Mazda sticks with rotary power
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CodeRedR51
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Where are these images from?
CodeRedR51
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Oh lol, I thought it was a real teaser haha well that's disappointing
Keef
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Not example disappointing. Genius, actually. The images fit and make sense. That's great news.
CodeRedR51
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That's EV though. Please do not put an RX badge on it...
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For sure, but teasing this stuff is just wrong. Show us what’s happening with the other Vision.
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- PrecisionXCIV
Mazda's Rotary is making its debut at the beginning of next year, but probably not in the way you were expecting:
www.motor1.com
Mazda MX-30 R-EV With Rotary Engine Debuts In 2023
The Mazda MX-30 EV will get a rotary engine as a range extender for the battery.
www.motor1.com
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Mazda are the Polyphony Digital of the real motoring world. How underwhelming can you get…Mazda's Rotary is making its debut at the beginning of next year, but probably not in the way you were expecting:
Mazda MX-30 R-EV With Rotary Engine Debuts In 2023
The Mazda MX-30 EV will get a rotary engine as a range extender for the battery.
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- PrecisionXCIV
And here it is:Mazda's Rotary is making its debut at the beginning of next year, but probably not in the way you were expecting:
Mazda MX-30 R-EV With Rotary Engine Debuts In 2023
The Mazda MX-30 EV will get a rotary engine as a range extender for the battery.
Mazda MX-30 R-EV revives rotary power with range-boosted PHEV | Autocar
New MX-30 R-EV partners a 17.8KWh battery with a 830cc petrol rotary engine and an electric motor
Some key figures:
- 53 miles of EV-only range, total range exceeds 400 miles (According to WLTP)
- ICE component is a 830cc single rotor engine which weighs 15kg less than the Renesis engine used in the RX-8
- Power is boosted slightly to 167hp, resulting in a 0-60mph time of 9.1 seconds (instead of 9.7)
- Costs exactly the same as the pure-EV models for lower trim models (starts at just over £31k)
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12.05 liters per 100km is 19.5 MPG. Seems like a bad gimmick- why use an inefficient bespoke engine for subpar performance and efficiency?
Rotary engine is back, my ass. Don't get me wrong, I hope they sell a good amount of these R-EVs but this isn't it and we all know it.
Rotary engine is back, my ass. Don't get me wrong, I hope they sell a good amount of these R-EVs but this isn't it and we all know it.
Joey D
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Ya I'm not sure what the fuel economy is since I've seen numbers ranging from 9.7L/100km, which is just about 24mpg, to 12.05L/100km. Even if it's not that bad, it would need to be vastly better to be on par with something like the Kia Nero which gets 49mpg.
I agree, the rotary thing is just a gimmick, although it does give slightly more interior room but that's about it.
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Who is the gimmick appealing to is the real question. The average consumer wouldn't be aware of Mazda's rotary history, let alone what a rotary engine is. A bespoke rotary engine would make much more sense in an enthusiast's car than a CUV. Was it really worth all the drawbacks and headache just for that sliver of extra interior space?
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Company car tax rates.
The engine never drives the wheels, so every single mile is EV-only. While the battery alone provides just 53 miles (covering 90% of commutes in Europe), all 373 miles are electric and that puts it into the 2% BIK bracket rather than the higher 8% of the non-REX - while retaining the same performance as the lighter battery is not entirely offset by the additional generator; any conventional engine would more than offset the weight saving.
Chances are that the people who buy this will almost never put fuel in it as it'll be plugged in at both ends of a commute. The engine might need to turn itself on occasionally just for self-maintenance purposes, and you'll probably not even hear it.
Joey D
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My guess is young Gen Xers/older Millenials who grew up wanting an RX-7 or RX-8, at least in the US. That's probably a pretty small market segment though, and the MX-30 isn't exactly big enough to be a family car which a large percentage of the demographic would be after. The automotive press will eat it up too because of the Mazda/rotary connection and that will be a bunch of free marketing.
I have to imagine the parts of the world where tax is based on engine size, there's some appeal in an 830cc engine as well. (Tree'd by Famine on this point).
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Where are you seeing 12.05 liters per 100km? The figure I saw was 1 liter per 100km which is something like 283mpg.
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I think this is sort of like a Volt spiritual successor. A lot of people swear by the Volt and they almost never have to fill the gas tank. This'll just be a roomier and more luxurious version of it. I think people are overblowing the range issue, since the average person won't be going on road trips everyday and will just plug the car in so it'll have the full battery range every day.
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Well... "said to" is one thing, but if the car has a 373-mile range (53 of which is the fully charged battery pack) and a 50-litre tank, that's 6.4 miles per litre, or 29mpg (imperial, not US). That converts to 9.7 litres/100km.
Any other value will be from the WLTP test which, with a fully charged battery as is the standard, will result in ludicrous values.
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I am curious to what the discrepancy is or what figure Mazda is extrapolating to claim 1l/100km, because even factoring in the electric range it doesn't appear to get near that taking into account the fuel tank size and total range.
The BMW I3 REX APU got about 30mpg, so it wouldn't be a highly unusual figure. There must be a sizeable mechanical loss running an engine as a series hybrid when you consider a Prius with a much larger engine can do almost double that figure. Somebody needs to miniaturize a combined cycle gas turbine for APU duty.
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It's WLTP. Likely the car will have been set to a mandated series mode, and an acceleration part of the test will have caused the generator to kick in to keep the battery charged and use a small amount of fuel.
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Indeed.
Very much like the Ampera we have at home, in which we have made nearly 60,000km so far but has only seen no more than 150 litres of petrol in its tank.
In fact, this is the closest thing I've seen to an Ampera / Volt, in the sense that it always runs on electric and the ICE works just as a generator.
The BMW i3 REx is the only other one I can think of, but I don't think I'd be wanting to make longer journeys in that.
I understand it's not what everyone wanted to see from Mazda with a rotary engine, but I find its use to be very pertinent and interesting here.
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The Volt's ICE can actually directly run the wheels in certain operation conditions though, which is a fairly meaningful difference. It's not a true/pure series hybrid like the Mazda and BMW. Honda's CRV Hybrid system works almost the same except it never actually runs in pure electric mode (though that will come at some point). I can't think of any other true series hybrid. At steady-state highway speed the losses associated with converting mechanical energy to electrical energy (ICE Generator) and then back to mechanical motion seem pretty bad. I think you would need a hyper-efficient engine (aforementioned combined cycle gas turbine can achieve 60% thermal efficiency at powerplant scale vs something like the best gasoline 4 stroke at around ~40% or a rotary at ~30%) for the tradeoff to be worth it, and even then you would still have unnecessary losses . I honestly think Honda's Hybrid (itself a hybrid of series and parallel operation like the Volt) system is the best out there and will translate to a really stellar PHEV powertrain when it finally rolls out.
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Yes, that's true regarding the combined two motor driving on the Volt. I forgot it did that (especially as the transition is unnoticeable).
I was actually surprised I got get less than 7l/100km at motorway speeds (120km/h) on mine the one time I measured it.
The whole efficiency of the range extender is a fair point, even if its use may end up being sporadic.
Keef
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The Autocar article says a range of over 400 miles. 400 miles total with a fuel capacity of 50 liters or 13.2 gallons averages to over 30 mpg. Not great but with an EV range of 50 miles most people won't have to turn the engine on at all, assuming they live in Murica and have a garage where they will charge overnight.
Not a clue where you guys are getting all these random numbers, the only article I see posted here in Autocar.
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I would describe it as OK. Where I struggle with this is the Prius Prime exists. The Prius will do around 40 miles in EV mode which is less than the Mazda but still perfectly adequate for the 95% of driving thing. But then the Prius then gets damn near 60mpg in Hybrid mode and has 650 miles of total range and has 220hp and does 0-60 in 6 seconds and cost less. The new one also looks really good. PHEVs are just the jam...I wish more people knew it.
