2023 Author: Charles Youmans | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-20 18:41
Japanese automaker Mazda recently unveiled the RX-8 concept, which depicts a vision of a possible successor to the famous sports car - the star of the Fast and the Furious movie series and the game Need for Speed. At that time, there were no comments from the company regarding the date of appearance of the production version of this machine. After all, the last RX-8 received a restyling back in 2009, and then quietly retired in 2012.
2015 Mazda RX-Vision Concept
Recently, however, more and more rumors have begun to appear that the Japanese do not want to give up their developments and are slowly working on the car. It will still have to get a rotary engine under the hood, but in view of the increasingly stricter emission standards, it will no longer run on gasoline, but on hydrogen. For this Mazda should be given its due, as they will not spoil the car with an electrical installation.
Details such as power, torque and number of rotors have not been published, probably because the engine is still in its early stages of development. But there are several technical advantages to this solution.
One of the weak points of hydrogen is that it tends to ignite at hot spots inside cylinders. Japanese portal Best Car believes that a rotary engine is the most suitable for a hydrogen fuel system. The fact is that the Wankel engine has no heat spots because it uses rotors, not pistons, so it is well suited for burning hydrogen.
There is no official word yet on what the new engine will be like. All of it is at the level of rumors. But one of them says that the powertrain will have a hybrid hydrogen configuration. It is also argued that the appearance of the future novelty will be slightly different from the RX-Vision concept shown at the Japanese auto show. Mazda itself has not yet published any comments on this matter, but let's hope that the successor to the RX-8 will still appear. Recall that Toyota recently built a racing Corolla with a hydrogen unit. Therefore, we can say that Mazda is following in her footsteps.