Mazda revives the rotary engine after 10 years

Mazda has brought its rotary engine back from the dead a decade after retiring it.

The RX-8 sports car was the last Mazda to be powered by a Wankel rotary engine, but this time the technology is being used as a range extender in a plug-in hybrid car.

The MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV was revealed at Friday's Brussels auto show in Belgium, and uses a petrol rotary engine as a power generator that along with a 17.8-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery gives the compact crossover an electric-only range of 85km. Mazda said that was sufficient to use the car in electric mode for most daily driving needs.

The MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV’s electric motor has outputs of 125kW and 260Nm. The single-rotor rotary engine makes 55kW and is more compact than a reciprocating engine with similar output, Mazda said. 

The car accelerates from 0-100km/h in a claimed 9.1 seconds with a top speed limited to 140km/h. The plug-in hybrid can be charged from 20% to 80% in around 25 minutes on a DC fast charger.

The MX-30 E-Skyactiv R-EV will be launched in Europe in the second quarter of the year, and will later be rolled out in US and Japan. The plug-in variant joins the full-electric version of the MX-30 in Mazda’s European lineup.

A Wankel rotary engine uses an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into rotating motion. While rotary engines produce good power their disadvantages are poor fuel consumption and high oil use, which is why they have never been as popular as the Otto cycle petrol engines typically used in cars.

Mazda has produced more than  two million rotary engines, more than any other carmaker, and first used it in the 1967 Mazda Cosmo Sport.