Mazda 6e first drive – Is this enough for Mazda’s new electric car?
Good day. I’m Paul. Mazda is bringing a non-Japanese Mazda to Australia. This is the Mazda 6E. We saw this at the Shanghai Motor Show, and I remember commenting on how cool I thought it looked. China only car then, but it’s now expanded to other markets, including right-hand drive markets like Australia. Uh, this is a plug-in hybrid in other markets, but Australia will only get this, the fully electric version, and they reckon it’s going to start at around the $55,000 mark and then stretch up to what I think is the top spec here. We don’t know exact details for the Australian market just yet. This is going to be a first look at this car when it does finally arrive in Australia in mid 2026. We’ll do a proper in-depth review, but today we’re just going to have a quick drive of it. I’ll run you through some of the highlights and some of the interesting things. And then when it does finally get here, we’ll do something a bit more detailed. So, on the design front uh to begin with, this is a very sharp looking car. Remember when I saw it in person at the Shanghai show, I thought, geez, that is a fantastic looking Mazda. So, this is a partnership with Chinese brand called Changen. So, they do their own version of these cars, but the platform is inherently shared between them. We’re going to be getting a version of this with a battery that’s around 80 kilowatt hours in capacity. It’ll be an LFP battery. Uh, depending on which market you go to, you’ve got batteries that are under 70 kW hours or around 80 kW hours and different chemistries as well. It is just fascinating how much they can cram into these platforms. Uh, but on the design front, you’ve got this faux grill down here. It’s all closed off. Being an electric vehicle, they do a lot of the cooling on the lower portions. And then around here, quite a sleek looking headlight design. So you got that thin LED strip there with the headlight cluster that goes all the way down here. Um, sort of very sharp looking setup. Over on the side here, decent set of tires, Michelin, so EV focused tire. And you can see here as well, they’ve gone down the path of putting uh arrow caps on this as well. 19-in alloy wheel. This is a rear wheel drive car, and they only do uh this platform for the Australian market with rear wheel drive. So it’s showing that it is fairly dynamic and engaging uh as you drive. door handles. They tuck away uh when the car is locked. Then when it’s unlocked as well, you can basically just pull that out and then it will um open up for you and disappear once you lock the car. Little strip there that says Mazda as well. And then a bit of brushed chrome that runs all the way down there. Come around to the back with me. Now, the rear is kind of where this gets interesting. You’ve got a lift back design. So, it kind of looks like a sedan, but you’ve got this section here that opens up. I’ll show you what that looks like in a sec. But this red section stretches all the way around the back there. Individual Mazda lettering there as well. and 6E on the back. Now, while the car’s stationary, this is a fake spoiler, but when it’s driving, it actually does come up. So, it’s a sort of an interesting setup that sits flush here, but once it is moving, it comes up. This whole lower section has a diffuser setup. So, given that it is available as a plug-in hybrid, in some markets, that means an internal combustion engine. Uh, but this has a mix of both. You’ve got decent size boot, which I’ll show you right now. So, you can see there with that uh lift back, it sort of really opens up to give you a stack of space in here as well. So, uh, beneath the cargo floor, you’ve got little bit of storage there as well. Uh, nothing too crazy, though, given that it is a rear wheel drive setup. They’ve stationed the motor in there. You’ve also got some storage under the front, too, and a fairly generous space as well. So, it does mean that you’re going to have a little bit of room to work with there. So, we’re going to hop inside. I’m going to show you what the interior looks like cuz uh this is very impressive, I reckon. Now, this is what I’m talking about. Uh, this interior is very schmick. So, similar design theme to Mazda’s other models with these offset colors. And I kind of referred to it as like a Bentley clone where you’ve got the different colors here on the steering wheel. Actually works quite nicely in uh the more expensive Mazda cars. Even if you were using this as a family car, that seat material is going to be easy enough to keep clean. I also like the new key. Look at this. Very fancy. So Mazda on the side there. Um sort of leather bound a little bit as well. So not a bad little setup. Um terms of the technology. So screen size little under 15 in in size. Very different to Mazda’s other infotainment system. And look, I think this is going to be a little bit of an issue because you’ve got CX-5 coming, which we saw at the Tokyo Motor Show. If you do want to see our walk around of that, click up there to watch that. That uses a different infotainment system to this. Um, this infotainment system is obviously a shared thing with other Changen cars. You then have Mazda’s other vehicles which have the sort of uh smaller screen that uses MZD Connect or a newer version of that. So yeah, it it is going to be several different infotainment systems that you as a customer are going to need to be across. You know, not not the end of the world, but um just just something worth pointing out. Screen ahead of the driver, too, and also a head-up display. Gear selector up here uh on the steering column as well. So all of your sort of critical controls are here. One of the things they’re going to need to focus on, especially uh you know, we notice this with other Chinese market cars, is the quality of the safety assistance systems. So that’s stuff like driver monitoring, lane keeping assist. They are currently running a couple of uh pre-production cars around Australia to get telematics and other important functions sorted. Hopefully that includes things like local ride and handling tune and making sure that these safety systems actually work because you get to the point where they annoy you so much you switch them off, but you need to switch them off every single time you drive the car. So just gets a little bit frustrating after a while. Back seat, heaps of room back there. That is one of the big benefits of this platform. Yes, it houses an internal combustion engine in some models, but here in the EV spec, you have heaps of space back there. And I think that is going to be a welcome addition to uh Mazda’s range given that you’ve got stack of SUVs there. They’re all pretty roomy inside. You don’t want to have a smaller car here that completely uh takes you away from that. And then this sort of dual pane roof as well. So, really nice interior. And I think that if you’re talking about a starting price of around that 55 grand mark, this is quite a welcome look and something that I think will uh resonate well with the market. Okay, so we’ve just hit the road in the 6E. It’s a bit of a weird one uh because Mazda is running this launch event at the same proving ground we normally film at, but we don’t have exclusive access to the car cuz it’s a pre-production car and and all that sort of stuff. So, um it’s going to be slightly different to our regular videos. Uh it’ll be a little shorter in terms of the driving stuff, but I’ll just give you as much sort of information as I can. So, for the Australian market, uh, also adding to the complication here is that this is a European spec car. So, it’s got slightly less power than than what we’re getting. Um, and it’s obviously left-hand drive. We’ll have a steering wheel on that side. Uh, but importantly for the Australian market, 190 kW of power, still rear wheel drive, which is good. Battery capacity closer to the 80 kWh mark with an LFP battery. So, LFP battery for for this type of car is, in my opinion, the way to go. uh you know when we owned our Teslas with the first one that I owned the Model 3 performance it had the the NMC battery you know you couldn’t really charge it to 100% then when you needed to go longer distances you had to remember to go to 100% with an LFP battery basically just charging to 100% constantly and if you do want more information on that we actually shot a video uh where we run through all the EV terms and batteries and stuff like that so you can click up there to watch that gives you a bit more background on on why and how you charge things the way that you do. Uh but importantly in this aspect here it means over 500 km of of driving range being a single motor as well means it’s fairly light feels sort of agile on its feet. Well no proper specs down the track but uh for the moment those highle specs are enough to give me an indication of you know what this is going to feel like at this price point. Um so straight out of the bat uh what’s acceleration like? Give this a little stab here. Yeah look uh when this comes here with 190 kW this is marginally less here in European spec. It’s going to feel fine. With a rear wheel drive car, there is only so much you can plum through that rear axle because especially when it’s wet, you hit the throttle, it’s it’s going to produce wheel spin and uh it’ll cause more headaches than it’s worth. So, they sort of dial back the power a little bit. It’s only when you have a dual motor setup that they really sort of ramp it up. Uh but for all intents and purposes, that is more than enough power in a package like this. Does feel very different to a regular Mazda. And I’ll explain what I mean in a second. when the speed picks up, I think that’s probably going to unearth most of the things here for us. You know, we’re driving a long-term CX60 at the moment as part of the the pool that we have at the office. And, you know, whether you love it or hate it, Mazdas these days feel sporty. They got that sort of zoom zoom flavor. It’s on the firmer side and certainly with CX60 a little too firm. They’ve dialed it back a bit, but you know its intentions. And when I drive it around here at pace, it’s a really fun car cuz you’ve got a six-cylinder engine, predominantly rear wheel drive. It’s a rear wheel drive platform. It’s actually highly engaging to drive and far more interesting than most other big SUVs in this segment. But this, on the other hand, straight out of the bat, is very soft. And this feels kind of like a Chinese market tune uh as opposed to something that they’ve tuned for the Australian market. And it’s fine if you’re driving predominantly in and around the city cuz it will feel fairly comfortable and and smooth, especially on uh coarse chip surfaces and sort of pothole roads and that type of thing. But it is going to mean if the speed picks up that uh you know it could get a little bit floaty. We got some kangaroos out at the moment. We’ll just honk them out of the way. Um so yeah, it’ll be interesting once we do an XLAP with some slightly faster speed uh to see exactly how that fares. I’ll just give you my impressions as we loop around here to the sine waves. We do this at 130 ks an hour. Already I’m feeling these bumps on the entry making the car very floaty. Uh okay. So there’s 130. See what this feels like. Yeah, it’s very soft. So, yeah. All right. Terms of steering feel though, I I quite like the feel behind the wheel here. It’s not overly sporty. It’s not too soft. Uh you can actually change depending on which drive mode you’re in, uh how much regen strength you’re getting, uh and and steering as well. Uh so, there is a little bit of configurability there to give you, uh that desired taste. Uh, but sort of just at low speed driving, it actually feels like a very coherent package. I’m going to slot this into sport mode, go for a little fang around the track and see how that feels. Uh, not a sports car. I don’t think they’re marketing it as such, but, you know, given the rest of Mazda’s range feels fairly sporty when you push on. Curious to see how this goes. So, all right. Throttle through here. Doesn’t feel too bad. Um it’s it really is just these uh mid midc corner bumps that are unsettling the car a fair bit. There’s one actually here as we uh go through this faster section that was probably going to well yeah sort of it has that float about it and it’s one of the things that seems that a lot of EVs suffer with when they’re not really tuned well. Uh it’s these midc corner bumps when you’re sort of leaning into the throttle. it sort of just starts becoming a bit porpusy and boatlike. And part of the reason that happens is with a rear wheel drive uh electric vehicle like this. Basically, that motor is uh it’s it’s an open differential. So, when you’re turning into a corner and you get on the throttle, if you hit a bump midc corner, all of a sudden you’re you’re unloading one of those drive wheels, sending torque to the other drive wheel, then this drive wheel is eventually coming back down, getting a bit of torque, and the whole thing just becomes really unsettled. and you pair that with a soft tune on suspension and you end up with a with a car that sort of moves around a bit uh unintentionally when you’re when you’re driving a little faster. So, um it’s it’s not, you know, a deal breaker for this type of vehicle, which I don’t think they’re going to market as a sports car. And that’s a good thing cuz it it definitely doesn’t feel anywhere near as sporty as Mazda’s other vehicles. Let’s hope that before this comes to Australia, they actually spend a bit of time doing ride and handling tuning to ensure that we get a product that actually feels nice and comfortable behind the wheel. probably just touch on visibility super quickly as well. Now, I can see clearly down the front there, the wing mirrors are nice and big. Visibility out the back is good, too. Uh, and that’s important because often with these swoopy profile cars, you you lose a bit of visibility out the rear, but this is actually uh quite nice to look out the back of. And the driving position is great, too. It’s it’s a good place to be seated, and it doesn’t feel like I’m sitting on top of the car. I don’t feel too low. It really is just a good position for a sort of liftback sedan shape like this. There is also a little rattle that’s that’s very hard to hear on on my microphone that’s coming from within the dashboard, but it’s pre-production car. Uh it’s it’s a car they’ve got here just for evaluation. I think it’s probably linked to that. Uh once we do get the proper cars to test, I’ll I’ll make sure that that isn’t a recurring theme. All righty. Last thing we’re going to do is our bumpy road. We do this at 90 ks an hour just to see what the ride is like on this shocking stretch of road, which is actually in better condition than some of the roads out there on the public road. Uh but anyway uh yeah so look softer ride means that it is soaking up this stuff really nicely. There’s a condensed sine wave here as well. See what this feels like. Yeah, nice little floaty over that. You would have seen a few steering inputs there to keep it straight. This is the nature of um a softer rides. Now sure you’re wondering how quick is it? Let’s do a little test here. So 70% battery. We’ll just do our standard uh zero to to 120 so we can get our 80 to 120 overtaking time as well. Uh I’ve got it in sport mode. I’ll turn ESC to off so that we can launch it properly and um we’ll see how it goes. Here we go. Feel too bad off the line there. There’s uh 80 100 and 120. So, you know, I mentioned before this is a different spec to what we’re getting for Australia, but just gives you a bit of an indication of of how quick it is through to 100ks an hour. Uh, so we have 0 to 100, 7.35 seconds, 80 to 120, 5.07 seconds. So, um, yeah, look, reasonable 0 to 100 time, nothing sort of too crazy. And 80 to 120 reasonable as well. Again, nothing too crazy. I suspect it should be a little bit faster with that extra 10 kW of power, but probably not sort of too over the top there in terms of how much extra performance you’re going to get out of it. Look, this has been your first look at the new Mazda 6E coming to Australia uh mid 2026. Um, for for what it is, which is going to be one of the more affordable vehicles in Mazda’s range, you got to remember these things are now going up to like $100,000 for CX90 trims. Uh, I think they’re going to be targeting a price point with this. I do hope that they do a bit of work on the ride cuz it definitely needs some work. But the rest of this interior feels fantastic. Like if you’re spending a starting price of about 55 grand on this, granted this one’s probably going to be uh an upper spec model, I’d be pretty impressed with it. Uh, it looks nice and, you know, I hate calling them legacy brands, but you know, you’re buying a Mazda, a brand that you’ve heard of before. You know, you’re going to get parts for, you know, that there are dealers. you know, you’re going to be able to find those dealers easily. Uh, I just think it seems to me like a smarter option than a lot of the Chinese brands that have popped up out of nowhere and may not be around in in 5 or 10 years time. So, uh, let me know your thoughts. What do you think about this card? Do you like what they’ve done with it? I’m keen for your feedback. If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates. But until next time, take it
Mazda has finally let us have a drive of its first fully electric sedan, the new Mazda 6e. Built in China, the 6e is expected to take on other fully electric vehicles like the Tesla Model 3 and give Mazda competition in the segment.
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:45
Interior: 03:11
Driving: 05:34
Acceleration: 12:46
Outro: 13:54
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