Mazda MX-30 R-EV Review & Prices

The Mazda MX-30 R-EV is a handsome little oddball of an SUV. You can almost consider Mazda the king of the left-field cars, because even the most ‘normal’ cars in its range (think Mazda 3 and CX-30) look more stylish than their alternatives, and the MX-30 R-EV is no different. It’s just a shame it’s so slow, which dulls its shine, and it’s not very practical.

It’s a bit like one of those posh Japanese fountain pens, because where the Vauxhall Mokka and Kia Niro are about as posh as a multi-pack biro, the Mazda stands out more - while being a touch less practical. It’s not quite as luxurious as a Peugeot 2008, though.

While the MX-30 used to be a pure EV, you can only get it as a R-EV PHEV now - with a tiny range-extending motor that never powers the wheels. You get up to 52 miles of electric-only range to a charge.

Where other small Mazdas are very swish, swoopy and appear sporty, the MX-30 is a very chunky-looking little thing; akin to a CX-80 SUV that’s been run through the tumble dryer. With its bluff front and rear ends, boxy wheel arches and - wait for it - rear-hinged ‘suicide’ back doors, you may as well be describing a Rolls-Royce Cullinan. Very posh.

The interior is less funky, but it’s still a handsome piece of design. The arrow-straight dashboard top spans the width of the car, with Mazda’s neat widescreen infotainment system tucked in above it. You get a mixed digital/analogue instrument cluster which feels suitably sporty for a Mazda MX model, as does the three-spoke steering wheel and funky little gear knob.

Material quality feels very high indeed, another Mazda staple feature, and everything feels luxurious and pleasant to the touch - even the fabric seat upholstery.

You get more than enough space in the front of the MX-30 R-EV, even for very tall drivers, but there isn’t much room in the back and the small doors make entry and exit a bit off a faff. The even smaller windows mean it’s quite dark back there, while the 350-litre boot lags behind its alternatives. There’s less space than in a Renault 4, even a Renault Clio, for that matter.

It’s easy to chuck around corners in town thanks to its agile steering, while the suspension is a dab hand at brushing off bumps and potholes on the go. Motorway journeys are the Mazda’s weakness, because it can feel underpowered when trying to stay at the national speed limit, and its range plummets at high speed.

Turn off the motorway and onto your favourite B-road and the MX-30 R-EV is perfectly adequate. Okay so it’s not an MX-5 by any means, but as far as small SUVs go this one is pretty good to chuck through some bends. The darty steering is a delight and the suspension isn’t unsettled around bumpy corners, but its extra weight means it’s not fun in the way the MX-30 EV is.

Check out the latest Mazda MX-30 R-EV deals on Carwow, or MX-30 R-EV lease deals instead. There are great prices on used MX-30 R-EVs, and other used Mazda options too. You can sell your car through Carwow, when time time comes to switch.

The Mazda MX-30 starts at around £32,500, placing it roughly in line with the Skoda Elroq, Kia EV3 and the new Nissan Leaf - which makes it a bit pricey for a hybrid. Entry-level Prime-Line models come as standard with 18-inch alloys, cloth interior trim, an 8.8-inch infotainment screen, front and rear parking sensors as well as a reverse camera.

Exclusive-Line models get diamond-cut alloys, an electric driver’s seat, heated front seats, frameless interior mirror and rear privacy glass for a couple more thousand pounds. The range-topping Makoto version comes with a three-pin power socket so you can charge appliances on the go, leatherette seats, Bose speakers, 360-degree cameras and a heated steering wheel - as well as a sunroof.

The Mazda MX-30 R-EV feels engaging to drive, but its weight counts against it on twisty roads

In town

This is where the MX-30 should — and does — shine. Fully charge the battery from a home charger and that 52-mile range seems pretty realistic. Indeed, stick to low-speed urban roads and you might even get slightly more out of the battery. 

The high-ish seating position means you get a good view out to the front, but the small rear glass area, and the chunky and sloping rear roof pillar means over-the-shoulder views are pretty restricted. There are standard front and rear parking sensors, but you’ll definitely want to upgrade to the mid-spec Exclusive-Line model to get a rear parking camera if you actually want to see where you’re going. 

The MX-30 doesn’t feel especially quick, even around town, but it’s comfy over bumps for the most part, and the compact dimensions and reasonably tight turning circle mean that it’s easy enough to manoeuvre in town. That said, you might find the steering can feel a bit too heavy at low speeds.  

One odd thing is that the gear selector, a small and chunky fist-sized leather-covered thing, can be awkward when switching between reverse and drive — it can leave you hanging during three-point turns. 

On the motorway

The rotary engine means that the Mazda MX-30 R-EV is capable of long motorway runs in a way that the ultra-short range all-electric version of the MX-30 just isn’t. While the regular MX-30 is all done at 124 miles (and realistically much less if you’re on the motorway) the R-EV version can fire up the rotary engine to keep the battery topped up as you go, stretching the useable range on a full tank of fuel and a full battery to about 300 miles – or just under, as the rotary engine tends to get through its small fuel tank pretty quickly at motorway speeds. That said, it will easily handle a two-hour motorway stint with range to spare. 

Performance is pretty leisurely, though. Because the rotary engine doesn’t drive the wheels, and only charges up the battery, there’s only the MX-30’s 170hp electric motor to rely on. A 0-62mph time of 9.1 seconds isn’t terrible, but neither is it quick so you have to build up momentum for merging with fast-moving motorway traffic. There’s also no direct relationship between what you’re doing with the accelerator pedal, and what the rotary engine is doing to charge the battery, so the MX-30 makes some odd, out-of-sync noises as it goes. Anyone hoping for the smooth scream of the old RX-7 sports car is in for a crushing disappointment. 

The MX-30 R-EV does come with radar-guided cruise control and lane-keeping steering, which help on a longer journey, and they’re relatively well-tuned systems which don’t jerk you about the place or become too irritating. 

On a twisty road

While the MX-30 — in its all-electric form — is one of the sweeter EVs to drive, the MX-30 R-EV is perhaps a little less so. That’s maybe because once a car enthusiast hears ‘rotary engine’ they expect a low-slung sports car, which the MX-30 definitely isn’t.

The primary culprit here is the 1,770kg kerb weight, which although not terrible does make the MX-30 feel a little bit ponderous at times. There is quite a bit of body lean when you’re cornering fast. 

The MX-30 R-EV makes up for that with nice steering which, while it can be too heavy around town, feels much better and more rewarding on the open road. The MX-30 R-EV also feels well balanced, with plenty of grip so it can corner at a surprising lick, albeit the slightly sluggish performance holds you back from having proper fun.

The Mazda MX-30’s cabin is lovely up front, but much less so in the back

The cork trim in the front of the Mazda MX-30 might seem odd, but it has one major benefit — if you stash some loose change or a set of keys in the cork-lined tray at the base of the centre console, they will rattle around much less. There’s a large storage box under the front-seat armrest, which is open at the front until you flip up two cork-backed lids in front of it. They close off the storage area, and open up the two cupholders, allowing you to choose between somewhere to store odds and ends or drinks. The glovebox is fine and so too are the door bins.

The driving position is excellent — the MX-30 R-EV’s front seats are very comfortable, and there’s plenty of adjustment for taller or shorter drivers. 

Space in the back seats

The MX-30 R-EV falls down badly here. While it’s billed as an SUV, it’s really quite cramped in the back. Higher-spec models get buttons in the back which allow rear seat passengers to adjust the front seats so that they can find a bit more space, but thankfully this is locked-out when the car moving — imagine the carnage if your kids could move your seat as you drove…

While legroom and headroom are in tight supply in the back, getting in in the first place is also tricky. Because there’s no door pillar in the middle of the body, when you have both the front doors and the back doors open, the whole side of the car is opened up. Instead of this making it easier to get in and out, though, the massive hinges for the back doors just get in the way, and you kind of have to wiggle and step around them to get in.

The rear is also quite dark, with very small windows, so kids aren’t going to be too happy. Equally, if you want to fit a big, rear-facing child seat, anyone sitting in the front is going to have to scooch up a bit. There are at least ISOFIX anchors in both outer rear seats. 

That said, the rear bench is quite wide and flat, so it is just about possible to squeeze three people in sitting side by side. 

Boot Space

At 350 litres, the MX-30 R-EV’s boot seems about right for a small-ish SUV, but when you spot how much luggage space alternatives offer, it seems far less impressive. A Hyundai Kona Electric has 466 litres of luggage space, for instance. If you’re taking am MX-30 R-EV on holidays, pack light. 

The rear seats do split 60:40 to open up 1,155 litres of space, but there’s a big lip between the boot and the backs of those seats, which isn’t helpful when you’re loading larger items. Equally, there’s nowhere to put the big one-piece luggage cover, so that either has to stay at home or be abandoned in the IKEA car park. There are some tie-down points in the MX-30 R-EV’s boot, but no shopping bag hooks, and there’s no ‘frunk’ or ‘froot’ in the nose for stashing your charging cables. 

The Mazda MX-30 R-EV’s cabin looks and feels good, but some of the tech is downright odd

Generally speaking, we applaud Mazda for not following the herd when it comes to infotainment and digital dashboards. The MX-30 R-EV’s simple, relatively understated cabin layout is far better and easier to use than the whizz-bang big-screen setups of many rivals. The mixture of analogue and digital dials behind the steering wheel may look a touch old-fashioned, but the dials are simple, clear, and very easy on the eyes when driving at night — not something you can say about the big digital displays of some others.

Equally, the shallow 8.8-inch screen set atop the dashboard uses a click-wheel controller on the centre console, just behind the stubby gear selector. That seems a bit early-2000s, a feeling backed up by the slightly clunky graphics on the screen, and the ancient-looking sat nav maps. However, it all works really well, and using the click-wheel when you’re on the move is much easier, simpler, and takes your eyes off the road much less than a touchscreen.

At the base of the centre of the dash, there actually is a touchscreen — one that exclusively looks after the heating and air conditioning. This is really odd, as it’s fiddly to use when you’re pressing icons on the screen, and yet there are physical buttons around the edge of the screen which replicate pretty much all of its functions. It’s a strange choice, and Mazda might have been better off just using the panel of buttons and rotary switches which are fitted as standard to the Mazda CX-30 and Mazda 3, and which work really well. This extra screen just feels like it’s being too clever by half. 

Where the MX-30 was initially launched as an EV, it was severely lacking in range compared to its alternatives. Since then, Mazda has turned it into a PHEV instead, though it only has a tiny rotary engine that acts as a power generator for the batteries.

According to the official figures, the MX-30 has a range of 53 miles on a fully charged battery. In the real world, you’ll probably see a little over 40 miles at best.

On the plus side, recharging doesn’t take very long. Topping the battery up from 20-80% takes about 25 minutes using a 50kW charger (that’s the pretty modest maximum charging rate), while a full recharge from a 7kW wallbox takes an hour and a half. As the 17.8kWh battery is so dinky, you could just plug the MX-30 into a three-pin socket at home, where it’ll take almost five hours to charge from 20-80%.

Overall efficiency is rated at 3.6 miles per kWh, which isn’t bad. Officially, the R-EV’s fuel economy is a staggering 283mpg, but on long motorway runs, realistically, it’s more like 35-37mpg or thereabouts. With a full tank of petrol it has a range of about 400 miles, and the tiny 800cc motor produces 22g/km of C02.

All MX-30 models avoid the luxury car supplement, even with the optional paint finish in the top trim level - unless you go crazy with the dealer-fit accessories. It also sits in one of the lowest bands of road tax and Benefit-in-Kind payments, for company car drivers. Hooray!

Mazda is low-key brilliant at crash tests, often matching Volvo’s scores in the Euro NCAP safety test. The MX-30 did just that when tested in 2020, taking home a full five stars, with a 91% rating for adult occupant protection, 87% for child occupant protection, 68% for vulnerable road users, and 73% for its electronic safety systems. Those scores were for the battery-powered MX-30, so the R-EV with its front-mounted rotary engine may well score slightly differently. 

Standard safety equipment includes rain-sensing wipers and dusk-sensing headlights, adaptive cruise control, a head-up display, blind spot monitoring, driver attention alert, emergency lane-keeping, traffic sign and speed limit recognition, and smart brake support, which slams on the brakes automatically if it detects you’re about to hit a car, cyclist, or pedestrian. 

Mazda came 17th in the 2025 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, which out of 31 entrants isn’t too impressive - or confidence inspiring.

Mazda provides an industry standard three-year/60,000 mile warranty on the MX-30 as a whole, plus an eight-year/100,000 mile warranty on the battery. Mazda also provides extended warranties on older models so, once your MX-30 hits three years old, you can still get manufacturer-backed coverage for it.