Mazda CX-60 PHEV

SECOND REPORT Family trip to Bruges shows SUV’s good and bad points

you ’ re crawling along in a queue – as we found ourselves doing at the Eurotunnel –just the sort of situation where silent EV running ought to be at its most appealing

The system doesn’t seem that keen to play with the Mazda’s dual-clutch gearbox, either It’s frequently jerky as it feeds in the petrol power, and can also be flummoxed if you slow for a junction or roundabout and then decide you want to continue moving

Then there’s the ride quality I’d hoped, when I drove the late prototype of the CX-60 last year, that its choppy suspension set-up would be fine-tuned before the car went into production Sadly, it’s still too firm and too easily caught out at low speeds on scarred urban roads It does become a bit more composed once you get up to a fast cruise – there’s no denying that the steering and body control are pretty decent for such a large vehicle, in fact – but the trade-off seems compromised The less said about its performance over the Belgian pavé of Bruges after the Brussels show, the better These flaws are all the more glaring because the Mazda does so many other things well The boot easily swallowed our luggage for a family weekend in Bruges; it’s not especially tall but it is extremely long, so it was possible to slide a full-sized suitcase in on its narrow edge That, in turn, allowed space for me to load in half a dozen cases of finest plonk at Calais on the way back

There’s no doubt, of course, that our journey was outside the Mazda’s comfort zone The battery had drained long before we’d reached the Eurotunnel, restricting us to very limited spells of zero-emissions running The fuel economy figure hovered at north of 35mpg, which would mean pretty frequent refills, even if it’s not entirely obscene for a fully laden PHEV of this size

Of course, Mazda thinks it has the solution to this – or one solution, at least – with the MX-30 R-EV, the car we drove over to see in Brussels It too has a relatively small battery, but there’s no physical connection between the petrol engine (a rotary, no less) and the wheels I already know that I’d love to see that innovative powertrain in something more conventional than the oddball MX-30 But Mazda, true to form, isn’t going that way; instead, its answer for long-distance CX-60 motoring is an all-new diesel engine (yes, remember those?) that’s due in the coming months

WE LIKE Cabin is beautiful and well thought out. For example, small indents built into centre console let you thread cables through from charging ports

WE DON’T In this day and age, there’s simply no excuse for the sort of groaning whine that the CX-60’s electric-motor set-up produces during EV running

OUR cross-channel jaunt reinforces our first impressions of the car. Its cabin is genuinely nice, and there’s plenty of space, but the powertrain is a major weak spot, especially next to seriously polished rivals.