Mazda 6e review

Company has finally produced an EV with usable range - but all is not as it seems, writes Illya Verpraet

- Illya Verpraet

The Mazda 6e feels like something of a forced hand for the Japanese manufacturer.

Many of us would love for Mazda to merrily keep making MX-5s and a supporting cast of sensibly sized hatchbacks with zingy petrol engines and manual gearboxes, maybe with a couple of straight-six diesels thrown in. But the powers that be have decreed otherwise.

If you're BMW, you can counter any legislative flip-flopping by betting on all the horses: petrol, diesel, hybrid, electric, and tick off hydrogen just in case. But Mazda just doesn’t have the engineering might to do all of it well. Whether it wants to or not, it needs a credible EV (the MX-30 crossover has charm but not much else), so for its new 6e, it has turned to its Chinese manufacturing partner Changan and Mazdafied its Deepal SL03.

WHAT'S IT LIKE?

It must be said that design-wise, it started in a pretty good place, because unless you're already aware of the SL03, you couldn’t tell this wasn’t originally conceived as a Mazda. With the long, flat bonnet, flowing sides and elegant silhouette, it looks every bit the natural successor to the much-loved third-generation Mazda 6 saloon that went off sale in 2023.

The way the signature Mazda grille has been integrated is pretty neat as well: the lights that peek through the relatively flat bumper create the illusion of a more three-dimensional piece. At the back, there's a deployable spoiler and four round lights that reference other current Mazdas, as well as the FD-gen RX-7.

Reading through the spec sheet makes you scratch your head a bit. There are two battery options: a big NMC one (80kWh, 343 miles of WLTP range) and a smaller LFP one (68.8kWh, 298 miles). Pretty standard stuff, but weirdly the Long Range model charges much slower (90kW versus 165kW) and has less power (241bhp versus 255bhp) from its single rear motor.