According to recent interviews with Mazda’s CEO, Akira Marumoto, the company will be releasing their very own electric car next year.
While it is unclear if Mazda will develop its own electric powertrain technology for this application, what’s clear is that this 2020 electric vehicle will not be built on a shared platform with Toyota. What’s likely to happen here is an existing Mazda platform will be adapted to become a battery electric vehicle.
The Toyota-Mazda platform is still on, but it is a separate project.
Besides the 2020 electric Mazda, the Japanese manufacturer are also planning their first plug-in hybrid sometime between 2021 and 2022.
Why is Mazda suddenly Pushing for Electric?
Mazda are taking these steps mostly to deal with their situation in the EU. The emissions regulations are getting tighter and to compound this problem, the distribution of Mazda cars sold has not worked out as planned. The company is selling more diesel-equipped CX-5 SUVs and fewer Mazda 2 and Mazda 3 cars than they had planned to 5 years ago.
Because the CX-5 is a heavier car, it has worse emissions on average. The company needs to move closer to the EU-set goal of 95g/km of carbon dioxide emissions by 2021 or risk fines. Because of the public’s love for SUVs, Mazda’s fleet is estimated to be around 135g/km of carbon dioxide.
To be clear, this isn’t Mazda’s fault. Just a couple of years ago as the Dieselgate scandal was unfolding, many car makers were found to be under performing on emissions. Mazda was one of the few (if only) companies to be in full compliance with their Skyactiv-D engines. The problem here is that the market much prefers SUVs and that has messed with things.
What other alternatives are there?
The company has already revolutionised the internal combustion engine with their upcoming Skyactiv-X motor. Mazda say this will be introduced into most of their markets this year.
Skyactiv-X combines the high compression characteristic of diesel engines with the spark-combustion of a petrol engine to create a much cleaner and complete burn. You can learn more about the engine here.
They’ve also been developing the rotary engine as a range extender for years. A regular battery electric vehicle with a petrol engine to recharge the batteries has yet to hit the mass market. Maybe Mazda will be pioneers here.
