The next piece of news we've now received to cling to about both the fates of Mazda’s rotary engines and their next proper sports car - which are inextricably linked - did indeed come out of the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show, as predicted.
However, and rather disappointingly, not all of the fan expectations were adequately met. The teaser concept car and follow up to 2015’s RX Vision concept that was eventually revealed as the Vision Coupe shed little additional light on either matter, rather its portends a possible future tangent for the Mazda6 sedan.
Even more scarce was any tangible progress with regard to Mazda and their relationship with the Wankel rotary engine - at least in terms of official announcements. That’s because more details had emerged from the Q&A exchange between the Hiroshima automaker’s executives and top engineering brass with the media present.
Mitsuo Hitomi, the man in charge of everything to do with engines under Mazda, mused under more casual circumstances that the rotary could see redeployment as a range extender in certain electric vehicles to emerge as part of the company’s push toward greater environmental sensitivity, electrification of vehicles, and general powertrain efficiency campaign between now and 2030.
The merits of using the rotary engine as essentially a backup generator is mostly down to its compact size and design being inherently (and considerably) quieter and smoother in operation than the typical piston engine. However, certain existing downsides will still need to be overcome before it can realistically be used as a range extender, primarily its notorious thirst for oil and fuel in spite of its small relative displacement.
Hitomi has now confirmed as much, and that the motor is due to feature in a mysterious new electric vehicle that’s set to debut in 2019 - also Mazda’s first EV. Whether it will be derived from an existing model or will occupy a totally new range is entirely presumptive at this point.
That said, it is strongly suggested that Mazda’s dedicated rotary engine team is making strides toward this nearer term goal with the ultimate objective being a future standalone car that's powered by it, either exclusively or with the aid of an electric motor, even though the majority of their recent powertrain focus has been on the new SkyActiv-X engines that will make their market debut in the next-generation Mazda3 hatch.
Meanwhile, another key figure in Mazda’s new vehicle landscape over the next decade, head of research and development Kiyoshi Fujiwara, said that any rotary-powered sports car won’t be introduced at least until after 2020, as reported by Motoring.
The matter boils down to the allocation of resources. The simple fact is that Mazda, successful as they have been in recent years, isn’t the quite colossus that Honda, Nissan, or Toyota are. Precious time and money have already been diverted to more potentially lucrative projects such as those that have led to their revolutionary new engine tech, something that will truly carry them into the next decade and beyond.
For a hypothetical RX-9 to be all but set for a 2020 debut (just in time for the company’s 100th anniversary), nearly all the development and design work would have had to be complete by now as they’d have little over 2 years to perfect these various elements over the prototyping phase, Hitomi-san explained while speaking to Australian journalists when posed with the subject of a production version of 2015’s RX Vision. Mazda simply have more pressing priorities to tackle.
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