Mazda EV Prototype 2020 Review – International

Visiting the future

It takes about 30 seconds -- barely enough time to breathe in the Norsca-fresh Scandinavian air -- to establish why Mazda chose Oslo in Norway to launch its foray into the world of electric vehicles. That’s how long I’d been in the country before I’d seen my first three Teslas.

Within an hour, I’d spotted more EVs than I’d seen in the past year -- Nissan LEAFs, Renault ZOEs, Volkswagen e-Golfs, Audi e-trons every Tesla known to man or Musk. And while this should come as no surprise in a country where more than 55 per cent of new-car sales are now electric, it really is quite odd.

Driving in Norway feels like visiting the future, a future that, for Australians at least, still seems decades away. This tiny country of five million souls is aiming for 100 per cent of all new cars sold by 2025 to be electric (or at least zero-emissions; hydrogen is also fine).

The fact that they give big tax incentives for buying them -- as well as cheaper parking and car ferries, bus-lane access, etc -- and have already rolled out more than 10,000 charging stations, shows you how completely the country believes in an EV future.

At 385,203 square kilometres, Norway is less than half the size of NSW, which makes that charging-station number even more incredible. Australia hasn’t even built its first 1000 yet.

Clearly, if Mazda wants to sell cars in Norway in the future -- or in countries like the UK and France, that are already proposing an end to ICE (internal combustion engine) cars -- it’s obviously going to need to offer a pure EV, and it is set to launch its first at the Tokyo motor show in October.

We’re betting it will be called Mazda E when it goes on sale, at least in Europe, in 2020.

What we’re here to drive is a Technology Prove-out Vehicle – basically a prototype -- with the company’s almost-complete EV platform hidden under the skin of a modified CX-30 shell.

What that tells us is that Mazda’s first EV will be a small SUV, but you can bet it won’t look like this. The company hints that its newest vehicle will still use the Kodo design language that has made cars like the new Mazda3 so attractive, but that it will have a distinct style to set it apart from its ICE cars.

Mazda has also set out to make the way its EV drives, feels and even sounds, different from the other electric vehicles already filing Norway’s picturesque roads.

There is much talk about wanting to provide “jubilant moments in life through car ownership” and “the pursuit of driving joy” which can only be achieved by using a “human-centric design philosophy” (presumably as opposed to those dog-centric and gerbil-centric approaches that have worked out so poorly in the past).

More simply, as one engineer put it to us, a car should feel like a tool you’ve been using for years, and that the consistency people want from their driving experience “doesn’t change, just because it’s an EV”.

What they’re promising, then, is a Mazda EV that’s both fun and familiar to drive.

The most telling point they make before letting us in one, however, is that they have concentrated on communicating what the car is doing to your body through both your posture and your ears, and that the best way to keep a human happy and comfortable when decelerating is to allow us to brace ourselves against the brake pedal.

As soon as you drive the new Mazda EV, this is what you notice -- and it is an enormous point of difference from other EVs -- the fact that you have to drive it like a normal car.

In most EVs, thanks to their use of regenerative braking, you can virtually drive with just the throttle, because you achieve so much stopping force simply by removing your foot from the accelerator.

The Mazda is entirely different, because when you get off the throttle there is hardly any of that regen feeling (the engineers are still discussing whether to make this optional, for people who like that kind of EV driving), so you have to use the brakes, just the way you’re used to.

Instantly, this feels more car-like and makes you feel more at home. It’s just more fun, somehow, and obviously more “Jinba Ittai” -- or “horse and rider as one”, another concept Mazda loves to bang on about.

Mazda has also decided that humans need, or at least want, to perceive speed through sound, so its new EV uses a fake-sound generator that pumps a unique series of acceleration, deceleration and straining (when you’re driving up a hill, for example) sounds through the stereo speakers.

The engineers in charge of this system explain that what humans want to perceive here is not so much a sound that gets louder (they still want to take advantage of how quiet EVs are, so it’s not overly loud), but the change from low to peak frequencies and the number of those peak frequencies.

Or, as they put it: “it gives you the perception of torque by using the sound, without relying on volume”.

In practice, what you hear as you accelerate -- a mixture of slightly sci-fi car noises with a kind of faux engine-revving sound -- is quiet yet communicative. It could be a bit louder for my liking, but perhaps they’ll include a volume switch in the final car.

Deciding on the sort of sounds to use wasn’t easy, apparently, as one of the engineers in charge, Daisuke Umetsu, told us.

“Young people want these kind of modern, space-ship sounds, while older people want it to sound like an old engine does,” he said.

Either way the compromise is pretty good, and a nice change from the low-whistling nothingness of other EVs.

Mazda has also worked hard on the chassis, incorporating the battery and its supporting frame in what it calls a “multi-directional ring structure”, which apparently produces a 24 per cent reduction in the way the movements of the car are relayed to the driver, versus an ICE vehicle.

The unique characteristics of torque delivery you get from an EV have also been utilised for this car with an all-new version of G-Vectoring Control. This means that, in certain situations, Mazda’s new EVs will handle better through corners than ICE ones, due to the ability to apportion torque to the appropriate wheel, even when you’re off the throttle -- barrelling into a corner down hill, for example.

Sure enough, while there is a sense of heaviness about the car (official weight figures were obviously not available) it does feel fantastically well planted on the road, with all that weight low down, and torsionally stiff as well. The way it slices through S-bends and changes direction at speed, in particular, is hugely impressive.

Mazda’s goal was to provide “seamless vehicle motion”, “intuitive control” and a composed ride feel, “as if the vehicle is gravitated toward the road surface at all times”, and it has achieved all of this with no small amount of flair.

With a mere 35.5kWh battery, providing 105kW and 265Nm, Mazda’s first effort at an EV is clearly designed to be a city-car (they won’t talk range numbers yet, but you can bet it won’t be much above 250km per charge, with a battery that size). But it provides the kind of driving fun that’s well above what you’d expect in that category.

The only downside for me, personally, was that the steering felt a bit on the light side, even for a Mazda, although the only other Australian journalist on the launch drive thought it was fine, and the fact it felt like it could handle a bit more grunt.

To be fair, I’d just stepped out of the Performance variant of a Tesla Model 3 -- a car that is as common as blue eyes and blonde hair in Norway; they bought 3000 in June alone -- so I was used to an EV with rocket-like acceleration.

But the Mazda does benefit from that kind of constant torque-on-tap feeing that electric vehicles provide. There is also an admirable lack of pitch or body roll to the way it handles when driven aggressively.

Overall, the new Mazda EV feels fantastically familiar and Mazda like, but what’s really impressive is how different it therefore feels to other electric vehicles on the market.

Mazda Australia won’t confirm, for now, whether this pure EV will come to Australia, and the plug-in hybrid and range-extender versions (featuring a rotary-engine attached to the EV set-up) are probably higher on its wish list.

But this car is so impressive -- and the technology and green-friendly story it tells on behalf of the brand is so important -- that I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t on sale in your local Mazda dealership within the next two years.

And in Norway, have no doubt, it will sell like raw fish. Or Teslas.

How much does the 2020 Mazda EV cost?
Price: TBC
Available: TBC (2020 in Europe)
Engine: AC synchronous motor, 355 volts, 35.5kWh battery, water-cooled
Output: 105kW/265Nm
Transmission: Single-speed
Fuel: Zero
CO2: Zero
Safety rating: Not tested