The former Kiwi favourite has become battery-wed. Keen to see it?

LOOKING good and looking 100 percent electric: That’s the new generation of a car Mazda fans here increasingly turned their backs on, in favour of the make’s sports utilities, but maintained strong fondness for.

Indication from Hiroshima that Mazda6 had an uncertain future was clearly a smokescreen: The new born again model has just unveiled.

Born again is literal. This is the Mazda6e, an all-new, all-electric hatchback with a ‘fastback saloon style’, and it has been revealed to the world at the Brussels Motor Show.

The car will be offered with a choice of two battery packs, rated at 68.8- or 80kWh.

Even the former, feeding a 192kW motor, is capable of more than 480km to a charge, while it also has powerful 200kW DC charging, which means a 10-80 percent top-up will require just 22 minutes. Mazda vows 235km of driving capability in just 15 minutes at such a speed. Zero-100kmh comes up in 7.6 seconds.

The 80kWh battery will deliver 555km to a charge. It will require 45 minutes for a 10-80 percent replenishment and has a slightly less power than the 68.8kWh car, 181kW. That, and the increased weight of its bigger battery pack, means the 80kWh Mazda6e asks 7.8 seconds to hit 100kmh from a standstill. Both have the same 320Nm of peak torque.

The bodywork is the latest take on the ‘Kodo Soul of Motion’ ethos; so a low roofline and short-deck coupe silhouette to make it appear rakish, but it’s a proper five-door with a fully opening tailgate. Boot space is said to be 330 litres, which isn’t massive, although there is at least a further 70 litres’ worth of storage under the bonnet.

The standard wheel size is 19 inch. Frameless doors, integrated door handles and a new design of headlights are signatures.

The headlights pulse when the car recharges. At the back the Mazda6e has a full-width taillight bar and ‘Mazda’ lettering, instead of the company’s familiar circular logo with the stylised wings within it.

The interior has a heavily digitised human-machine interface taking a a huge 14.6-inch touchscreen and a 10.2-inch instrument cluster; the driver also benefits from an augmented-reality head-up display. There’s also a ‘floating’ centre console and Mazda says it has used premium materials in both the launch trim lines, which are the equivalent of of Takami.

So when’s it here? Well, that’s the bad news. For now, Mazda says this car is purely for Europe, though it will issue to the United Kingdom, so will be made in right hand drive.