The 2022 Mazda MX-30 Is Half of a Great Electric SUV

It’s cute and it’s fun — it just needs double the space, the driven wheels and the range.

Published December 22, 2021

Those first two letters of this Mazda’s model name make some big promises. After all, while the rest of the brand’s SUVs use names that start with CX, this compact crossover’s moniker starts with MX, two letters only found in one other place: the svelte sports car named MX-5, better known as the Miata.

And at first glance, the MX-30 seems as though it might have a bit in common with Mazda’s iconic two-door. For starters, the MX-30 also, sort of, only has two doors — or at least, it looks that way, as the second row’s reverse-opening half-doors lack exterior handles or much else in the way to distinguish them from plain sheetmetal. The dark, contrast-color roof brings to mind a popped convertible top. And the fast-raked C-Pillar at the rear is more evocative of the MX-5 RF’s buttresses than it is any other design cue in the current Mazda lineup. This may just be a small crossover, but dangit, Bobby, it looks fast.

Of course, looks can be deceiving.

The Mazda MX-30 is playful, but pokey

First, the good news: the MX-30 boasts the involving driving characteristics we’ve come to expect from Mazda. The era of zoom-zoom may be past, but Mazdas still deliver a more entertaining driving experience than the average vehicles in their respective classes — and that’s doubly true for their SUVs. Toss the MX-30 into a curve, and it holds the line with aplomb; while it might not feel quite go-kart nimble, its tidy proportions and well-tuned steering and suspension give it a semblance of joie du conduire.

At least, it feels that way until you mash the accelerator. The instantaneous power inherent to electric motors masks it at first, but it only takes one or two attempts to merge onto a fast-moving highway to realize, yes, this crossover really only has 143 horsepower. 200 lb-ft of torque helps mitigate that a bit at around-town speeds, but at the end of the day, Mazda’s cool new futuristic SUV is the least-powerful model it currently offers.

That might not be so bad if the MX-30 made up for it somewhere else, such as, say, ample usable range. Unfortunately, this Mazda whiffs there. Fully charged, the lithium-ion battery pack is only good for a bit over 100 miles of range — less than half that of what most new EVs offer.

The battery’s comparatively small size means 30-40 minutes on a 50-kW Level 3 charger will bring the charge up to 80%, but even so, that only works out to another 75-80 miles of driving before you have to recharge again. I shudder to think about having to drive across country in one of these.

Another mark against the MX-30: it only comes in front-wheel-drive form. Anyone hoping that their sport-utility vehicle might offer the sort of four-wheel traction that’s long been implied by the body style and ride height will be spit out of luck if they start looking at this Mazda. Granted, this may not mean much to this SUV’s target audience of Californians.

Let me clarify: only Californians can buy the MX-30 EV. Mazda doesn’t come out and call it a compliance car — i.e. an electric car needed to meet a government’s laws about automakers making zero-emissions vehicles a certain percentage of their sales in that market — but given California’s requirements that, as of 2022, at least 10% of the cars a large automaker sells in the state are ZEVs, and given that Mazda is only offering this pure-electric version in that state…it’s not hard to put two and two together.

There’s a reason most SUV “coupes” aren’t coupes

Unlike most so-called SUV coupes, the MX-30 is actually a coupe — or at least, much closer to it than its brethren. Like the RX-8 of earlier this century, it has four doors, but the rear set are half-doors that open backwards — the kind people once called suicide doors but now refer to as coach doors.

It’s the half-size part, not the reverse-hinging aspect, that tends to cause the most difficulty. Swung as wide as they can go, they still offer only limited access to the back seat. Given how rarely those back seats seem likely to be used (more on that in a second), it almost seems as though it would have made more sense just to go with a traditional two-door coupe layout for added simplicity.

The MX-30’s interior is attractive…but tight

Yes, there’s a second-row seat back there, but odds are you’ll never use it to hold humans. With the front seat pushed all the way, only the Geico gecko could squeeze his legs into the gap between seatback and rear cushion. And you’ll need to push the front seat back if you’re even an inch past the average height of an American male, as there’s not a ton of room up front, either. At six-foot-four, I had to drive with my legs splayed and the seat much lower than I like it simply to squeeze every inch of legroom out of the car.

The MX-30 does bring a bit of unexpected innovation to its interior, particularly in regard to materials; the seats are upholstered in very comfortable cloth, while the otherwise-dark plastic trim is broken up with bits of cork. (I resisted the temptation to stick tacks into it, but I assume some owners will use it as a rolling bulletin board.) Among the places covered in cork are the quirky cupholder covers, which also double as the front of the center console; flip them back to reveal the cupholders, and they form a wall that raises the small storage compartment’s capacity.

The other biggest variance from the Mazda norm is the climate control system, which uses a touchscreen to control many functions — even though physical buttons on both sides provide some physical redundancy. Like many a touchscreen climate setup found in new cars, it feels like innovation for innovation’s sake — the knob-and-button setup found in, say, a Mazda3 feels much more elegant and effective. Still, the thin panel frees up room behind it for more storage, helping create a cubby big enough to hold a small man-bag or purse.

Otherwise, everything should feel pretty familiar to owners of other Mazdas — even if the occasional feature has been repurposed for EV use. The paddles once used to shift gears now control the regenerative braking, letting you toggle between five levels ranging from internal combustion-like-coasting to why-do-I-have-this-brake-pedal-again? And the tachometer has been swapped for a power / charge gauge that lets you know roughly how much power is being used or dumped back into the battery at any given instant. (I say roughly because, well, it has no numbers.)

The MX-30’s best days are yet to come

Many of the problems – well, at least the range-related ones — are soon set to be solved by the arrival of the forthcoming PHEV variant, which will use — in deliciously distinctive Mazda fashion — a small rotary engine as a generator to feed electricity to the battery and motor. While Mazda is still cagey on details, that model should at least enable the MX-30 to knock out long-distance trips at a pace quicker than a wagon train.

As a car person, I certainly have to tip my hat to Mazda for doing something unconventional for their first electric vehicle. A stylish, teeny electric SUV coupe designed for short-range urban living is certainly a niche I wouldn’t have expected to see anyone try and fill — and given that brief and Mazda’s comparatively limited resources next to the likes of, say, VW or Toyota, the MX-30 is likely about as good as such a vehicle could be.

Still, I can’t help but feel like the MX-30 would be a far, far better actual car if it went twice as far, had twice as many electric motors and driven wheels, and had room to comfortably seat twice as many people. In other words, if it were more of an electric CX-30 — or a Mazda version of the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

That said, if Mazda winds up offering some insane lease deals on this to make sure plenty of Californians take it home, the argument in favor of one might tip dramatically. I wouldn’t recommend buying an MX-30 for $35,000…but I’d certainly say it’s worth borrowing for a few years if they offer it at $99 a month.

The 2022 Mazda MX-30 EV

Base Price: $34,695

Powertrain: 35.5-kWh battery + electric motor; single-speed transmission; front-wheel-drive

Horsepower: 143

Torque: 200 lb-ft

EPA Efficiency: 98 mpg-e city / 85 mpg-e highway

Seats: …two?

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