Mazda Is Planning To Make Petrol Cars As Clean As EVs

The Japanese internal combustion-enthusiasts at Mazda are targeting vast leaps in petrol engine efficiency for future generations

Matt Kimberley

30 Jan 2018

Mazda Is Planning To Make Petrol Cars As Clean As EVs

Mazda says it is working on petrol engines that, once the energy supply chain is taken into account, are as clean as battery-fed powertrains.

There’s plenty of debate behind the scenes as to the true environmental benefits of electric cars when so much of the electricity that powers them comes from burning fossil fuels. Some companies, like Ecotricity, promise to supply their EV-charging outlets only from renewable sources, but Mazda says electrification isn’t the only way to save the planet.

In a technical conference the company has announced its plans for a range of engines called SkyActiv-3. They will eventually follow on from the SkyActiv-X units that feature Spark Controlled Compression Ignition, or SPCCI. Arriving before the end of March 2019 at the latest, the SPCCI engines will already offer a step change in fuel economy potential.

SkyActiv-3 will mark a gargantuan leap, though, if Mazda can pull it off. It committed itself to internal combustion last year, and now we know how it plans to do it. Its target is to almost double the thermal efficiency of its petrol engines, raising them by 27 per cent and reaching 56 per cent overall.

At the moment that’s simply impossible. If Mazda can find a way, though, stratospheric efficiency is on the cards, along with a target of 25 per cent less carbon emissions. That would serve buyers with well-to-wheel emissions ratings on a par with electric cars that run on electricity generated by gas-fired power stations.

Naturally, because Mazda is trying to achieve what is, today, technically impossible, there’s no time-scale for bringing SkyActiv-3 to market. We doff our caps to the Japanese firm for trying, though.

Source: Automotive News

Comments

MAZDA TO THE RESCUE!!!!

Thanks mazda for having faith in the still better concept! Even though the days of the internal combustion engine may be counted its still gonna bring up a fight against evs and in 60 years everyone is gonna look back and say damn the old days really were better

What do mean everyone? Literally the only people who will say the old days were better will be car enthusiasts, which is like 1% of the population.

lets hope they sound good!

Yet again, Mazda has proven how easy it is to mislead petrolfheads. Current EVs aren’t actually as ecofriendly as the general public likes to think, but for the most part, they are cleaner than a normal spark-ignited combustion engine. This is because lithium ion batteries need lithium and cobalt. Lithium is extracted from underground salt water and cobalt is mined. Also, electricity, is still mostly from fossil fuels.

Both of these are changing however. Battery technology is rapidly advancing and we already have battery compositions made from organic molecules and environmentally friendly processing procedures. In addition, the world as a whole is steadily moving towards renewables.

Gasoline and diesel will always pollute on the other hand. That’s just basic gradeschool chemistry. Sure SPCCI drastically reduces the emissions, but it still produces emissions. Does mining lithium and cobalt harm the environment? Yup. But you what else harms the environment? Oil drilling. And then processing that oil. And then burning that processed oil and releasing the chemicals into the atmosphere.

Mazda uses the worst case scenario for electric (toxic batteries powered by 100% fossil fuel) and tries to justify the best case scenario for ICE (SPCCI). They have to do this because this if they were to knowledge the fact that battery tech is advancing and the energy is getting cleaner, they would be forced to admit that even their legendary SPCCI is dirtier than an EV.

Guess miata is gonna be the answer…

Cool that mazda is doing that, but aren’t most combustion engines cleaner then EVs when you take the pollution made from making the batteries, and producing electricity into account.