Best Of

@au1994 said:

Mazda used to have a lot of cool stuff. The whole Mazdaspeed line, wagons available with a stick, cool 5 door hatches with a turbo and stick, 323 GTX, MX-6 GT.

But the market speaks and people just don’t buy those cool cars so why make them?

As a driving enthusiast, I also have always liked Mazdas through the years. I never technically owned one, but while we were dating, my then girlfriend (now wife) bought a 2000 Protégé ES. Besides the Miata which I grew to love over the years. I really dig the style of the current ND Miata. The MX6 was always cool as was the Speed3, the Speed6. To this day the RX7 is still drop dead gorgeous in my eyes. I even liked the last Mazda 6 they had.

The last Mazda 6 was gorgeous and far better looking than the Camry or Accord of the time. It just didn't sell for whatever reason. I feel the same about the Passat but I don't think the performance was there on it.

Wouldn’t you be afraid of buying a used EV because of the risk of battery issues? I know on the Mazda CX-90 forums the PHEV models are having an epidemic of battery failures.

Not really. Anything I would buy, other than an i3, would still be under powertrain warranty for a while.

I got to drive a BMW i4 today. It was as fast as a scalded cat but the controls were not at all intuitive. In my drive I couldn’t figure how to operate the climate controls. Maybe that’s why I started out with 143 miles of range and ended up with 155. I didn’t need to use the brakes because the regenerative system was set up like a boat anchor. I assume it could be adjusted to be less aggressive but again, not intuitive. We even had a hard time unplugging the thing from the charger until I remember these things had a security feature that prevents some power pirate from unplugging your car by locking the plug until you unlock the car.

I believe the regen braking level is fixed. I like it. The 4xe has a regen setting but I wish it was aggressive as the BMW- although a lot of people don't like it. The i4 to me is another boring product for the wearers.