MOTORING NEWS - The Mazda Motor Corporation has announced in Tokyo it will become the world's first automotive manufacturer to commercialise a much more efficient petrol engine, using technology that rivals with much larger budgets have been trying to engineer for decades.
This is another twist in an industry increasingly going electric as a mobility choice. Sceptics of electric driving technology (including myself) can't forget that electricity is by nature not a clean resource. The "range anxiety" and infrastructure needed presents a problem too. It is generally accepted that the internal combustion engine will be around for a long time yet and personally I will only change this technology for hydrogen fuel - if that becomes affordable and practically possible.
Mazda has surprised the industry before with its rotary engine and they say the new compression ignition engine is 20% to 30% more fuel efficient than the current engines in use. It is based on technology research that has long eluded the likes of Daimler AG and General Motors.
Mazda, with a research and development (R&D) budget a fraction of those of major competitors, said it plans to sell cars with the new engine from 2019.
"It's a major breakthrough," said Ryoji Miyashita, chairman of automotive engineering company AEMSS Inc.
The announcement places traditional engines at the centre of Mazda's future strategy and comes just days after Mazda said it will work with Toyota Motor Corporation to develop electric vehicles and build a multi-billion dollar assembly plant in the US.
"We think it is an imperative and fundamental job for us to pursue the ideal internal combustion engine," Mazda R&D head Kiyoshi Fujiwara said at a media conference. "Electrification is necessary, but the internal combustion engine should come first."
The new engine is based on a homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine which ignites petrol through compression, eliminating spark plugs. Its fuel economy potentially matches that of a diesel engine without high emissions of nitrogen oxides or soot particulates.
Mazda's engine employs spark plugs under certain conditions such as at low temperatures, to overcome technical hurdles that have hampered commercialisation of the technology up to now. The engine is called SKYACTIV-X and Mazda has no plans to supply the engine to other car manufacturers.
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