‘Working on electrification first’
The engineers at Mazda still dream of developing a new sports car with Wankel engine. But: as long as the brand still has a lot of work to do for its electrification, it will not happen. After that it could be possible, says Mazda against Autocar, but new combustion engines in Europe will probably be largely a thing of the past by then.
The Mazda RX-8 went out of production in 2012 and the last RX-7 was available until 2002. Sports cars with Wankel engines are therefore a thing of the past at Mazda, but that does not mean that the brand is not (still) peaceful about it. dreams. Following the presentation of the Mazda MX-30 with a Wankel engine as a range extender in Brussels, the British Autocar spoke with a few board members of the Japanese brand, and they revealed that a sports car with a Wankel engine is still one of Mazda’s ambitions. The brand has no concrete plans at all, because it first wants to focus on electrifying its model range.
Mazda developed a completely new Wankel engine for the MX-30 E-SkyActiv R-EV that is a lot more efficient, lighter and ‘cleaner’ than previous ones. Although as a range-extender that engine runs almost exclusively in the 2,450 to 4,500 rpm range, the Mazda engineers who developed it say it is also suitable for higher revs, where the engine produces significantly more power than the maximum 74 horsepower that is available. come out in the MX-30. Furthermore, the block can be expanded by placing several rotation discs in succession (the MX-30 has one). In addition, according to Mazda, the new power source is more reliable than the ones of the past, which were not exactly known for their bulletproof character.
Should Mazda eventually decide to actually build a new sports car with a Wankel engine, it will probably not be on the market before 2030. The Japanese give themselves until that year to electrify their entire line-up. This makes it very unlikely that we will ever see such a car in Europe again, since some European countries will ban internal combustion engines from 2030.
The 2015 Mazda RX-Vision Concept was the last tangible example of a modern sports coupe from Mazda.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl