Chances are, if you’re reading this and you’ve been thinking about buying a brand new car or have done exactly that in the last couple of years, then you will have taken a good, hard look at the offerings from Mazda. A great-looking range of actual cars, stylish crossovers, and the iconic MX-5 Miata demonstrate that over the last decade or so, Mazda has been slowly carving out a niche for itself as the thinking enthusiast’s OEM. As Chrysler found out in the early nineties, when you’re not the biggest, you’ve got to be the smartest; Mazda barely makes it into the top twenty OEMs by volume worldwide, only besting such luminaries as Dongfeng Motor, BAIC, and Mitsubishi. Dwarfed by their peers, Mazda must zig where the other Japanese behemoths zag.
This dogged determination to differentiate itself in the nascent Japanese car industry saw Mazda make its name with the Wankel rotary engine. With their combination of power and light weight these whirring Dorito motors became a Mazda trademark, but horrendous fuel economy relegated them to the higher-priced RX-7 coupe when the fuel crisis hit in the seventies.
Financial peril frequently followed until Ford took a stake in the company, during which time Mazda suffered the indignity of slapping its badge on various nineties Ford products. After the turn of the century came some well-regarded Mazdaspeed cars, and since escaping the shackles of Dearborn and refinancing in 2011, Mazda has been finally free to do its own thing. The Mazdaspeed models might not be around any longer, but the MX-5 remaining a constant in the range demonstrates throughout all this corporate turmoil shows Mazda still cares. Zoom Zoom isn’t just the usual empty advertising copy line.
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In 2012, Mazda unveiled one of the best-looking sedans of recent memory – the GJ1 Mazda 6. Led by studio chief Akira Tamatani it was the second production car to feature Mazda’s ‘Kodo – Soul of Motion’ design language, which had been introduced on CX-5. In Japanese Kodo means ‘heartbeat’; according to Chief Designer Ikuo Maeda:
“In Japan, we feel that craftsmen inject life into what they make. We believe that a form sincerely and painstakingly made by human hands gets a soul”.
What this PR guff translates to in the real world is a series of cars with tautly defined fenders with sculpted and waisted bodysides that do away with pointless feature lines, instead creating interesting shadows and highlights across the sheet metal. Mazda designers found inspiration in the image of a cheetah, which is ironic because if it had rear-wheel drive, the Mazda 6 is the car Jaguar should have made if they had any balls, instead of the wretchedly dull XE.
Dreams Meet Reality
I have good news: the new Mazda 6e now has rear-wheel drive. A slinky sedan that has a proper hatch pushed down the road via the back wheels – what a novelty. As you’ve worked out, the e-suffix means it’s EV only for now – I’ll come back to this – but at this point we’re past the stage where EVs are the sole purview of early adopters and EV evangelists; they’re now an accepted part of motoring life. As Mazda said at the drive event I attended, if you want them to keep building the MX-5, this is how you keep building the MX-5.
So how did this relatively small company manage to build a whole new Rear Wheel Drive EV? The truth is they didn’t do all the work themselves – the 6e is a product of Mazda’s decades-long partnership with China’s third biggest manufacturer Changan and their EV division, Deepal. The 6e is the bones of a Deepal SL03 wearing the flesh of a Mazda like a Buffalo Bill skin suit. Eyebrows may be cocked at this approach, but platform sharing, even across different manufacturers is not a new thing. What is important is that everything the customer can see or touch, with one glaring exception, is unique to the Mazda. These are what are known in car designer speak as ‘A’ surfaces. When it comes to unseen parts (‘B’ surfaces), according to the product specialist I spoke to, both the front and rear subframes, as well as the front wishbones, are unique to the 6e as well. This is all done to ensure it drives like a Mazda as well as feeling and looking like one.
Although it’s constrained by using the body-in-white (the underlying structure stripped completely bare) of the Deepal SL-03, Mazda has managed to conjure up a stunning-looking car. Viewed from the front three-quarters, the forward rake makes it look ready to pounce, like those big cats the Mazda designers are so enamored with.
The Mazda five-point grill is present and correct, but the usual chrome trim around the bottom half has been swapped out for a light arrangement capable of showing the amount of charge in the battery when plugged in, and the various sensors are well hidden. At the back, the rear lights have four semi-circular elements referencing classic Mazdas from the past, namely the FD RX-7. Hmmm. Anyway, the point is a lot of new EVs, including some from China, wear thin strip lighting front and back which, coupled with generic aero sheet metal, serves up soft focus pastel futurism – a sort of Sino-licon Valley rounded corner aesthetic that doesn’t threaten. But neither does it define or inspire. Mazda knows what’s expected of a sporting sedan and delivers frameless doors and a sinewy feel wrapped in an excellently tailored exterior with a keen sense of its own identity.
Amateur Hour
That Kodo body surfacing is best experienced in Mazda’s Soul Red; filing cabinet gray flattens the curves and swallows light like a Space Shuttle tile. Because even at 52, I was the youngest and thinnest auto writer at the event, when it came time to drive, I made sure I was first out the door to snag the Takumi Plus trim car, which married a Soul Red exterior with the caramel leather and suede interior–choose your partners, everyone, if you hesitate the good ones are gone.
Color and trim variations aside, all the cars present were the same mechanical spec – a 241 bhp, 320NM (236lbs ft) rear-mounted motor pulling electrons from an 80 kWh cell pack for a 343 WLTP range. These specs are not particularly blowing my skirt up, but do you know the battery size in your phone? What matters to customers is how fast, how far, and how long it takes to charge. The press pack says 0-60 is 7.8 seconds, but a hard stamp on the go pedal to get past dawdlers on the suggested drive route saw me blitzing them like a JASDF F2 lighting the burner. The Mazda quoted time, I can safely say, is on the conservative side. Top speed is listed as 108 mph, but I didn’t quite get the opportunity to check that for myself, officer. What you need to know is acceleration is available in abundance throughout the speed range.
As for leg length or charging times in the real world, I can’t comment yet, not because of embargos but this was only a one-day media drive (very) ahead of a full UK launch. There are actually two battery capacities available: as well as the 80kWh ‘long range’ I got to try that charges at 90 kW; a smaller 68.8 ‘performance’ pack with 298 WLTP range available on the mainland, charges at up to 200 kW. You read that right – the smaller battery has a higher peak charging rate than the bigger one. The reason for this discrepancy is differing pack chemistries: the 80 kW pack uses NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) and the 68.8 kW one LFP (lithium ion phosphate). Going from 10 to 80% the slower pack takes 47 minutes; after 300 miles on the road I need about that to visit the bogs, grab coffee and have a smoke anyway.
So does it drive like a Mazda? I’m afraid I can’t say as I’ve only driven a current ND MX-5 Miata, and that was a short go at an industry test event a couple of years ago. All I can do is judge the 6e on its own merits as presented to me in this demo tape form, so with that in mind, nothing I’m about to say should be taken as a definitive verdict.
Because at the moment, the ingredients are all there, but it doesn’t feel quite cooked properly. The steering is fast and accurate but lifeless and light, even when you’re haring round a bend with some load on. The suspension bumps and thumps away over crappy tarmac, but the nose pitches up and down even at low speeds – so maybe there’s a mismatch between spring and damper rates.
Hitting a mid-corner bump with the 6e on the door handles set off a weird corkscrewing motion through the body as the rear struggled to get it all gathered up. There are different driving modes, but switching into the firmer one just meant this all happened at faster speeds. It feels like “Comfort” is not soft enough and “Dynamic” is not firm enough. The standard fit 245/45 R19 Michelin e-Primacy tires didn’t protest or slip once throughout some extremely heavy-handed acceleration and braking and turning maneuvers, which is impressive for a 4490 lbs. (2037 kg) car.
Entering this upscale Takumi Plus 6e is like pulling on a sheepskin overcoat – warm, soft, comfortable, and very brown. Non-Plus Takumi trim levels come equipped with grey or black dentist chair vinyl, so Plus is the one you want to be forking out for to get the genuine leather and suede. That also gets you a panoramic roof with front and rear electric sunshades, and the car I drove came equipped with something that should be on every single car on sale – a HUD. There’s plenty of room, the driving position is appropriately languid, and it’s all generally very agreeable. Mazda clearly put a lot of time, effort, and money into developing the interior. Because of that cab-rearward proportion headroom in the back is great, but weirdly the rear floor feels higher than the front. The seating position back there is much more sitting-down-to-dinner as opposed to the front. I’ve not driven a Tesla Model 3, but I have sat in one, and in that car you were acutely aware the cells were in the floor such was the effect of the raised H-point (hip height from the ground plane). With the 6e you’d only guess if you were a rear seat passenger.
What the 6e does have that Tesla doesn’t is a full-size hatch. Trunk space is 16.5 cu ft (466 liters) with the seats up and 38 cu ft (1074 liters) with them folded flat. Up front is a 2.5 cu ft (72 liter) frunk with a hidden floor and a drain plug. Thoughtfully, there’s a branded tote to hide your week’s supply of Suntory whiskey when leaving Safeway, although Mazda suggested this might be an optional extra. Although final pricing has yet to be figured out, it will start with a 4, so charging extra for a bag is a bit cheeky. Standard equipment-wise wise nothing obvious was lacking – in spirit and refinement, this is clearly a semi-premium sedan. In execution and interaction, however, the picture gets murkier.
Unless you are familiar with the Deepal SL-03 (and why would any of us be, I had to look it up doing my research), on the outside the Mazda doesn’t betray its origins at all. When it comes to the IMAX screen plonked on the dash inside, it is another matter entirely. Most secondary controls are relegated to the touchscreen, including HVAC, lighting, and wipers. It’s easier to tell you what hard controls you do get – seat adjustment, stalks for the indicators, drive selector, and screen wash. On the wheel are haptic buttons for the cruise control, drive modes, context-dependent up, down, left and right menu controls, and two programmable favorite buttons. And that’s about it.
It’s A Lot Like Learning The Violin
Now I understand this will be a showstopper for some people and considering VW’s struggles to get this stuff right and general pushback around the idea of having many of your interactions with a vehicle through a touchscreen, especially from a safety point of view. However, some of these things, like lights and temperature, fall into the ‘set and forget’ category: once we’ve got a car configured to operate the way we want, we’re not constantly fiddling with it.
An extended period with the 6e would prove the efficacy (or not) of automatic lights and wipers, and there are gesture controls and voice controls as well (which I didn’t have the time or inclination to try), but it does feel like a retrograde step. The graphics and menu layout are not great either – the iconography on the driver’s display feels amateurish, and I had to pull over to figure out how to turn off the auto 360-degree display, which popped up every time I signaled and turned the wheel a certain amount. That was bloody intrusive and annoying, but it speaks to the underlying issue – lots of software-based features but little to no thought into things like consistent typography, menu hierarchy, and all the other stuff that goes into making a pleasant and seamless user experience. To use a filthy Windows/glorious Mac user master race analogy feels lazy, but I can’t think of a more appropriate one.
So the GUI needs at least another pass, and the ride and handling are a bit inconsistent. That is stuff that can and will be changed before the car hits the UK market in late 2026. Part of the reason for letting media yahoos like me loose in the 6e so far in advance of release is to solicit feedback that can inform development, and everything I’ve told you I told them on the day.
Because we’re customer service fourth here at the Autopian, I also borrowed Matt’s journalism hat and asked the PR reps present the hard-hitting questions on your behalf. Will it be available in the U.S.? Unknown, and at the time of writing, I’ve not had an answer. Will there be a wagon version? Definitely not. Presumably, Mazda looked at the numbers from the previous model, and the capitalism didn’t add up. Will there be a pure ICE version? A physical impossibility given the platform, so negatory there. But the Deepal SL-03 now has an EREV version, so Mazda could transplant that powertrain into the 6e, which would stick an electrode through any range and charging hang-ups anyone may have. Also, there is no dubious self-driving functionality of any level.
From certain quarters, the coverage of Chinese EVs is deafening, which to me all feels like a rerun of the Tesla coverage from a couple of years back. Legacy OEMs and ICE are dead, EVs are the future, innovate or die blah blah. Now there are plenty of options available from all OEMs, but they haven’t yet seen truly mass-adoption because we’ve not reached the point where customers can get better usability for less money than ICE cars give them. Mazda leveraging its Changan tie-up, gives them a very smart way of hedging their EV bets without committing eye-watering amounts of money, something they don’t really have the resources for. What Mazda has done with the 6e is focus its resources on the areas it excels at: interior and exterior design. Now that’s taken care of, Mazda need to focus on the driving and user experience.
Top image: Mazda UK Media. All other images author.
Thank you for a car review! Should be more often on this site. Interesting to see Swiss plates on the car (Mazda Europe HQ is in Germany).
I’d like to do more, but in the UK I’m nobody so OEMs (apart from a noted few) won’t lend me cars. There’s is more coming though. I have a press loan this week and another soon.
I cannot condone another tablet glued to the front of a dashboard. This is not interior design. This is what happens when you forgot to design the interior for all the bits you wanted in it. Man I hate this trend.
Nope, sorry, immediate hard pass. If Mazda is now going the way of having every control be a touch control on a giant screen that looks like a wart in the middle of the dash, it makes me think they’ve lost their way…
Regarding the 360 display going on around corners: I kind of want this. My town has some abnormally sharp right hand turn curbs, due to the handicap crossing requirements (must be ‘this’ wide and parallel to the street), and possibly the added bike lanes. Let’s just say even in a SWB car, curb checks happen if you don’t know what’s coming.
I still think an engineer screwed up the arc of the curbs, but I’m sure they have a lot of specifications that were cooked-up by committee in a bubble.
When I back out of my driveway on my skinny street, the 360 camera comes on, but when you put the car in ‘forward’, it turns off immediately, even though you still need to clear the curb in front. I would have left it on for 2-3 seconds before having it switch off.
Exactly –
For dense urban environments, such as the metropolises of China, it makes perfect sense.
Their reasoning was ‘it’s a long car’. It’s 4900mm for fucks sake, it ain’t exactly a semi.
Compared to Seagulls and Funky Cats, it’s a long car.
Fair but China has been getting special LWB versions of regualr sedans forever.
Looks decent, but I’d rather buy a 40 year old land barge if I’m going to have to drive something that damn heavy and it will be more comfortable without horrible screens for everything. It might not be fully resolved, but the driving sounds about spot on to my experiences with Mazda, I feel like they’re really overrated as a driver’s car. The cheaper battery sounds like the better deal, plus I trust LFP more for lifespan and not thermally running away (not to be confused with Runaway and that Kiss guy’s evil robots).
When I read Mazda RWD EV, I thought, “Whoa! Drift machine!” But it sounds like the chassis isn’t a Mazda, so no fun sliding for us!
It is an interesting idea, for sure. Especially since the weight is closer to the rear seats, anyway.
Too bad it’s already been t-boned (judging by the side view pic). You can probably pop that back out though with a few simple tools in an afternoon.
Said they same, after you made your comment, but before I read it. There are a few modern cars that I have had to look twice at to figure out if a particular crease or bend came from the factory or post production. This looks like another.
Quid of the Camry dent? It’s so prevalent I sometimes wonder if it’s a factory option.
Mazda already made the enthusiast’s dream sedan – the ’06 Mazdaspeed 6 with the 6MT and AWD. It’s the 6-6-6 trifecta. Such a sweet little car. I still want one.
Except that they put a 4 cylinder in it.. always thought it would have been so much cooler if they had turbo’d the 6 cylinder.
Completely agree, but it’s still a sweet car.
Not everyone wants to drive a twenty year old car.
Wrong take. Mazda should do it again was my point.
“But the Deepal SL-03 now has an EREV version, so Mazda could transplant that powertrain into the 6e”
Could this transition into the rumored rotary extended range EV that’s been kicked around for years?
Would be the smart thing to do.
It’s very pretty, but since you mentioned Jaguar… now I can’t stop seeing an XJ. Like, the last jaguar sedans even have similar front end treatments, and some of rear tails look suggestive of the last gen XK.
One aspect of the Koro VBL I thought was pretty successful was that Katana-inspired blade that ran under the headlights, and kinked downwards to form the lower lip of the front grill. By deleting that feature, and instead just hinting at it with an illuminated strip, it lost a lot of attributes that make it appear as a Mazda, imho.
I know you said it’s a Chinese whatever wearing a buffalo bill skin suit of a Mazda, but now I just can’t unsee it as a Chinese whatever wearing Jaguar skin with Mazda logos.
Still a great looking car, regardless.
I love my 2020 6 and although I am itching for a new car the EV and RWD only is definitely going to make me look elsewhere.Too bad because our last 4 cars have been Mazda and we have had zero reliability issues.I do think it’s a nice looking car though.
This article has some fun basic math potential for a slow afternoon. The NMC 80 kWh battery pack with 90 kW (pretty sad) peak charging, and 47 minutes 10-80% would give ~71kW average charging power. The LFP 68 kWH battery pack with 200 kW peak charging, scaled with an assumed linear charging time to peak charging rate would be ~21 minutes 10-80%, at an average ~136 kW.
For say a 500 mile road trip, at 3.5 miles/kWh at 70+ mph (as opposed to the 4.3 m/kWh rated for each), they would need ~143 kWh, plus a buffer maybe 155 kWh for the trip. The “long range” NMC would need to charge ~75 kWh vs. ~87 kWh for the LFP, but with the average 71 kW/ 136 kW charging speeds, the “long range” battery pack would need to charge just over an hour, vs. ~40 minutes for the LFP battery- the trip would take longer with the “long range” battery.
Especially if the LFP battery ends up cheaper, which would be normal, why would anyone buy the “long range” battery, since it would actually take longer for any drive much over 300 miles? That extra 12 kWh of capacity, at 200 kW, would only take a few minutes to make up at the faster LFP charging rates.
/r/theydidthemath
Fascinating, and I hope they do a head to head like this when the car is fully out. Carwow seems to like these range tests. Beyond the fact that the videos are 75% filler, they’re super informative.
As for why would anyone buy the long range – your exercise assumes optimal route planning and charger availability/reliability. The longer range could allow more flexibility and peace of mind in that regard, but I agree the value prop is tenuous.
I’d say 90kw in 2025 isn’t “sad”, it’s just not acceptable.
A fun thing could be to get a couple of auto journalists to show up at a certain place for a secret, unknown challenge, give one the long range car, and the other the performance version, both fully charged, and then tell them to “race” to a destination ~500 miles away, and see who gets there first. Have telematics in both vehicles to record the trips and provide all the charging data and such as well.
I’m bored now.
Excellent, mission accomplished…
“…during which time Mazda suffered the indignity of slapping its badge on various nineties Ford products”
Perhaps the view from your side of the Atlantic is different – but here in the States and Japan, it was more frequently Mazdas which wore Ford/Mercury/Lincoln badges.
Ford Courier – nee Mazda Pickup.
1st Gen Mercury Tracer nee Ford Laser – rebodied Mazda 323.
Ford Telstar – nee Mazda 626
Ford Probe – rebodied Mazda MX6
Ford Festiva – nee Mazda 121
3rd Gen Ford Escort/2nd Gen Mercury Tracer – rebodied Mazda Protege
Mercury Capri (the Australian FWD convertible) – Repackaged Mazda 323
1st Gen Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan/Lincoln Zephyr/MKZ/Ford Edge/Lincoln MKX – rebodied Mazda6/CX-9.
The only Mazdas I can think of with Ford origins were the Mazda B2300/3000/4000 trucks based on the concurrent US Ford Ranger, the Mazda Navajo, which was the 2 door 1st Gen Ford Explorer – plus Mazda pickups everywhere else in the world after the 1990s based on the Thai Ford Rangers – as well as the late 90’s Fiesta rebadged as the Mazda 121.
“…if it had rear-wheel drive, the Mazda 6 is the car Jaguar should have made if they had any balls, instead of the wretchedly dull XE.”
Which is ironic since Mazda did build their own rwd Jaguar: The 1990’s Mazda Sentia/929
That said – this looks fairly nice except for the iPad, but are the Chinese completely allergic to front bumpers?
Don’t forget the Tribute, a rebadged Escape.
Ah yes – the little CUV which was engineered on the underpinnings of the 626!
It’s not a rebadge, but a couple generations of 2 have been strongly related to the Fiesta, and while I can’t say which side was predominantly responsible for engineering, I *can* say my 2 had a handful of FoMoCo parts.
Correct – The Mazda 2/Ford Fiesta were jointly engineered – So it’s not a rebadge of one or the other.
Hold on, you have Safeway in the UK?!
As a line of store-brand products sold in Morrisons supermarkets, yes, as actual Safeway stores, no, those have been gone in the UK for a couple decades now, either closed down or converted into Morrisons locations
You would have preferred me to say Piggly Wiggly? I think we’re a bit classier than that around here. And if not we should be.
Don’t Care, has the stupid door handles!
They pop out when you approach the car.
Yep, fits the definition.
They only pop out for attractive drivers.
(Do you have the key in your pocket, or is your car happy to see you?)
Everybody is pleased to see me. Even when they’re not.
The front end looks very nice, as does the interior. I am underwhelmed by the back half of the car. Seems off?
Everything got shoved to the top lip, as though it was an accidental text alignment change within Excel that doesn’t match all the other cells next to it.
Better than messing up the formatting in MS Word and somehow everything gets all jacked up and the tailllights slide to the bottom of all the surfaces, like the new Santa Fe. Horrible looking design choice imho.
It seems… puckered. Like it was worried about spirited driving.
It was a rush job, so they were stuck with the original Deepal SL03’s awkward rear proportions, which are considered awkward and unusual in China too.
Mazda sells a “range of cars” that aren’t hatches? Could have fooled me here in the US – they sell the Miata (which is awesome but I proved I don’t fit in them by buying it’s Italian accented sibling), and the Mazda3. Which comes as a useless sedan and as a horribly compromised form over function hatch. It’s FINE, but nothing to get that excited about.
And now this thing, which is pretty, but EV-only (no thanks) with far too many screens. And if this guy found that annoying, Dear Dog, I would be ready to kill people after about 30 seconds in it (so really, really, really no thanks). At least kudos to them for making it an actual hatch, and not just a sedan that looks like it should be one.
My interest in Mazda beyond the Miata stopped with the Mazda 626 wagon\hatch – of course they couldn’t bother to bring those versions of the Mazda6 in the US.
Mazda6 Wagon (Touring) and Hatch existed in the US.
And had an option for 5MT
But lasted only a subset of the first generation of Mazda6.
Both were long gone by the second generation within the US.
I was thinking those were still badged as 626, thanks for the correction.
Hmm, all of the things that you didn’t like are things that the Japanese usually ace but the Chinese usually whiff. Details, details.
“Details are not details. They are the design” – Charles Eames.
I don’t mean to sound contrarian for contrarian’s sake, but from Adrian’s appreciated preliminary review and the various videos I’ve been seeing about the Mazda 6e online over the past couple of weeks, I can’t help but wish that Mazda just brought a new Mazda 6 back to the American market, perhaps with a Toyota-assisted hybrid drivetrain to supplement their own good turbo 2.5 ICE engine, and while they’re buying stuff from Toyota, maybe they could adapt the Bz internals for a full EV version… I gather the bugs are worked out now. If sedanaphobia is too off-putting for the market in Mazda’s eyes, maybe they could have offered it as a sedan-looking hatchback like they did with the Mazda 6 for a while (which also came as a handsome wagon, but we know nobody likes to sell/buy wagons anymore). 🙁
Yes, the 6e is probably prettier inside and out vs. the Chinese car it is based on, and like Volvo’s EX30, it’s the only way that Chinese (based) EVs can/could be purchased in the U.S., it seems like what it is: a Chinese EV in a Mazda suit and not a real Mazda in terms of driving dynamics or attention to detail. IMO, those are the two main reasons that people buy Mazdas instead of something else.
If this were available here, I’d go test drive it, but I’d probably leave the dealership with a lightly used CX-5 (not the 2026 refresh, which seems like a downgrade to me) or a second-gen CX-9 instead. I know they’re not sedans, but they’re definitely Mazdas in all the important ways that count.
Sticking my nose into a few Chinese build cars in the EU, I would debate your statement that the interiors would put off buyers. The BYD Seal, for example, felt much better put together than equivalent Tesla and it’s displays far more useful.
I suppose it’s balanced against the MGs which are built to a price/market (but then, so is Dacia).
“felt much better put together than equivalent Tesla”
To be fair, that’s not much saying much…
No, but one that gets repeatedly claimed as ‘premium’
True.
I spend a lot of time in a fiveish year old Model 3, and the interior isn’t that awful. I gather it’s mostly glued together, so I dunno how it will fare at 10 years old, or how PITA it will be to fix things, but it’s not horrible. The seats (leather or fake leather in that car) are pretty comfortable too. I’m not saying I want one myself of course, but Teslas as a whole would be a LOT more appealing if Elon Musk had nothing to do with them (for me, anyway).
I know you didn’t ask, but I’d LOVE to see Dacia cars stateside. It’ll never happen, but they always have a few models that appeal at reasonable price points.
I’m NOT anti-Chinese cars really, though my feelings are moot since they’re not coming here (in any numbers) for the forseeable future, and if they did, they wouldn’t be nearly as cheap as they are in China. I mean: I WANT a Toyota Hilux Champ (built in Thailand and sells for the equivalent of U$17K there) but if it came here (which it won’t) it’d probably MSRP base in the upper $20Ks, given what the Tacoma starts at. 🙁 Chinese cars, even ‘cheap’ ones, would all cost at least $10-12K MORE than they do in China, after transport, tarrifs, mods to federalize, etc… were all figured in to the MSRP.
I happened to get a couple of free tickets to the LA Auto Show this year (it, and parking, have gotten so expensive that I’ve been skipping it lately) so at least I’ll get to go sit in the Volvo EX30 (a Chinese Zeeker in a Swedish-tailored suit) which is a (mostly) Chinese car that I actually like (except maybe for the complexity of its thermal management system, which scares me a bit) and might even buy *IF* it cost $10K less than it does.
Which it doesn’t of course. When/if used ones coming off lease turn out to be mostly reliable, and get down into the $25K range for a single-motor model, I’ll have to consider getting one then, if there isn’t a better place to spend that money on at the time.
IIRC, the hatch version of the 6 was handily and inexplicably outsold by the trunk version that looked nearly the same. Maybe it was a pricing thing, but I don’t know why anyone would prefer a smaller opening for cargo.
The regular/sedan version of a car usually costs the least compared to wagon, liftback, and coupe versions IME. I do recall that with the hatch up, the opening on the hatch 6 was huge, and I remember wondering if that might make the body flex a bit more compared to the other body styles, but it’s moot now since I almost never see any of those around these days.
Around here, I think rust took most of them. It’s too bad. I drove a V6 wagon and it was pretty nice except for the rot.
I saw one of these in September in Austria at a car show, but I didn’t look at it in detail, except to note it looks good. It also further confirms my belief that mainstream “sedans” now should just all be “liftbacks” by default because of the shape these inevitably are designed to.
I rented a mazda cx-90 this summer with a horrible center console dial instead of a touch screen. It made me long for a touchscreen.
I love it in my 2023 mazda. Dunno if it changed since then, but i strongly prefer the dial.
I did not have time in a rental to get use to it. I wanted to touch screen google maps.
From what I’ve read about dials is that once you are used-to them, they are preferrable to haptic screens with fingerprints and requiring you to take your eyes off the road longer.
thus the rental car frustration. I got better with it over a few days but google maps was still difficult.
wearing the flesh of a Mazda like a Buffalo Bill skin suit.
What?
How about something more… Anglocentric?
“wearing the flesh of a Mazda like a Seville Row suit”
Have you not seen ‘The Silence of the Lambs’?
It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again!
First though it needs to put Precious in the basket!
Oh and AllCattleNohat…….
Love the suit *wink*
Aaaand now I have Greenskeepers stuck in my head again. Not that I’m complaining.
The UK and EU markets are interesting because a slew of low-priced Chinese EV automakers are now offering their wares there, and doing good volumes.
But here in the US, I don’t think this would sell, especially with what feels like an entry-level powertrain and a premium cabin. It’s also the case that Mazda customers—of which I myself am one—are exactly the sort of discerning people who might shy away from a Mazda that wasn’t actually developed in-house.
I agree the design is gorgeous, inside and out, and Mazda did an amazing job essentially creating a whole new design by bolting new panels and glass to a predefined body structure. And the Deepal SL03 was a handsome enough vehicle. Bonus for being a liftback, too, which the Model 3 really ought to be.
Speaking of the Model 3, interesting that you thought it had a high H-point. My partner had one until very recently, and I thought it sat quite low to the ground. It was also downright uncomfortable to drive long distances due to the hip-to-pedal placement, but was fine if you were in any other seat. What it did have was tons of cabin space and interior width, especially compared to our other compact car, a Mk. 8.5 Golf R.
My Monday keeps getting better – first a couple of unexpected emails that have cured ongoing problems, and now an article from Adrian that I can complement and totally agree with!
I don’t understand why Mazda didn’t include their usual iDrive style controller – their implementation (for everything but the radio station tuning controls) has been spot on.
Alas, the wheel is gone for anything with their upcoming infotainment. Search for the Autopian article on the upcoming CX-5 and you’ll see they’ve gone in the same direction there even though that’s a pure Mazda design. I’m told the masses say: “me want big screen on test drive”, and so it is.
You might say other automakers are zigging, and Mazda is, well, now zigging.
Not crazy about the rear and the exaggerated sculpted doors remind me of the Taurus . . . don’t mind me, I’m jetlagged and cranky.
I’m just cranky.
Carry on