It’s Doug DeMuro’s Worst Car of the Year. Every other review I’ve seen is also overwhelmingly negative.
It has a range of a “city car”, but a price of EVs with double the range.
It has max 50kW DC charging, while the competition has >100kW speeds. This makes the short range even more limiting.
It’s not even powerful, even though high torque is the one easy trick for EVs.
It’s a conversion of a gas car, not a dedicated platform, which wastes cabin and storage space. Mazda failed to keep the same front/rear weight balance making the car reportedly handle poorly.
It’s technically at the level of 2009 Renault Zoe or the old Leaf, but for a price of 2019 eNiro or the current Kona and Cupra Born.
I don't doubt you love your CX-5, but I can't emphasize enough how much of a fuck-up the CX-30 EV is.
Platform matters. BEV platforms are skateboards with flat floor and wheels basically at the very corners. OTOH CX-30 has an empty transmission tunnel taking up cabin space, and is so cramped they couldn't even fit normal-sized rear doors, and it's almost a 2-seater. Dedicated EVs of the same length have full-sized doors and spacious rear seats.
Mazda took out the engine, and didn't rearrange or rebalance anything else to match. No extra storage. They just left a hole and dangling cables under the hood. They've taken a front-heavy car platform and unbalanced it by making the the rear heavier.
EVs are expensive mainly because of batteries, but this one has a half-sized battery for a price of a full-sized one. You're not even paying for a better rest of the car. It's just a mediocre Mazda with a low-end EV tech that is 10 years behind. The EV side of it is really really bad. Old models of Zoe and Leaf that you can get for <$10K have this level of range and performance.
Toyota/Subaru aren't much better. Japanese carmakers seem to hope that BEVs are only a fad.