Mazda Presents Its Rotary Engine Range Extender For MX-30: Well, Sort of

When the Mazda MX-30 was revealed, it did not make sense. It was supposed to be the company’s first dedicated electric vehicle, but it had a tiny battery pack and a limited range. Later, Mazda revealed a hybrid version of the car with a 2-liter gasoline engine, which confirmed it was never conceived as a pure electric.
Now the company released the first image of what it was meant to be: an EV with a small rotary engine range extender. The issue is that it is ridiculously small.

Mazda released this June 17 that it is committed to carbon neutrality by 2025. To get there, it will present new vehicles created over the SKYACTIV Multi-Solution Scalable Architecture.

It also said it would finally have a pure electric car architecture called SKYACTIV EV Scalable Architecture, which should be presented in 2025. To help reporters illustrate their articles, it released a bunch of pictures of the MX-30’s platform, the SKYACTIV Vehicle Architecture. Among them is the blurred image of the rotary engine back to business.

You can see that the picture appears on the Mazda Press website with the option for a high-resolution file: it has only 0.03 Mb. To be more precise, it has 27 Kb. Therefore, the main image in this article is the best we could offer you.

From the very beginning, Mazda said it did not believe in heavy battery packs. This would be the reason for it to give the MX-30 a battery pack with only 35.5 kWh. For you to have an idea, it has the same size as the one used by the Honda e. Considering the MX-30 is heavier, it offers less range.

With that in mind, the MX-30 should have been presented with the range extender that would compensate for that. It wasn’t, for two possible reasons: Mazda had to rush its presentation to cut its carbon emissions in Europe – just like Volkswagen had to present a half-baked ID.3 – or the rotary engine was still not ready. We’ll never know for sure.

What is clear is that the MX-30 was supposed to be an environmentally friendly continuation to Mazda’s products with rotary engines, as the rear suicide doors suggest – they were also on the RX-8.

For the Japanese company, carbon neutrality will be achieved with many products. The SKYACTIV Multi-Solution Scalable Architecture is an excellent example of that: it will have gasoline and diesel 48V mild-hybrid versions, a gasoline plug-in hybrid, and what the company named “rotary engine multiple electrification technologies.” That implies we will see more than just an EV with a Wankel range extender.

Mazda promises five hybrids, five plug-in hybrid cars, and three pure electric vehicles until 2025. It would be interesting to see if the company will count its products in China, such as the CX-30 EV, which is actually a Changan with the appearance of a CX-30. Sadly, it did not promise a better picture of the rotary engine range extender on the MX-30, but we should see one soon – probably with the car itself.