It will be at the Brussels Motor Show, which opens its doors on January 13, when Mazda shows for the first time its electric model equipped with a range extender, the MX-30 R-EV. More important than that, at least for fans of the brand, this tram will allow The combustion engine favored by Mazda engineers, the Wankel gasoline rotary exclusively designed to recharge the battery, returns to service.
Trams with range extenders aren’t exactly new, although they’ve been taken off the market for a long time. They arose as a way to increase autonomy at a time when the charging network was still small and batteries were considered too expensive, heavy and large to provide interesting autonomy, which led to brands such as BMW, in the i3 REX (of range extender or range extender), and Opel, in the Ampera, using combustion engines to overcome the reduced autonomy in electric mode, 190 km for the i3 REX and 80 km for the Ampera. Both models were abandoned as batteries became more efficient.
The Mazda MX-30 takes the chassis of the CX-30, adapted to mount batteries
Mazda introduced the MX-30 in 2020, already with the promise that this electric vehicle would also be proposed with a REX versionin which the engine responsible for driving the current generator would be the Wankel. And Mazda has a long relationship with this type of mechanical.since this rotary engine derives from the units that equipped models such as the RX-3 (in 1971), the RX-7 (1978), the RX-8 (2002) or even the Mazda 787B with which the manufacturer won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1991.
MX-30. Is it worth buying the Mazda tram?
Despite Mazda’s passion for the Wankel, this technology is German and was abandoned due to difficulty meeting emissions standardsmainly because of its tendency to burn lubrication oil and consume too much, especially in regime transitions. But the difficulties never frightened the engineers of the Japanese brand, who have spent decades investing to try to overcome the limitations of this technology. That is why they chose to bring the Wankel back as REX, which allows it to work in a constant regime, canceling the transition regimes and, with them, the constant accelerations and decelerations that increase emissions. Regarding oil consumption, due to the difficulty of correctly sealing the chambers during combustion, the technicians apparently managed to overcome the problem. This is how the rotary engine works:
The Mazda MX-30 has a 145 PS (107 kW) and 272 Nm engine, powered by a small battery with a total capacity of 35.5 kWh, which helps explain the range of just 200 km. Whether the MX-30 R-EV will maintain this battery or reduce it remains to be seen. to offset the weight (and price) of the combustion engine and the small electric motor it uses to generate power.
Source: Observadora
