Mazda MX-30 review

Mazdas are usually among the sweetest driving cars owing to a combo of supple ride, light weight and a lovely manual gearshift. The MX-30 EV, with its low-slung 310kg battery, 1,675kg kerb weight (1,806kg in the case of the R-EV, despite carrying half as much battery) and single-speed transmission can’t offer those selling points. Somewhat inevitably it lacks the sparkle of the Mazda 3 or CX-3.

Shame. How is it as, y’know, a crossover?

The steering is well weighted, and around town the MX-30 is decent enough to pootle around in. It's mostly comfy, but there’s little subtlety in the way it deals with speed bumps. It’s hardly alone in this regard: only the Honda e has really managed to evade the skateboard-like rigidity that small, battery-bellied cars usually exhibit.

Mazda’s fitted the same torque vectoring tech used elsewhere in its range but given it a bit of pep to work with the electric motor on the front axle. The result is neat, tidy, fuss-free cornering, and an amusing chirrup of wheelspin if you’re especially enthusiastic out of a corner. But what you gain in stability you pay for in ride quality. There’s very little travel to the brake pedal too, which takes some getting used to.

The R-EV gets three driving modes – EV, Charge and Normal – while steering wheel paddles allow you to switch between five levels of regen in both. Set at its strongest, this becomes a one-pedal car for all but coming to a full stop. It’s way more intuitively set up than some rivals, so we’d wager you might actually use it. As opposed to trying it once and then never again.

Some good news at least. Is it fast?

The EV manages the 0-62mph sprint in 9.7 seconds and on to an 87mph top speed, which isn’t anything to shout about. As always in an EV, it’s 0-40mph where it majors anyway. There’s more than enough instant go to keep you happy at urban speeds.

The R-EV, by comparison, manages the same sprint in 9.1 seconds, and has an identical top speed. The 830cc engine is grating and noisy when it fires into life, and causes constant vibration running through the wheel, pedals, and seats... to the extent that our backseat passengers commented on it. Not great.

Presumably the EV is better on that front?

It also gets false engine noise that accompanies acceleration and braking: Mazda had a tinker with this back in 2022 and says the augmented noise better matches your throttle inputs now, but you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference. It actually sounds quite sweet – like a dinky three-cylinder petrol engine singing through autotune – and only pipes up under harder throttle or brake use.

One final thing to note on both versions is the limited visibility: the third rear window is criminally small and the chunky D-pillar means you’ve absolutely no idea if there’s anything behind it. Fortunately blind spot monitoring comes as standard on all versions. It’s needed.