Mazda hopes to achieve 56% thermal efficiency with gasoline engine
popularmechanics.com
popularmechanics.com
What does the technology actually look like? The article was frustratingly scant on details.
Ah. You can track down the video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_No3KSaTrM
Contrary to the appeal to the layperson's mechanical intuition in the video, they give away that they are apparently speeding combustion at the top of the stroke, resulting in a better approximation of "constant volume heat addition." This will result in a higher top temperature in the combustion chamber, and is the real reason for their "pushes longer and harder" explanation. This will come with added NOx production, so they'll have to have better catalytic conversion, with a couple caveats. It may be that the emissions rules are on a per-mile basis, so that the total NOx of the engine is lower per mile because less fuel is burned. They may also just be hitting markets with laxer restrictions.
If they can control it tightly enough, they can probably maintain the exact pressures and temperatures to just skirt under EPA/Euro requirements in a wide range of conditions, and switch to regular spark ignition outside of that range.
[1]: http://www.enginelabs.com/news/mazdas-new-spark-controlled-c...
Definitely. Compare their designs to anything else from Japan and you'll find that they manage to be modern and interesting without being too angular and aggressive (see new Honda Civic, esp. the Type R and the Prius Prime).
Besides that, their driving experiences are tuned for pure joy. The CX-5 is by far the best handling mid-size SUV, and of course the MX-5 is unmatched. Best of all, they still somehow find the time to experiment and create masterpieces like the MX-5 RF.
Now if only they can deliver on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, then they'll really check all the boxes.
Source: a 2017 MX-5 soft-top was first brand new car.
56% is slightly more than the efficiency of very large low-speed two-stroke diesels (one of the most thermally efficient piston engine types), so I remain very skeptical.
I like phev as an interim, but Mazda have to invest now to have a story in phev. This incredible goal in ice engine efficiency could be part of that.
Edit: I think I responded to the wrong post, but I guess I'll just leave this here as a general comment.
It's a bit like telling Microsoft in 1990 that focusing on PCs is stupid because mobile computing is coming for sure. :)
Many governments have announced that by 2040 it'll be illegal to sell cars with such engines.
They certainly won't be dominating in 22 years.
The question is not "is this business going to be dead" but "when this business will be dead".
So it's more like telling MicroPro to to stop investing in their cash cow DOS-based WordStar and port that app to Windows, because the writing is on the wall.
MicrPro and many other companies were a bit asleep at the wheel during DOS -> Windows transition and that's why there's no MicroPro anymore and there's no WordStar anymore.
Transition to electric motors will take a bit longer but the window to become a significant player in new technology is not infinite.
Many governments?
Mazda is a small company, they can't afford larger scale innovation and buying up battery factories so they're making due. ICEs are going to be around for a lot longer than the next two decades, and I'm highly doubtful they won't be dominating in 5 decades, let alone 2.
Citation needed. 50k employees and 3e12 yen (20 billion dollars) in revenue in 2016.
Mazda: <9B$ Market Cap and 50k employees
Ford: 40B Market Cap and 200k employees
Volkswagen: 100B Market Cap And 600k employees
Tesla is already at 30k employees...
It’s very well known that on the scale of international car brands Mazda is a “small” company
...so what?
Mazda is still very small on the scale of international car brands. The other comment mentions Toyota as well, there are several companies with orders of magnitude more revenue and employees in the field with Mazda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda#Partnership_with_Ford_Mo...
That's very much incorrect. What they've all said is that it will be illegal to sell cars with only such engines. In particular, plug-in hybrids will be allowed, and will probably be the biggest success both commercially and for the environment.
I mean, if I can have something like the latest Mercedes C350e or BMW 530e, but with a bit faster charging and a ~50 mile electric range, that's going to beat an electric 300+ mile range car any day of the week once the subsidies start wearing off (which is a lot sooner than 2040).
Even with relatively slow progress on batteries, they double in density / get half as cheap in about 5 to 10 years.
Add to this that Tesla is aggressively doubling their Supercharging network every year.
If cars today have 200-300 miles of range, in 10 years they'll have 400-600 miles for less money, eliminating the one issue that stands in the way of mass adoption of evs (range anxiety).
Most likely 7-12 years from now it'll make no economic sense to put 2 different engines in the same car i.e. a single electric engine will be cheaper than a hybrid.
And this is based on linearly extrapolating the past. If battery production follows the same curve as wind / solar energy production, we're systematically underestimating progress and things will happen faster.
We're really in Day 1 of mass producing batteries, with volumes (and therefore investments in improvements) scaling way faster than linearly.
If you imagine an all-electric Ford Explorer (an example popular SUV) with 400-600 miles of range, you're looking at ~3000 lbs of batteries. Add that to a 1500 lbs cargo capacity and 4000 lbs of curb weight without engine, the gross weight of the car is 8500 lbs. That's a Class 2b Heavy Duty vehicle, just for a medium size SUV.
Exploring future technologies is cool, and almost certainly a wise move for the long term.
That doesn't alter the fact that they're still going to need to have a new gasoline-powered model for next fall.
Mazda could have been selling a kick-ass electric model of Mazda in 2019.
And if they did it right, maybe they too would have 500k of pre-orders and the "problem" of not being able to build the cars fast enough.
The question is: why are they investing in technology that is in inevitable decline vs. investing in the technology that will inevitably win?
Now, I know why.
A guy in charge of diesel engine development is at least a VP at Mazda. He doesn't want to fire his engineers. He doesn't want to fire himself.
He has power and he will use every bit of it to downplay and delay inevitable.
That's understandable from human psychology point of view but it's bad business.
Innovator's dilemma is real and many companies failed to make the obvious investments in the future technology on time. See Kodak or BlackBerry.
And when they finally did, it was too late.
5 years ago we could have an argument about diesel vs. electric. Today the future winner is clear.
It can be profitable to invest in declining technology. Mazda almost by definition thinks it's profitable to still invest in ICEs. They can also invest in other drivetrains at the same time. The company can raise more money (assuming they can persuade investors).
And I would not have purchased one, because no matter how great it was, the practical limitations of EVs make them a non-starter for me.
I would be much more interested in a highly efficient ICE (assuming it is reliable, affordable, etc.)
If you claim that Mazda could not sell well made electric car then:
* Tesla has 500 thousand pre-orders for Tesla 3
* Mazda sold 290 thousand cars in US + Mexico in 2017 (https://insidemazda.mazdausa.com/press-release/december-2017...)
I can guarantee you that as soon as batteries are affordable enough these companies are going to switch to EVs instantly.
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-repair-maintenance/make-...
Yes it will definitely take longer than 10 years for them to lose a majority on the roads.