long-term chapter here but Matt was less forgiving in his verdict on the MX-30.

“It’s not really good at anything is it?” He said upon returning the keys. “It’s not a good SUV and not a good electric car. It’s pretty good to drive, but that hardly makes up for its flaws.”

It’s hard to disagree. As I said in my original review of the MX-30, it’s baffling that Mazda has managed to imbue a small SUV with the practicality of a sports car.

A 211-litre boot won’t fit the three-piece CarsGuide luggage set, and convenience-wise there’s nowhere under the floor to put your charging paraphernalia, forcing it into the boot or cabin.

Further, Matt pointed out something I almost forgot to mention. The blind spot.

Like most Mazdas, the MX-30’s wing mirrors are mounted up close on the doors, making them feel as though they almost have a zoom factor on them, restricting your view of neighbouring lanes.

On the MX-30 though, this is made worse by the fact the blind-spot monitoring system doesn’t seem to line up with this car’s blind spot.

It detects vehicles further back, when you can still see them in the mirror, not when they’re closer. And this car’s rear clamshell doors causes them to disappear from your proverbial scopes.

Now, we’ve been harsh, but I am more forgiving overall. Yes, the MX-30 is weird. Yes, it doesn’t have enough range and the rear doors and tiny boot are inconvenient. But it’s worth remembering this little SUV is more like a concept car you can actually buy.

The commitment to the design, cabin materials, and workmanship details are impressive. Even in the rear seat, for example, Mazda has made the plush seat material wrap around the plastic C-Pillar covering, so you never touch bare plastic.

Attention has been paid to other little areas, like the padded elbow rest back there, and lots of hidden pieces of cork trim where you wouldn’t expect them.

Plus, the fact a light battery and careful tuning mean the MX-30 maintains Mazda’s signature drive experience, despite being an EV, is admirable.

Few ‘first attempt’ EVs can claim they’ve maintained a brand’s signature feel so well.

Finally, the small battery leads to an interesting consequence for your cost-to-charge. Because you’ll be relying so much on often free public AC charging, the MX-30 has been particularly cheap for me to run in my time with the car (1388km / three months).

I’ve only had to use a DC charger three times, two of which were paid sessions, with a total cost of just $10.52.

Acquired: November 2021

Distance travelled this month: 284km

Odometer: 2132km

Cost to charge in January: $2.02

Total distance travelled: 1388km

Total cost to charge: $10.52

Total average energy consumption: 16.4kWh/100km