The Mazda MX-5 is this light, fun-to-drive roadster that has been around for over three decades. It never had the oh-so-powerful engines, but it had the weight to compensate. The roadster could now go electric or might get electrified. All that Mazda has to do is to come up with a solution that would keep the weight under control.
And that does not seem to be easy at all. Mazda is not too keen on offering an entire electric lineup, especially since they did not exactly start the electrification race on time. The Asian carmaker is now considering finding a solution for lighter batteries. But how far off they actually are, we are yet to see.
Weight is what has been keeping the Mazda MX-5 Miata in the exciting cars zone, while overweight is keeping it away from getting electrified. The Japanese carmaker has quietly teased a mysterious concept car ahead of this year's Japan Mobility Show, which is nothing but the Tokyo Motor Show rebranded.
The updated 2024 Miata has just been unveiled, sporting few discrete design tweaks, plus an asymmetric limited-slip differential and a Track mode for the Electronic Stability Control system. Both are exclusively available on the cars equipped with the manual transmission.
The ND generation, available as a classic roadster as well as with a targa-style body, has been on the market for the past eight years and is still going strong. The car is still powered by the naturally aspirated 2.0-liter Skyactiv-G engine. It delivers 181 horsepower (184 PS) and 151 pound-feet (205 Nm) of torque. The power unit is linked to either a six-speed manual or a six-speed auto box.
Photo: Mazda
But those might be history by the time Mazda rolls out the NE generation of the roadster, which might go electric, according to a report from Top Gear.
The concept car set to be revealed in Tokyo this month, previewed by a video teaser, will indeed be based on the Miata. Asked by Top Gear about an electric MX-5, powertrain development boss Kate Matsue said that was a possibility and that the company has to think about it.
The United States, Europe, and Japan are the main markets for the roadster. 7,569 units have been sold from January to September 2023 in the US.
But what would give the engineers a headache would be placing a heavy lithium-ion battery pack in a car that has always been appreciated for the lightweight construction.
“We don’t want to have a very heavy MX-5. So if the MX-5 sis 1.5 tonnes of peak weight, that is not the MX-5,” Matsue explained. The MX-5 now weighs around a ton. Therefore, a ton and a half would add 50 percent of its current weight. Mazda still has seven years left to figure out the battery weight issue. For the moment, they are considering an electrified Miata, which might drop with the upcoming facelift, set to extend the ND's presence in the market to ten years.
The Mazda executives have somewhat of a conservative approach when it comes to electric cars. The only EV present in Mazda's lineup so far is the MX-30. The Japanese are planning to bring two new electric cars to the market by 2025.
Furthermore, Mazda is planning to have a fully electrified lineup by 2030, the time most carmakers intend to completely ditch the internal combustion engines to exclusively offer EVs.
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