56 MPG! Mazda CX-90 PHEV Plug-In Hybrid Review!
This is the brand new Mazda cx90 plug-in hybrid three row SUV it’s big but depending on your driving habits it can be efficient today we’ll look at the exterior interior efficiency safety features what we like what we don’t like and if you should even buy a three row crossover today let’s talk about
It the cx90 is Mazda’s brand new three row SUV it replaces the slightly smaller CX9 and it competes with SUVs like the Kia toride the Volkswagen Atlas the Honda Pilot the Toyota Grand Highlander the cx90 is also part of Mazda’s plan to move up Market to the quote near luxury
Category the interior design and luxury features are dialed up a bit more from the CX9 it can be had with an inline six-cylinder but what’s far more interesting to me is that it can also be had as a plug-in hybrid which is what we have here it’s pretty unusual for this class of
Vehicle okay so let’s take a look at the exterior design of this 20 2024 Mazda cx90 phev Premium Plus Package yeah it’s kind of a mouthful but that’s what we’ve got right here so this thing is kind of gargantuan for a Mazda it’s not as big as something like a Cadillac Escalade
But you know this three row SUV is rather large and one of the things I notice about it is this insanely long hood kind of gives it sort of athletic proportions but it also makes it a little bit hard to gauge where the front of the vehicle is when you’re driving it
It looks pretty cool but yeah this is a very big vehicle so I’m sure you’re used to seeing Mazda cx-5’s on the road this is kind of like the stay puffed marshmallow man version of a CX5 it’s kind of expanded in all proportions and this white paint right here with all
These bulbous kind of lines it sort of reminds me of the state Puff Marshmallow Man not sure why I’m getting that reference but anyway this white paint you see right here is a like $600 option I’m not sure why white paint is an option shouldn’t this just be like the
Standard color you can get it in a kind of nice red but uh they sent me this white one all the Press cars I’ve been getting lately white gray silver gray gray silver gray white here’s another white one so yeah this sort of just kind
Of looks like a Mazda 3 Wagon on some serious steroids the grill right here is very similar to other Mazda offerings right now but yeah in general if you’ve seen a Mazda in recent years this just kind of looks like an extension of that design language but yeah it’s a large
Vehicle I’m not sure if this is the largest vehicle that Mazda has sold in the US but certainly could be this also can be had with an inline 6-cylinder motor motor it’s probably why this hood is so long to fit that gigantic engine in there but right here you can see no
Inline six badge it has the pH badge on the side it’s certainly not going to get Prius Prime efficiency figures but it’s nice that you can at least get a large vehicle as a plugin that should help with fuel efficiency at least a little bit and on the driver’s side of the
Vehicle that’s the fuel door you’ll notice if you go all the way around to the other side that is where you plug it in I’d say it looks pretty nice for a crossover you know me I’m not like a huge crossover fan but but it does look
Pretty cool it sort of gives me early Infiniti FX35 Vibes and then moving on to the back kind of getting sort of BMW is Vibes back here Mazda is really trying to go for an almost luxury Vibe with their brand and with the exterior designs they’ve had over the last few
Years I think they’re achieving that it’s pretty but it doesn’t exactly stand out from the 7,000 other SUVs on sale today and yes it’s big at over 200 in long it barely fits in my garage the wheelbase is 7 1/2 in longer than the CX9 it
Replaces all right so you kind of get the standard Mazda key fob there’s actually no uh remote start function on here which I was kind of surprised about so let’s uh step Inside so my first impression of this interior is that it’s a reminder that Mazda does Interiors really well everything that you touch has a nice soft touch surface there’s lots of really nice choice of materials and shapes everything in here just looks really comfy looks really luxurious I
Like the combination of this light fake wood trim I’m assuming it’s fake and this aluminum trim down here there’s some nice stitching on the dashboard the center console is kind of gigantic but it looks really nice there’s a huge panoramic sunroof and it does actually open even the top of the dashboard which
You’ll never touch is a nice kind of squishy soft touch material and the fact that it’s this material it’s sort of a matte material it won’t glare when the Sun hits it judging from this interior it’s pretty clear that Mazda wants to compete with Volvo Lexus and BMW rather
Than Toyota and Honda but not sure the Mazda badge means luxury to that many people just yet and here’s my view from the driver’s seat you can see that there’s kind of small windows on the sides but the visibility is okay visibility at the front is actually pretty good although it is very
Difficult to tell where that Leading Edge of the car is so if you’re making your way around parking lots it can be kind of annoying but I guess that just goes with a territory with a large three SUV invisibility out the back is pretty terrible especially with those third row
Seat headrests up or if there’s anybody sitting back there you’re really not going to be able to see out that back window even with those headrests down it’s hard to see it’s gigantic C pillars in this vehicle I guess it’s good that it has a pretty good backup camera and a
Pretty good 360 camera this view right here isn’t really all that useful to me it’s a little bit too far away but using the scroll wheel down here I can change it to the other View and that’s a little bit better 360 view is okay all right
Moving on to in front of the driver you can see this full screen Digital dash that this Premium Plus Package gives you it’s pretty clean it does feel like at times there can be a little bit too much information but it is customizable you can change the gauges you can add or
Remove some information if you don’t want to see anything I like the fact that the speed you’re going is right front and center in the screen here there’s other cars where it’s like kind of hidden off to the left the speed is the most important piece of information
That you need at all times so I like the fact that it’s in the center I feel like all cars need to do this so right under the speed it lets you know if you’re using the EV motor which it shows right now or if you’re using the gas engine
And on the right you can see the level of our battery is a little bit over half and the fuel is almost full and it gives you a range for both the battery and the fuel down there steering wheel is really nice it’s got a good feel kind of feels
Like it belongs in a Miata and not a three row family SUV but it’s pretty nice this sporty steering wheel also has paddle shifters which I don’t really know why you need it in a vehicle like this but you can shift yourself if you’d like I guess Mazda with its sports car
Roots is just trying to eek a little bit of sportiness into this three row family crossover yes it’s sporty it’s got paddle shifters the steering wheel looks like it was out of a Miata it’s sporty it’s sporty right okay Mazda sure right in terms of seats you got
This really nice white leather and you can get the seats really far back I’m 6’3 and I can get it way further back than I actually need it eight-way power adjustable on the driver’s side and sway adjustable on the passenger side which is pretty nice you have two memory
Positions down here these seats are also heated and ventilated and as you can see with this really light colored lead it’s picking up some of the dieses from the Fabrics of people sitting on it so yeah it’s not going to stay looking nice that long but that’s just the way it goes
With white leather all right down here is the climate control system and I really appreciate that there are actual physical controls for things that you use most frequently temperature up and down Auto that kind of thing fan speed all of that has actual buttons yeah
There are kind of a lot of buttons down here all in the long r row so you do still have to take your eye off the row to just make sure that you’re hitting the right one but even with all these buttons in my opinion this is far better
Than a screen based climate control system which you absolutely have to take your eyes off the road to use all right let’s look at this center console this looks really nice I appreciate that there’s not a sea of gloss black here that will shine in your eyes it is
Extremely wide so if you’re kind of tall or wide you’ll have your knee probably hitting on the side of it actually I noticed a little bit over there too so so yeah this is kind of a narrow driving area right here I guess maybe that’s another area where MAA thinks it’s
Sporty but in fact it’s kind of annoying it’s not terrible but I do appreciate like in the Hyundai ionic 5 there’s like nothing here and it leaves a lot of space for my knee but in general this looks really cool got sort of standard size cup holders if you need a place to
Store your coffee or your kids toys down here’s a charging pad for your phone and right here is the my drive switch which is kind of a dumb name but allows you to change the driving mode from normal to sport to EV to off-road let’s go back to
Normal not going to be doing any off-roading the shifter is nice and small but the shift pattern is weird park is up and to the left instead of just in the top position couple of times I put it in reverse thinking it was in park and down here we move on to the
Controls for the infotainment system now I really like this setup I like the fact that you can control the infotainment system with your right hand without having to reach up and touch the screen and a lot of this can be done with muscle memory so if you remember how
Many times it takes to click over and press to get to a certain function you might just memorize that without having to ever look at the screen which is awesome this is a really good implementation of a touchfree system Maz has been doing it for a while and it’s
Really good and when you have this up here it doesn’t let you touch the screen at all when you actually go to carplay now you can touch if you like but also you can just use this dial to select what you need to select and I much
Prefer this to pressing a button on the screen I know other people don’t feel the same way but I really like this setup and one nice thing is that it does have wireless carplay which is really useful but keep in mind not all trims get wireless carplay so going back to
This Mazda menu yeah the graphics do feel a little bit dated but it works could maybe use an update but it seems like don’t fix what’s not broken we have the split folding center console where you can store your phone and that’s where you can plug in your USBC for your
Charg your phone or connect infotainment system feels like there’s a decent amount of space in there for kids things down here I kind of wish a storage under here I sort of really like that in some of the electric cars that offer that obviously we have a transmission tunnel
Down there so there’s not a lot of space so yeah this just sort of feels Antiquated this big center console that just doesn’t store a lot of stuff door pockets are actually pretty sizable which is nice and it does have an okay size glove box so yeah in general really
Nice comfortable place to be I do wish there was more space for my legs this is a big car I just sort of expect there to be a little bit more space widthwise but in general I can get this like I said I can get this way too far back so and
There’s no shortage of head room even with this panoramic sunroof all right let’s take a look in the second Row very easy to get in this vehicle and once you’re back here these seats are not as comfortable as the front ones but they’re pretty nice I have my front seat set for me at 6’3 and I still have enough space back here to fit headro
Room is pretty good and as you can see there are two c Captain’s chairs we’ve got these nice armrests on either side the rear of the cx90 is available in six seven and8 seat configurations but there are 11 trim levels in some option packages so it’s tough to figure out how
Many seats you’ll get but we’ve got seven here blinds on either side and down here you can see that there is a multis Zone climate control system we also have heated seats in the back which is quite nice two USBC ports couple vents it also has these flip up cup
Holders which are only useful for cans or small water bottles or singma jigs door pockets are pretty large but I noticed if you have kids this white interior might not be the best choice I’ve noticed that whoever was sitting here last somebody got some pen on this
Door panel and obviously it did not come off so yeah if that was black you probably wouldn’t notice it but the fact that it’s kind of this grayish white probably going to pick up all of those stains all of those Foods your kids are going to drop on every single surface of
This vehicle if you want to put a child seat back here you have these ISO fix or lat anchors down here in the seat they’re really easy to get to but you do have these little covers that will might get lost put them in your glove box or
Something so you don’t lose them but plenty of space to put either a rear facing or front-facing child seat and the step in is not too high so if you got a little one there it’s not too terribly difficult to get in this car all right let’s check out the third row
And I never really enjoy doing this part of car reviews because third row seats are generally too small for me but I’ll do it for science I guess so it’s really hard to climb through back here between the Middle although you could do it if
You were a child I’m going to get out of the car and fold the seat okay so one thing you can do if you need to you can fold this down and that allows you to store some things in there but if you actually need to get in the back press
This right here and that will push it up and you can see there’s there’s an okay amount of space to get in there if you’re a grandparent it might not be the most fun thing to do but I think I’m somewhat able-bodied I think I can get
Back here let’s see so that second row seat is not back yet but you can see my knees are kind of high up I don’t know how well I’m going to fit back here but it’s dry yeah that’s got to come back a little bit further cuz it Doesn’t leave
Enough space for the person in front of me if everybody up front compromise a little bit I don’t think it would be too bad to sit back here but I am a little bit claustrophobic I don’t really like being in the third row of vehicles but there are some nice acutal back here
USBC ports two cuph holders on each side and a vent pretty comfortable headrests there are actually three seat belts back here I wouldn’t want to sit three adults back here but if you just had a couple kids in the back I think that would be fine just don’t make your grandma sit
Back here all the time she wouldn’t really love it it’s not terrible i’ve been in far worse Mitsubishi Outlander I’m looking at you right getting out pretty easy just press that and then don’t break a hip getting out of here I really am getting too old for this
That’s not me farting that’s the leather come on get your mind out of the gutter I did it push this back there we go let’s take a look in the back power lift gate and as you can see with this third row up not a ton of space back
Here we’ve got just under 15 cubic feet of space behind the third row which is is pretty tiny for this class of vehicle but you do have some Outlets one on either side with those seats folded down it does become a little bit more reasonable somewh in the neighborhood of
40 with the seats down and 75 with all the seats folded flat lift this up you can see that’s where the charging cord goes and this is where you might expect to see a spare tire but no you do not get a spare tire here just a tire repair kit and a Pump I think it’s kind of interesting when you open the hood and the car on the engine turns on I don’t really know why that is it’s kind of a weird feature I’m sure somebody can mention in the comments why that is and then you shut
It and the engine turns off very odd why is that feel like I should probably know that but I don’t all right let’s finally drive this thing come join me for a little bit of plug-in hybrid fun miles do are supposed to be fun but this thing
Maybe is a little bit too big to be fun let’s find Out so the cx90 has two engine options a 3.3 L turbocharged in line 6 and this 2.5 L naturally aspirated 4 cylinder and that’s paired with a 17.8 KW battery transmission is an 8-speed Auto yay no CVT and all-wheel drive is standard power is rated at 323 horsepower 369 LBT
Of torque and even though this thing weighs over 5,000 lb it doesn’t have any problem getting up to highway speeds just just over 6 seconds to get to 60 MPH so I think many of us know that Mazda’s history includes a lot of emphasis placed on driving fun and I
Think Mazda did try to inject some fun into the Driving Experience here but it doesn’t quite work and honestly it’s just not necessary not with something this large not for something that was built to haul around seven people in a bunch of cargo you know honestly three
Row crossovers shouldn’t be fun to drive and I think this one would be better if Mazda hadn’t bothered with that here so the steering feels kind of heavy like at all times and sure that makes it feel a little bit more secure and stable at higher speeds if you’re on a winding
Road like this but you’d be much better off doing that in a Miata and that heavy steering is also present at low speeds like when you’re navigating around parking lots I think lighter more assisted steering would make the Driving Experience a lot more pleasant I also
Find the suspension to be I don’t know just just too firm but when the roads are smooth it’s fine so I don’t know this heavy steering and firm suspension I think it’s maybe Mazda pretending that Miata inspired sportiness belongs in every crossover or every SUV and it just
Doesn’t it’s literally a three row crossover a segment that’s even more boring than a minivan but yeah in everyday of driving those aren’t huge problems but they were noticeable this past week we took the cx90 on a road trip and it really did soak up those few hundred miles with
Ease Highway cruising is super comfortable everyone was happy the stereo is really good the amenities are really good actually was a really nice experience especially when out on the open Highway when there’s not many other cars around but honestly aren’t most driving experiences a lot better when
There’s no other cars around but you know on the highway we’re not really getting the full benefit of where this plug-in hybrid system shines and that’s around town so you can run in fully electric mode and with that you can get 26 M of range kind of around 26 it sort
Of just depends on a lot of factor of course but that means you could possibly run many of your daily errands and never use any gasoline I have it set to use full EV mode right when you turn on the car and most of the time I’ve driven
This vehicle it’s been in EV mode almost no gasoline used of course on that road trip we did use a lot of gas but for everyday errands always EV and there’s this charge mode button which I’ve used a few times which can prioritize the gas engine’s ability to charge the battery
So when you consider the driving habits of most people in the US 6 M of full EV driving is a lot the average American only drives 37 m a day and more than half of the trips made in a day are less than 3 miles so if your driving habits
Are similar to the average American then the cx90 EV mode could cover most of your driving so you know depending on your situation a plug-in hybrid could be a better choice than a fully electric vehicle as you’re not lugging around a huge heavy battery underneath you a big
Heavy battery that you might not even be fully taking advantage of and when you go on a longer trip you can utilize the hybrid powertrain and not have to worry about charging stations and still get decent gas mileage and if most of your driving habits are around town with only
The occasional road trip a plug-in hybrid may be the best choice so charging on a level two charger takes um about 2 hours which is pretty decent with level one it could take overnight which is perfectly acceptable okay so what about efficiency this is estimated to get get a somewhat terrible 25 MP
Gallon when using gasoline only but it makes up for that by achieving an impressive 56 MP gallon equivalent when combining gas plus electric and I’ve gotten about the same and if you’re looking to tow with the cx90 you can do it this pH toes 3500 lb but if you want
To tow a little bit more the inline 6 can do 5,000 okay so let’s talk about safety which is one of the primary things you should be thinking about when purchasing a vehicle in my opinion the cx90 doesn’t have the most advanced driver AIDS but they’re well implemented
And they’re pretty useful we got cruising and traffic support Lane keep assist adaptive cruise control rear and front cross traffic alert collision avoidance when it comes to Vehicle Safety most people just think of the safety of those inside the vehicle but it’s important to note that SUVs are
Less safe than passenger cars for anyone outside the vehicle the height and weight of large SUVs are WI why they cause more death and injury to others than Passenger cars now we’re not at Hummer EV weight levels here but this cx90 phev does come in at over 5,000 lb
Or a bit more than two Miatas well let’s assume that you’ve decided you need all these seats in the cargo space and you’ll use them on a regular basis and when it comes to three row crossovers my opinion is that you’re nearly always better off with a minivan
They easier to get in and out of they’re more roomy easier access to the third row more cargo space lower to the ground often lighter and more efficient although this plug-in hybrid system does help the cx90 win that last Category okay let’s talk price cx90 pricing starts at just over 41 Grand which is comparable to the CX9 but runs all the way up to well over $60,000 for the top trim with all options that will probably seem like kind of a lot for a Mazda this phev Premium Plus comes in at
Almost 59 Grand with options quite a bit more than you’d expect to pay for a kiai ride or a Honda Pilot but this is more luxurious the cx90 may not have quite as much interior space as some of its competitors but it has a much nicer interior and this plug-in hybrid system
Is pretty efficient it it may appeal to families that aren’t quite ready to make the leap to a fully electric vehicle if you’re sold on the concept of a three row SUV and you’ll think you’ll take advantage of everything that it has to offer the cx90 plug-in hybrid is an
Excellent and efficient Choice quite possibly one of the best three row SUVs available Today if you like this video and you want to see more like it please consider subscribing and hitting that Bell icon and if you’d like to help support the show please consider buying a hell Road t-shirt thanks so much I hope you’re well and I’ll see you soon Oh
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This is the brand new Mazda CX-90 Plug-In Hybrid three row SUV. It’s big, but depending on your driving habits it can be efficient. Today we’ll look at the exterior, interior, efficiency, safety features, what we like, what we don’t like, and if you should even buy a three row crossover. Today, let’s talk about it!
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Table of Contents:
0:00 – What Is It?
0:57 – Exterior Design!
3:33 – Interior Design!
10:33 – Second Row!
12:13 – Third Row!
13:47 – Cargo!
14:52 – Driving Impressions!
17:21 – EV Range / Efficiency!
19:21 – Safety!
20:15 – Minivan?
20:48 – Price / Competition / Verdict!
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Music used in this episode:
– Selected tracks from the YouTube music library
– Selected tracks by Kia Orion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvKki4LRdIU)
