Eventually, the evMe will have three modes: performance, normal and limp home.
Today, we only have access to normal mode. To switch the car on, you simply turn the key and select a gear. The only sign that the engine is running is noise made by some auxiliary systems. You can hear the faint hum of the brake booster pump but apart from that everything is silent.
Backing out of the small workshop, the evMe feels a lot like the Prius, which can crawl silently at low speed before the petrol engine kicks in.
The comparisons end when you plant the accelerator.
The evMe gathers speed without any of the usual aural and tactile sensations you’d expect from a car. There’s no kickdown through the gears, no gradual build-up of noise as the revs get higher (even though the engine reaches a sports car-like 11,000rpm). All you can hear is the whine of the Mazda’s conventional differential.
You immediately become more aware of noises you would never have heard in a normal petrol car. A warning to manufacturers: Customer complaints about rattles and squeaks are likely to soar when a car goes electric.
Acceleration feels on par with the normal Mazda2, although when you plant the pedal to overtake, there is none of the immediate kickdown response you get with a conventional automatic gearbox. Rather than give you a shove in the back, the evMe continues to push seamlessly ahead.
It can take some getting used to and feels as if you’re somehow missing out in the power stakes, but if you look at the speedo it is making the same progress.
The car excels climbing hills, which is no surprise given its big torque – or pulling power - advantage over the petrol Mazda2. While the standard Mazda puts out 76kW of power and 137Nm of torque, the evMe puts out 89kW and 220Nm.
On a long, steep freeway incline the evMe kept pulling effortlessly when a conventional petrol engine would have been revving hard.
As the car was being delivered to its proud owner at the end of the week, we didn’t test the handling limits, but in normal driving it seemed to lack none of the original Mazda2’s poise and control through corners.
The designers of the car have gone to great lengths to ensure the car’s weight balance is not upset. The 96 kitchen tile-sized battery packs are mostly packaged beneath the floor to keep the centre of gravity low.
They weigh roughly 200kg, but once you replace the conventional petrol engine with an electric motor, the car weighs roughly the same as the standard one.
Charging takes 14 hours from a standard plug or just four hours from the heavy duty power outlets you get at a powered caravan site.
Dr Coop doesn’t expect the evMe to become a volume-seller. In the first instance it will appeal to early adopters prepared to pay a large premium for what is essentially a city commuter car.
It’s still a long way from a success story, but this innovative electric car from the New England tablelands is enough to make Detroit’s big three blush.