MX-30 or not, Mazda is and remains an outsider in the car world. The brand loudly proclaims that the internal combustion engine will remain dominant in the car country for the coming decades, but will come up with solutions to limit CO2 emissions. One of these solutions is biofuel from algae.
The electric MX-30 is a true bow to Mazda for the general trend in the automotive industry. While almost every manufacturer sees the EV as the solution for the future today, Mazda sticks to the idea that the fully electric car will currently only play a supporting role. According to the brand, cars that combine a fuel engine with electricity, so all forms of hybrids, even by 2030, will still account for 95 percent of global production. Until “at least 2040”, according to Mazda, the internal combustion engine will continue to dominate not only the car world, but even “individual mobility” as a whole.
Of course, that does not mean that the brand does not want to do anything about reducing CO2 emissions. You have to, but apparently you also want to. By 2030, the company’s CO2 emissions must be halved compared to 2010, while by 2050 the aim is to achieve a reduction of up to 90 percent. Combine that with the holy belief in combustion engines, and you know Mazda needs to look for cleaner fuel.
One seems to find this in biofuel from algae. In collaboration with the University of Hiroshima, Mazda’s bright minds have been developing such fuel since 2016. In theory, this has enormous advantages.
CO2 is released during combustion, but not more than is absorbed by the algae during production. Also, the cultivation of algae is not a competitor for food production, since the green stuff grows in seawater and therefore does not require expensive agricultural land or fresh water. The algae fuel is unfortunately not yet ready for production, but Mazda is happy to let us know what it is doing in the background.