Photograph Courtesy Mazda • Illustration by Colin Wood
Where's the puke gif?
Like a growing number of manufactures, Mazda recently announced its plans to start shifting towards an electrified lineup, stating that “100% of our products will have some level of electrification, and our EV ratio will be 25% by 2030.”
[All-electric Mazda MX-30 bound for North America]
If Mazda plans to wean itself of the internal combustion engine, what, then, will become of the beloved Miata, the stalwart affordable sports car?
Well, according to motor1.com, Mazda confirmed that the next-gen Miata will be electrified in some way–be it a full EV or electric hybrid:
"Mazda is seeking to electrify the MX-5 Miata in an effort to have all models feature a form of electrification by 2030. We will work hard to make it a lightweight, affordable, open two-seater sports car in order to meet the needs of customers."
So yes, the Miata will live on–at least for now. The real question, though, is whether or not that hybrid or all-electric Miata will live up to its now legendary name.
Where's the puke gif?
If anyone is going to offer the first mass-production, widely-available manual transmission electric car, Mazda will. *fingers crossed*
That would be.... unfortunate.
Realistically, I am not sure they could get a powerful enough battery pack that small yet. In 8 years?
If they don't have some sort of electrics to offer in 8 years though, they will very much be behind the times.
Curious to see where battery tech is by the time this happens. The miata community lost their minds when the ND2 got a 25hp bump. I feel like you could add an additional 30hp from electric and manage to keep the weight down.
The engine hasn't ever been the Miata's strength. I'm sure it will still be a small, tossable convertible, which is all it needs to be.
Cross-posted from the other thread:
I put very little faith in Miata news stories unless there's a Mazda press release involved, and Mazda does not comment on future product.
Mazda has been chasing torque in the little thing for the past 15 years, so a bit of hybrid assist would not be surprising. Not full on plug-in hybrid, more of a KERS level. Especially if it's going to show up in the next generation, which may be introduced in the next 3-4 years if previous lifespans are to be believed.
Interesting. Last I heard, Mazda believed that their ICE advancements would keep up with BEV's... I wonder if the implication is that BEV technology is simply advancing faster than they had expected, or they're not making the strides they had hoped for?
However, a large part of all of this is the overall emissions side, and I'm not sure that the well-to-wheels of electric power generation is improving that dramatically. So perhaps just a marketing move, or are ICE emissions requirements tightening that quickly too?
My understanding is that Mazda and Toyota aren’t married but sure are dating. Toyota is set to bring solid state batteries to the market https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Most-read-in-2020/Toyota-s-game-changing-solid-state-battery-en-route-for-2021-debut so to paraphrase Roxy Music “can you guess the rest?”
If they could keep the weight down and add some form of lightweight system that added 30 lb/ft, that would be awesome. Especially if they kept the batteries down low and helped the CoG
Driven5 said:Interesting. Last I heard, Mazda believed that their ICE advancements would keep up with BEV's... I'm guessing BEV technology is advancing faster than they had expected.
It's easy to forget how small Mazda is. They don't have the development resources to do a bunch of concurrent work - from the outside, it looks very much like it's one project followed by another. It's possible that regulatory changes encouraging BEV use are making them more desireable, and of course things DO change with time. They're definitely running a little behind on electrification.
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