We're finally getting our hands on the new Mazda CX-80 - the brand's premium narrow body flagship in plug-in hybrid form to see whether it has the goods to take on the best in the segment. But, at almost $100,000, it's a bucketload of money! Paul Maric has a drive to see if it's any good.
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:38
Interior: 03:16
Infotainment: 04:26
Safety Tech: 05:53
Practicality: 06:39
Charging: 10:57
On the Road: 11:18
Performance: 20:17
Verdict: 21:53
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#mazda #cx80 #review
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:38
Interior: 03:16
Infotainment: 04:26
Safety Tech: 05:53
Practicality: 06:39
Charging: 10:57
On the Road: 11:18
Performance: 20:17
Verdict: 21:53
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
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Paul Maric:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#mazda #cx80 #review
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00For some reason, I didn't notice this before when we were sitting inside the car, but
00:04it has become really annoying. It's like this dashboard is squeaking as we go over bumps and
00:09stuff, so that is a little bit annoying. Look, as a six-seater, this is actually pretty cool.
00:13If you were a kid, this would be luxe, like luxe to the max, because you get your own seat,
00:18it reclines, you go forwards and backwards, you've got heaps of knee room, toe room's great,
00:24headroom's really good as well. G'day, I'm Paul. We've been going through Mazda's new range of
00:29premium SUVs, the CX range, and 60, 70, 80, 90, and they are a little bit confusing, and
00:36today we're looking at the CX-80, and to me it's confusing because they all kind of look
00:40the same, but have slight variances in terms of dimensions and seating capacity. So the CX-80
00:46and the CX-60 are basically narrow-body, sort of Japanese market versions of these premium
00:51Mazda products, and then you've got the 70 and the 90, which are the wide-body American versions
00:58of the premium products. This particular one here is the Azami, so it's the top spec. It's also the
01:04plug-in hybrid, so P50E is the designation they give to it. This is a fairly eye-watering $87,000.
01:11It also has an optional $5,000 package that's fitted to it as well. So on the road, this is going to be
01:17like $100,000. That is a lot of money, so we'll see today whether it's worth that. Now if that's all
01:21too expensive, the entire range kicks off as a petrol entry level at around $55,000. So there's
01:27a little bit of everything there for everyone. Now if you do want to skip ahead to other parts
01:32of this review, we're going to do a detailed review of this today. Use the time codes on the screen,
01:36or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. So in terms of design,
01:40optional colours, around $1,000. Quite like this Soul Red. It is a classic Mazda colour, but they've
01:46integrated it really well with the styling highlights. This has the SP package that I mentioned
01:50earlier, so about $5,000. It's going to add black highlights, a tanned coloured interior,
01:56a multi-tone steering wheel as well. It's quite a really nice looking interior that I'll run you
02:00through shortly. Piano black there on the grille, and then you've got this brushed chrome sort of
02:05colour off to the sides there surrounding the grille. Full LED headlights with matrix LED functionality.
02:12And then around the side here, you've got a piano black set of alloy wheels there on 20-inch
02:19rims. So decent profile on the tyre as well. Body coloured wheel arches there. Off to the side
02:24here, it has a PHEV, which is Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. That's what that stands for,
02:28and they sort of integrate that off to the side so everyone knows what you're driving.
02:33You've got indicators built into the wing mirror there, and then a camera off the side for the
02:36360 camera. No privacy glass, despite this being the top spec model, but you do get these blinds that
02:41go up and down. Got a glass roof there as well with roof rails. And then around to the back with me.
02:46Around here, you've got full LED taillights. E-Sky Active Fev. So some more nomenclature there for
02:53you. CX-80 badge. All-wheel drive as well. Brake light integrated up the top here too. So let me know
02:59what you reckon about the design. Are you sort of confused by this whole range? Probably not the
03:03end of the world gives you more choice, but it makes it a little harder when you go into the
03:07Mazda dealership to figure out exactly what you're after. So let me know in the comments section below,
03:10what do you reckon about the pricing? What do you reckon about the styling? And what do you reckon
03:14about that sort of Mazda range of new SUVs? So we're inside the CX-80. This is what the key
03:18looks like. You've got the Mazda logo. You've got lock, unlock, boot, nothing on the other side,
03:24and it's a proximity sensing key. So you leave that in your pocket. You've got a push button start just
03:29here. So I mentioned in our CX-70 review, getting my head around all these numbers, that I thought the
03:37interior looked a little bit plain without the optional package. So this one obviously has the optional
03:41SP package, and yes, it is five grand. But yeah, this beautiful looking tan interior with Alcantara
03:47sort of all over the place, the two-tone steering wheel that's kind of been derived from Bentley,
03:51it just looks much nicer in my opinion. So yeah, it is five grand, but you know, if you value how
03:57premium the interior in your car feels, then it's probably worth doing. Outside of that, your touch
04:02points. So all of this stuff is pretty soft to the touch, soft on the doors as well. How soft is it?
04:08We've got our durometer. We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you do want to see
04:12how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description
04:15below. Now, build quality, what is it like? That all feels okay. All feels okay as well. That's what
04:23our door slam sounds like. Now, let's talk about infotainment. So you've got two 12.3 inch displays,
04:32one for infotainment and one for the sort of central display head of the driver. On the infotainment front,
04:37you drive it using these controls down here and, you know, for the most part, it works fine. It's
04:43just a little bit fiddly sometimes and it can just be, I don't know, just a little bit annoying to use.
04:48So what I mean by that, it's not a touchscreen. It is a touchscreen though, if you have CarPlay
04:53launch. So it has wireless CarPlay, which is great. So it's a touchscreen then, but the problem is that
04:58it's a little too far away to reach anyway. So if you do need to grab anything in here, you kind of
05:02have to reach forward to grab it. So I just think the location of it could be improved a little bit
05:07and the functionality within these menus could be improved a little bit as well. But outside of that,
05:12you're actually getting pretty decent graphics and the fact that it has wireless smartphone mirroring
05:16is pretty good as well. And it's got a 12-speaker sound system as well. The sound system's great.
05:19So it's a Bose-branded sound system, AM, FM, DAB, digital radio. So it's all good on that front.
05:25So I showed you Apple CarPlay. I'll show you what Android Auto looks like.
05:28So again, full-screen integration and touchscreen as well. So it's all good on that front. Now,
05:34screen ahead of the driver. Again, 12.3-inch display. Not a huge amount of configurability,
05:38but you can change the views depending on which mode you're in. Given this is a plug-in hybrid,
05:42you get a few additional context menus, such as whether you're charging the battery, whether you're
05:47using energy from the battery, or whether it's running in EV mode as well. So all sort of pretty
05:52decent functionality there. Now let's talk safety techs. You've got autonomous emergency braking
05:56with pedestrian and cyclist detection. You've got an auto-dimming rear vision mirror. Blind spot
06:02monitoring built into your wing mirror. You've got radar cruise control with a lane centering
06:07function. Now we did actually test this in the CX-70. So when we get to that part in the video,
06:13we'll overlay that footage instead so you can see exactly how that works. On the parking front,
06:19you've got front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera. I will show you what that looks like.
06:24So there it is there. Quality of that isn't too bad. That's our wide angle view. So that's not too
06:31bad at all. And then I'll pop it into reverse so you can see what that looks like. There you go.
06:34That's actually not too bad. So yeah, pretty decent there. And this is what the horn sounds like.
06:40Now moving on to practicality, and we'll start off with your connectivity. You've got 12 volt outlet
06:44down the bottom here with a wireless phone charger in the center console. You've got two USB-C ports.
06:50In terms of storing your phone, you can kind of just whack it down there on that wireless phone
06:56charger or cup holders can sort of hold the phone there as well. On other storage, you've got a
07:01little console here next to the driver's knee. This center console isn't really that deep, which I
07:07don't really understand. It's sort of a huge space, but then it's just not deep at all. So you can't
07:10really use that for too much. You've got decent size glove box and you've got a sunglasses holder up the
07:17top there as well. On the comfort front, you've got dual zone automatic climate control. You've got
07:22heated and cooled seats up the front here, heated steering wheel as well. So it's also fairly well
07:27equipped. Steering offers adjustment for tilts and reach. It's all fully electric and seats are both
07:35fully electric for the driver and front passenger with the driver getting seat memory. So you can go
07:39forwards, backwards, your backrest can go forwards and backwards with the front of the seat. The back of
07:44the seat, you've got lumbar adjustment as well. And I mentioned before on the reach test, this stuff is
07:48just a little bit hard to reach on that side of the screen. Now, second row. One of the differences
07:53you get here with this SP package as well is that this becomes a six-seater instead of a seven-seater.
08:00So if you're desperate for a seven-seater, you're not going to be able to option this package.
08:03Look, as a six-seater, this is actually pretty cool. If you're a kid, this would be luxe, like luxe to the
08:09max. Because you get your own seat, it reclines, you go forwards and backwards, you've got heaps of
08:14knee room, toe room's great, head room's really good as well. So pretty well equipped from that
08:19point of view. And then you've got this centre console here as well with two cup holders. You've
08:23got really decent storage. Ironically, the storage here is better than it is up there.
08:27You've also got a storage bin down here as well, plus two USB-C outlets. Heated and cooled seats on
08:33the outboard seats. So this is actually like a luxury vehicle in the back here. It's pretty
08:38impressive from that point of view. These are the blinds that I mentioned earlier that go up and
08:43down. And then on our window test, does it go all the way down? Let's find out. So it's auto up and
08:48down. Now, third row. Can you fit adults in? So you slide it forward like that.
08:55And then, oh, you whack your knee. All right, so let's have a look.
09:06Now, just ignore leg room there for a second. I just want to see what it's like here. So head room
09:10is actually pretty reasonable. Toe room is okay. Sort of not the greatest, but not the worst either.
09:16I've got two cup holders here, USB-C on either side. These also have top tether points as well. So you
09:23can stick your baby seats in here if you need to. Let's see how much leg room there is down there.
09:28It's not terrible. So it does mean that you could actually fit somebody there and have an adult in
09:33the third row if you needed to. So I'm pretty happy with this amount of space. Now, cargo space. Let's
09:38have a little look here. Normally with these three row SUVs, it's not great. You know what? That's
09:44actually really not that bad. So it's just over 250 litres and usable space beneath the cargo floor as
09:50well. Unfortunately, there is no spare tyre. You get a tyre repair kit instead. I'll show you
09:55what it looks like with our suitcase in there. Mmm, all that covers. This flies out of the way. Let's
10:03give it a shot. Okay, cool. That actually closes. So that is usable space that you could actually
10:10shove things into, which is pretty good. So that's with your third row in place. And actually,
10:14before I drop that, have a look at this. You've got not only a 12-volt outlet, but vehicle to load
10:18here with a 220-volt outlet. So it is actually a meaningful amount of power as well. Okay,
10:24so I'll drop the third row now. Look how much space we have there. So over 550 litres there as well. So
10:31again, meaningful space. Nice load lip there so you can actually get stuff in. Do you want to expand
10:36it even further? It is just stunted a little bit by the centre of that second row being sort of in the
10:42way. But I'll drop those so you can just see what it looks like. It is sort of flat, but you've got
10:47these holes here that you can't really avoid. That expands your space to almost 2,000 litres.
10:52So here's actually a decent boot and a decent usable space behind the third row, which is pretty
10:56important. Now, before we go for a spin, I want to run you through the battery and charging. So
11:00you've got AC charging only, no DC charging, up to around 7 kilowatts. So battery size is around 17
11:07kilowatts. So about three hours to fully charge the battery, which isn't too bad. Fully charged battery
11:13will give you around 60 kilometres worth of driving range on the NEDC cycle.
11:20Okay, so we have just hit the road in the CX80 plug-in hybrid. You know, plug-in hybrids are
11:26interesting. I kind of had the opinion originally that they weren't very good. They were kind of
11:31silly and complicated. But, you know, after spending time in a lot of these more modern plug-in hybrids,
11:36I'm changing my view a little bit. And that is because you're getting the best of both worlds. I can
11:41charge this at home where I have EV charging infrastructure. And I can go to work without
11:47using any sort of fuel. It's just using electricity. I can come home, plug it up again. Or if I want to
11:53go on a longer trip, I just stick fuel in it. It's very straightforward. I will be interested to see
11:58down the track how these perform in terms of servicing and reliability. You're adding the
12:03complexity of a battery system, a charging system, an electric motor. So this is kind of the less
12:09complex way of doing it, the way Mazda does it, with a sort of sandwiched electric motor between
12:13the engine and the transmission. And then, you know, a battery pack with charging equipment. But
12:17yeah, look, I'm changing my way, changing my tune a little bit. So let me run you through this.
12:23Actually, before I do that, have a listen to this.
12:28For some reason, I didn't notice this before when we were sitting inside the car, but it has become
12:33really annoying. It's like this dashboard is squeaking as we go over bumps and stuff. So that is a
12:39little bit annoying in terms of a build quality point of view. In terms of how this system works,
12:43you have an internal combustion engine, a two and a half litre, four cylinder, naturally aspirated
12:48petrol engine. It's 95 Ron, so premium unleaded fuel. It's then mated to an electric motor and a
12:55battery. And depending on which drive mode that you're in, it's going to try and use as much of
13:01the electric energy that it can before it has to switch on your internal combustion engine.
13:06And even when your electric energy is depleted and it says that it's empty there, it still has a
13:11reserve in it, and all plug-in hybrids do, that they can access to give you that explosive
13:15acceleration when you need it. Now, what does that all mean? So 141 kilowatts of power is what your
13:20internal combustion engine produces. But when it's combined with the electric motor, that cranks it
13:25out to 241 kilowatts of power and 500 newton metres of torque. So there's a really nice and healthy
13:31figure there to get you that acceleration that you need. Now, what does all that feel like behind
13:36the wheel? Let's give this a quick stab. Okay, so very nice once it's moving. Before then,
13:44you're dealing with Mazda's in-house eight-speed automatic transmission, which I find to be quite
13:49clunky and not very intuitive. It's just a bit slow and ungainly. And you can see there when I
13:55stab the throttle, we're waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. Now I get acceleration. That is a long time
13:59between throttle input and it happening. And even though it does have an electric motor, it is a
14:06little bit counterintuitive because the electric motor sits in line with the transmission. And
14:10you'll see what I mean here when I try and take off from a standing start. Yes, your internal
14:15combustion engine is switched off. But because the electric motor is in line with the transmission,
14:20it has to shift through gears under electric. So it's doing that right now. And that causes the
14:25sort of stunting in between those gear shifts. Your electric motor is providing constant torque,
14:30but every time it has to shift gears, it's sort of releasing it briefly. So it doesn't give you the
14:34most smooth experience known to man. And that is where systems like what you've got in the X-Trail
14:40e-Power where you're basically running electric motors at the axles instead of directly driving
14:46wheels through the internal combustion engine. That is where you're going to get benefits of a
14:51much smoother drivetrain. So yeah, look, it's nice, but I just think it could be a little bit sharper.
14:57What we discovered when we tested the CX70 recently was that once you're in sport mode,
15:03it actually drives really nicely because the gearbox is anticipating the need to do faster shifts and
15:08stuff. So we'll see what that's like once the speed picks up a little. Now let's talk about fuel
15:12economy. So I mentioned before, premium unleaded is what you need. Fuel economy claim is around three
15:16litres per 100 Ks, but we know that to be not the case with a plug-in hybrid because you're either
15:20really going to be just using electricity or you're going to be using the internal combustion engine. So
15:26I ran this sort of today, the drive here was about 250 kilometres. And just based on that,
15:33I drained the battery and then was running internal combustion. And the average of sitting
15:37just over seven litres per 100 Ks, which is what you'd expect once you do end up draining that
15:42battery, does have the ability to actually charge the battery again using this button here. So it'll
15:48run the internal combustion engine as a generator. So that is a handy feature to have because it means
15:52that you're able to then top the battery up without needing to charge, which I think is a useful
15:56addition to have. So the ride sort of in and around town is actually quite good. Despite sitting on 20
16:01inch yellow wheels, it's really comfortable and it's nowhere near as sort of crashy or bad as it was in
16:06the CX60. So I think they've actually done a really good job fixing that. Let's see what it's like on
16:12our sine wave. We do this at 130 and it's basically a comparative measure for other cars. And 130 is the
16:19maximum speed limit in Australia. So we'll see what it's like. Yes, it's got a bit of a bounce about it,
16:26but it doesn't feel like it's out of control. There is still quite decent body control there. And you're
16:30going to experience stuff like that when you're overtaking in the country or something like that. So
16:34yeah, pretty impressed with that. Okay. Bumpy road time. We do this at 90 k's an hour.
16:40Gives us an idea of what the car is like on a terrible corrugated stretch of road like this.
16:47The car is softly sprung, but slightly firmly damped. And that's not such a bad thing. Gives
16:54you a nice sort of roll through corners without sort of being unruly. And here at 90 k's an hour
16:59on the condensed sine wave, moving along really nicely. So quite impressed with that.
17:04Now, road noise. While you're sort of trundling along on a smooth surface, it's fine. But on
17:11course chip, I did notice a fair bit of droning inside the cabin. So the sound deadening could be
17:16a little bit better. This is how it went when we put it up against our calibrated sound meter. If
17:20you do want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, look at the link in the
17:24description below. Now let's talk about visibility. So I can see clearly down the front there. Now,
17:28the wing mirrors are really big, but just the mirrors don't offer really a great deal of viewing
17:33broadly down the side of the car. They're quite sort of narrow in terms of what they focus on.
17:38And it's the same on both sides. It'd be nice if they were just a little bit wider to give you better
17:42visibility. And out the back as well, if you do have the third row up, it is quite difficult to
17:46see out the back with those headrests. This is where a digital rear view mirror would actually come
17:50in handy for a vehicle like this. Now, towing. If you are going to be towing, you have a braked
17:53towing capacity of two and a half tonnes, which is pretty reasonable for a plug-in hybrid. Now,
17:59let's pick the speed up a little bit. You've got drive modes here. You've got sport, normal, EV and
18:03off-road. I'm going to pop it into sport and go for a faster lap around our track here to see how
18:08this car compares to others that we've driven before. Some nice sort of inducted sound there,
18:13which is good. We test all cars back to back in the same way just to see how they perform.
18:23Yeah, this actually feels really good. And I can feel torque going to that rear axle. This has
18:31an inherently rear-wheel drive biased platform. And they've created it as a rear-wheel drive vehicle
18:38first and added then the front axle into the equation. And that gives you a much sportier feel
18:43behind the wheel. The big benefit here of this plug-in hybrid system is that you constantly have
18:49the ability to supplement the internal combustion engine's torque with the electric assistance,
18:55which makes it really quite sporty to drive. The ride is a little bit soft, so it does sort of bounce
19:00around a little bit, but it's very easy to keep everything in check and to anticipate what the
19:06car's going to do. At no point do I feel like it's getting sort of unruly or out of control. Steering
19:11feels good too. So this definitely is a sportier vehicle for a 2.2 ton car. It's moving along really
19:19nicely. Okay, time to test our lane support system. So we do this at 70 k's an hour. See how well the
19:25car will hold itself within its lane. So there's 70. So the steering wheel has gone green. So we'll see
19:32what it's going to do here. It's hugging that left lane pretty tightly. Okay, let's see how it goes on
19:41the next lane up. We use our three outer lanes here to see how well it performs. Okay, so that's locked in.
19:50There it goes again. It's like straddling the line and now telling me that it's about to go over it and
19:55did go over it. It's not very good at all. All right, we'll try the last lane as well. See how this performs.
20:06No, it's not going to activate up here. Yeah, look, I think that it just isn't really calibrated that
20:11well. The fact that it's doing it in the easiest lane here on the bowl kind of just tells you it
20:15probably needs a little bit more tuning work. Okay, time to do a little bit of performance testing. So
20:20yeah, we're going to go from zero to 120 so we can get our 80 to 120 overtaking time as well.
20:28And we'll see how it all goes.
20:39Oh nice, it comes up with a little boost thing just there.
20:41So we're at full throttle. There's 100 and 120. So zero to 100, 7.12 seconds, which is fairly
20:54reasonable. And 80 to 120, 4.48 seconds. So really nice, strong mid-range there, which is good. So
21:01nice to see. Okay, time to stop from 100 to see what the tyre and brake package is like. Here we go.
21:11Oh, very nice and strong. Okey dokey. So 100 to zero, 3.07 seconds and 40.67 metres. So not a bad
21:25stopping distance there. Anything sort of between 35 and 40 is typically pretty good. If you do want
21:30to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before in terms of noise or acceleration or
21:36braking, there is a link in the description below. All right, now, how quick does it?
21:42In reverse. Here we go.
21:48All right, so 48 kilometres an hour.
21:53Okay, so Mazda CX-80, plug-in hybrid, Azami, top spec. What do we think? Look, I actually really like it.
21:59And I think I like it more because of the $5,000 package. What I don't love is the price,
22:04that it's like a hundred grand on the road. So a lot of money. I also don't know that I'd
22:09necessarily go towards the plug-in hybrid. I think it's fine, but it's not really all that smooth.
22:13And unless you really want all of that punch constantly, I reckon you're better off going
22:18with the petrol. The petrol is probably the standout in the range for me. It's going to cost you less as
22:23well. So unless you're really chasing FBT exemption subsidy for plug-in hybrids, I reckon it's worth
22:28just going to petrol instead. So let me know in the comments section below, what do you reckon?
22:32Have you driven this? Have you bought one? Are you confused still by the Mazda range? Let me know in
22:37the comments section below. If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and share it
22:41with your mates. Until next time, take it easy.
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