Mazda CX-6e: in China it got a lidar this week. In Britain it costs £42,990 and doesn't.
The CX-6e is built in Nanjing by Changan Mazda and sold in China as the EZ-60. On 26 September the Chinese car gained a roof lidar and navigation-assisted driving through city streets, from ¥151,900 for the electric version. The same car arrives in the UK at two and a half times that price, with radar cruise and lane-keeping.
Two things happened to the same car within a few weeks of each other. On 1 September 2026, Mazda UK announced British pricing for the CX-6e: £42,990 for the Takumi, £45,350 for the Takumi Plus, a 78 kWh battery and up to 300 miles on the WLTP cycle. And on 26 September — one year to the day after its Chinese launch — Changan Mazda refreshed the same car in China as the EZ-60, adding four lidar versions that do navigation-assisted driving on motorways at up to 130 km/h and through city streets at up to 80 km/h.
The electric EZ-60 with the lidar starts at ¥151,900 with a limited-time discount, about $22,600 or £17,000. The British car costs roughly two and a half times that. It has the same 78 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery, the same 190 kW rear motor and the same 2,902 mm wheelbase, and it comes from the same factory. It does not have a lidar, and it does not follow a navigation route on its own anywhere.
This site has documented that pattern all year on Chinese-badged cars. The CX-6e is the first time we have caught it on a car with a Japanese badge — and the week the Chinese version got better is a good week to look.
The British price of a CX-6e against the Chinese price of the same electric car with a lidar and urban navigation assist: £42,990 against ¥151,900. Both prices include local VAT — 20 per cent in the UK, 13 per cent in China.
What Britain gets
On its own terms the European car is a competent, well-equipped electric SUV, and it deserves to be judged as one before it is judged as an export.
The 78 kWh LFP pack feeds a single rear motor making 258 PS (190 kW) and 290 Nm, for 0–62 mph in 7.9 seconds on 19-inch wheels and a 115 mph top speed. Mazda quotes up to 300 miles WLTP (484 km), DC charging at up to 200 kW for 10–80 per cent in 24 minutes, and 11 kW AC. The boot holds 468 litres, 1,434 with the seats folded. Inside there is a 26-inch split touchscreen, a head-up display, gesture control and wireless CarPlay and Android Auto.
For driver assistance, Mazda's European material lists Mazda Radar Cruise Control, Cruising & Traffic Support — Mazda's lane-centring assistant for congested traffic — Smart Brake Support, Emergency Lane Keeping, Blind Spot Monitoring and child presence detection, using cameras, millimetre-wave radar and ultrasonic sensors. That is a sound hands-on Level 2 suite, in line with what most European rivals at the price offer. What it does not include is any form of navigation-assisted driving, and no lidar is fitted.
What China got on Friday
The refreshed EZ-60 lidar versions carry a Hesai ATX lidar on the roof, rated to 200 metres, alongside 3 millimetre-wave radars, 11 high-definition cameras and 12 ultrasonic sensors. Changan Mazda quotes combined forward detection beyond 250 metres.
The software is Changan's Tianshu navigation-assist system — not Mazda's — which Chinese launch coverage says Mazda calibrated to its own standard. What it does, on Changan Mazda's account: navigation-assisted driving on motorways from 0 to 130 km/h and on urban roads from 0 to 80 km/h, automatic lane changes, joining and leaving motorways by the slip road, detours around construction zones, and recognition of more than 300 types of parking space, with memory parking promised by over-the-air update. Like every car in its class in China it is hands-on by law, under the rules MIIT tightened in April 2025.
The lidar is a ¥12,000 option — about £1,300 — across four versions from ¥145,900 to ¥166,900, extended-range and electric alike. Changan Mazda's pitch for it borrows the oldest phrase in Mazda's vocabulary. The launch coverage says the calibration preserves 人马一体 — jinba ittai, horse and rider as one — the philosophy Mazda has used to sell the MX-5 for more than three decades. In China, the company's idea of driver engagement now includes the car driving itself through town.
This is the export gap, with a Japanese badge
Our in-depth piece “The hardware travels. The permission doesn't” examined six Chinese cars that arrive in Europe and Australia carrying less than they carry at home — the BYD Atto 2, the Denza D9, the Sealion 7 and others. The CX-6e belongs on that list, and it sharpens it, because it is a joint-venture car that the Japanese partner chose to export.
It is also the mirror image of the Toyota bZ7 we reviewed this week. Toyota's China-built saloon carries urban navigation assist and a roof lidar and is not being exported at all. Mazda's China-built SUV is being exported — and the part that drives stays behind. Between them, two Japanese joint ventures in China illustrate both halves of the same problem.
So we ran the CX-6e through the same tests.
- Hardware cost. Falsified. The lidar is a ¥12,000 option in China, about £1,300. The British car costs around £26,000 more than the Chinese electric car with it.
- Tariffs. They explain part of the price. They cannot explain the missing feature: software pays no duty, and our export-gap piece found the same subtraction in Australia, which charges no anti-subsidy duty at all.
- Regulation. Genuine, and surmountable. Navigation assist on European roads needs approval under UN R171. Geely's system cleared it in March 2026 and Lotus shipped it in August — on four German autobahns. We could find no announcement that Changan's Tianshu system has sought the same approval — and Changan is no laggard: its Deepal SL03 received one of China's first two national Level 3 approvals in December 2025.
- Mapping. Genuine. Navigation assist needs map data that Chinese systems have at home and do not have abroad; Xpeng signed up to Google's automotive maps in July 2026 for exactly this reason.
Mazda has not said which of these applies. Its European launch material does not mention the Chinese system at all, which is reasonable — a brand does not advertise what a car does in another market — but it means British buyers are paying £42,990 for a car without knowing that its Chinese twin gained the capability the same month theirs went on sale.
A Japanese brand, a Chinese factory, Chinese software — and a European price for the version without the software.
What we cannot tell you
- How good Tianshu is. Construction-zone detours and urban navigation are Changan Mazda's claims. There is no independent test data, and after Waymo's run-in with freeway roadworks this year, “detours around construction zones” is exactly the kind of claim that deserves evidence.
- Range, like for like. The same battery is rated at 600 km CLTC in China and 484 km WLTP in Europe. The cars are not different; the test cycles are, and CLTC reads optimistically.
- Final prices. The Chinese figures are limited-time prices, ¥6,000 below the official guide. UK on-the-road offers may differ from list.
- Sales. Chinese coverage reports 4,532 CX-6e deliveries in China in August 2026, 45 per cent of Mazda's sales there. We have not seen Mazda's own breakdown.
Fact sheet — Mazda CX-6e (UK) and EZ-60 (China), 2026
The ai.cars verdict
- On 26 September, Changan Mazda gave the Chinese EZ-60 a roof lidar and navigation-assisted driving through city streets, from ¥151,900 for the electric version — about £17,000.
- The same car, from the same Nanjing factory with the same battery and motor, costs £42,990 in the UK with radar cruise, lane-centring in traffic and emergency braking — and no navigation assist of any kind.
- Judged on its own, the European CX-6e is a competent electric SUV: 300 miles WLTP, 24-minute fast charging, a well-equipped cabin and a sensible hands-on assistance suite.
- Judged as an export, it is the export gap with a Japanese badge. The lidar is a £1,300 option in China; the British car costs £26,000 more than the Chinese one that has it.
- The driving software is Changan's Tianshu, calibrated by Mazda and sold in China under Mazda's own jinba ittai philosophy. It has no European approval that we could find.
- It is the mirror image of the Toyota bZ7: Toyota's China-built car keeps its navigation assist and stays home; Mazda's travels and leaves it behind.
- Verdict: a reasonable car at a European price — and the clearest case yet that what a car can do is decided at the border, not in the factory.
How does it stack up? Set it against the Denza D9, another car that leaves its navigation assist at home, or against the Toyota bZ7, which keeps its and never leaves.
