Why we ran it: Mazda’s largest and priciest car is also its first PHEV. Does it make any sense?
Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Specs
Life with a Mazda CX-60: Month 3
Mazda’s maiden PHEV has left some strong impressions after 4000 miles of varied, everyday use, so will we miss it?
When the Fiesta goes, the cheapest Ford on sale will be priced from £25,000. You can currently configure a Kia to command a £63,000 price, should you wish. And Volvo has just revealed an electric take on the XC90 that will ask six figures.
A rapid and dramatic surge in prices across the board means cars are properly, properly expensive now, so the concept of a £50,000 Mazda crossover is no longer as shocking as it was when the CX-60 was revealed a year ago. But that’s still Mercedes GLC money, and to compete with brands like Lexus and Land Rover in this hotly contested premium SUV segment, the CX-60 really ought to be Mazda’s most enticing and best-rounded car yet.
Buuuuttt… it’s not. Not by a long shot. That’s partly Mazda’s fault for making some great cars and thereby giving its big new SUV a particularly lofty bar to clear. But more so it’s Mazda’s fault for not ensuring the CX-60 had what it takes to contend for superiority in this most bitterly fought of car classes.
I can’t imagine BMW’s fearsome quality assessment team signing off on a customer car that creaks and groans as much as the CX-60, which at times felt almost prototypical in its lack of composure over speed bumps and during tight, low-speed manoeuvres. I optimistically put the odd suspension creak and trim rattle down to this early production car ‘bedding in’ during the first thousand miles or so, but even at the 5000-mile mark, I was wincing at sickening driveline graunches and moaning dampers. And this from a £50,000 luxury flagship? Needs improvement.
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This issue with using a PHEV to jump start another car with a flat battery is that there is no suitable battery in the PHEV with which to do it.
The main battery is around 300 volts, so you would not want to connect some jump leads to it and use that, unless you have a death wish!
The 12 volt battery in a PHEV is normally tiny, and it won't have the required cranking amps to start the car with the dead battery, because it isn't designed to do that.
It sounds like a nightmare to drive, isn't very efficient, and, to my eyes, doesnt look particularly attractive. I don't expect a Mazda to weigh this much, either.
The figurers you need to worry about are £50k and an18kwkh battery that only does 25 miles per charge in ideal conditions, in the winter that'll be down to 1kwh per mile which is like an ID4 GTX doing 77 miles per charge.
Wth the domestic Kwh rate at around 45p, I work that out at around 18mpg so in the winter it's cheaper to run on petrol than electriity, probably summer too. Go figure Greta.
So to sum up 188mpg is laughable like every plug-in hybrid, looking forward to mpg figurers and company car tax changes when these tax dodgers are found out.
I don't know what a "mile" is but say it does 25km on the battery, you're saying this large family car could get me to work and back every day without using any petrol, I could charge the tiny battery overnight in my garage, and then on weekends I could fill it up with petrol and do leisure activities, including road trips? And in your country, there's tax incentives to do this? You're right, it's a pretty sweet ride!