Posted on 07/22/2022 6:38:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
Want to get an electric car? Well, if you want to drive that upgraded golf cart more than a few miles to work and back, you might need to think again, particularly if you’re thinking you might want to drive it at typical highway speeds.
Such is what Car and Driver found in its hilarious review of the new, electric Mazda MX-30. And that’s not some old EV that should be resigned to the scrap heap at this point…it’s the 2022 model of the car.
As background, the MX-30 is designed to be an EV for the average American worker that has to commute to his or her place of work. According to Mazda, it’s meant for a daily commute of about 30 miles in typical city/suburb terrain (so no big inclines) and with opportunities for charging it up at each end of the daily commute.
So it might be fine for commuting to work if your workplace isn’t all that far away, but, as Car and Driver found, it’s wholly unsuitable for anything else, as the car was running low on battery after a miserable 70 miles.
Yes, really. According to the review, despite having an EPA range estimate of 100 miles between charges, it only went a very unimpressive 70 miles in a 75-mile-per-hour road test.
The review might have put the car’s failure to go more than a negligible distance in even harsher terms, saying:
The argument can be made that the average owner doesn’t need more than 100 miles of range, but we aren’t going to make it. It’s 2022—we’re seeing 500 miles from electric cars, and 200 miles should be expected. The MX-30 offers an EPA-estimated 100 miles of total range; we made it only 70 miles in our 75-mph highway test. Even worse, the MX-30’s 76 MPGe for those 70 miles of highway driving is less efficient than far more powerful EVs. The Model S Plaid got 91 MPGe in the same highway test, for example. Recharging at a Level 3 charger, it can get 80 percent topped up in 36 minutes; this takes 2 hours, 50 minutes at a Level 2. Our ride from home to the test-drive site and back wouldn’t have been a possible round trip in the MX-30. Mazda does offer 10 days of no-cost loans of other vehicles from its fleet for the first three years of ownership, but who wants to swap cars any time you want to leave your neighborhood?
“Wouldn’t have been possible” isn’t really what you want to hear in a review, particularly when regarding the very reasonable idea that the car should be able to make it to a test facility and back without too much trouble.
But, of course, it’s what the review found because the new EV just isn’t that capable; the laws of physics can’t be ignored, so the ~$35,000 car can only make it the equivalent of my truck, a 2013 F-150, with four gallons of gas (about 80 miles).
That’s not only embarrassing, but it shows the problem with electric cars: they can’t go very far and, even if they might have a huge battery pack that drags them somewhere to the range of a typical car (~500 miles), it takes hours to charge them up.
Oh, and whereas Tesla’s at least have the redeeming feature of being fun to drive because they accelerate like a rocket ship, the Mazda can’t even do that, as the review noted, saying:
Mazda’s EV is currently only available with a single motor making 143 horsepower and 200 lb-ft of torque. It’s zippy enough around town, but on the highway, or even some of the wider, meaner streets of Los Angeles County, you won’t be passing any Teslas—or even Chevy Bolts. At the test track, it took a lazy 8.7 seconds to get the MX-30 up to 60 mph. The CX-30 does it in 7.6 seconds, while other similarly sized electric SUVs such as the single-motor ID.4 and the Hyundai Kona Electric do it in 7.6 and 6.3 seconds, respectively. It’s even worse at freeway speeds: Accelerating from 50 to 70 mph takes 5.3 seconds, which feels like an eternity on an onramp. Top speed is a mere 91 mph. This sluggishness is somewhat expected given the MX-30’s $34,695 starting price, which is slightly more than a Chevy Bolt EUV’s yet less than what it takes to unlock the ID.4 and Kona. Our well-equipped example cost $38,600. We tend to accept a certain lethargy in small gas engines in return for fuel economy or a low buy-in price, but electric motors need to make up for their lack of fun noises with fun acceleration. The drivetrain in the MX-30 feels detuned, maybe to stretch the range of its small 32.0-kWh battery pack, which leads us to our next performance demerit.
Yikes. Looks like combustion engines still have a reason to stick around after all.
It is about having power over the lives of others.
The goal is an immobilized peasantry that can travel only with permissions and instructions from the rulers.
The intermediate step is to "mandate" replacement of existing vehicles with ones that are more expensive and less capable. Then keep tightening the nooses by regulatory changes until ordinary people simply cannot afford or use any form of personal transportation.
Electric Vehicles are a "bait and switch".
I live in hill country. The paved country roads have a 55 mph speed limit. It’s 25 miles to the nearest grocery store. 35 miles to the nearest industrial park for a manufacturing job. 60 miles to a metro type area for good office jobs with 25 of it being the interstate hwy. It snows and we get a lot of ice coating everything and temps can get below zero.
Maybe in attitude.
I have done cross country trips (several more than 2500 miles one way) on a motorcycle.
A "cage" (enclosed vehicle) is much more capable, comfortable, and safer, just because of the weather, not to mention other vehicles.
Let me preface this with I owned a Mazda pick up back in the 80s. Every part was a minimum $100. Items that would cost around $10 on a Honda or Toyota. I’ll never buy another.
No kidding. I get it, ‘most’ people in a suburban/urban area drive around town 90% of the time . . . but almost all people also have a 70+ mile drive at least a couple times a year. In terms of round trip, a 35 miles is a laughably short distance.
The next leftist engineering feat will to construct all roadways on a downhill grade.
Trip and fire hazard, what with extension cords all over the sidewalks.
Coal powered? Butt, butt, butt the chick from GM, when asked where the power comes from said “From the building.”. Whaaa waaa waaaa! 🤡
BOTH WAYS!............................
It looks like they’re just turning a gas engine car into an EV not a complete redesign
They should have called it the Trabant.
L
or put doors on your golf cart
criminy, bert
future what?
landfill candidate?
Which is fine. It is the forcing people into this I object to.
If someone wants to buy a overpriced car that has limited range and can serve as a human broiler, that is their prerogative.
At that price, I am passing even with the desirable human broiler option.
you're saying it, but most people even on FR aren't listening. The people who are ramming EVs down our throats aren't stupid enough to believe that they're as good as petrol fueled vehicles. And all this crap about "climate change" is just that - crap. So why get us out of our vehicles - CONTROL. Lot easier to control the serfs if they can't travel very far.
LOL
now you know why they have building all of those bike lanes
An insult to trabants everywhere.
I once overheard the well traveled mother of an employer say this:
We travel all over the world and have noticed that the workers in most other countries don't own a car or big house and they seem perfectly happy. Why can't our workers be like that?
There's a lot of people who don't think the workers deserve to drive or own a house. Factory workers and many blue collar types buy used cars because that's all they can afford. There will be no decent, affordable used EVs due to the short lifespan and replacement costs of the battery.
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