Watching this one can only reach the conclusion that efficiency / better fuel economy and handling is the primary focus of this SkyActiveX engine and the upcoming new 3. His sentence about getting better fuel economy with the “same” power is particularly troubling for those of us that are looking for more power and performance. If the new 3 comes out without a significant boost in performance it’s going to be a fail in the current market where Mazda’s performance is being put to shame.

Look how complicated it is and how many parts for heaven’s sake. Mazda, stop the desperation and move to electric.

Damn, so cool!

Really great episode! Mazda guy explained it in a very simple way.

So would this engine be completely unworkable without a computer controlling what is happening?

Sounds like a buzz-bomb!

Good stuff

A. This is amazing.
B. This makes me want to but a Mazda

Fantastic in-depth interview & review

Here is my counter to the trolls saying that further developing the ICE is a waste because the future is electric cars. It’s equivalent to telling a coach-maker in 1890 to stop trying to improve upon the coach because cars are the future. That would have been silly because a) plenty of money for many years was yet to be made in buggies, and b) good coach-makers went on to make bodies for cars. Just as this engine technology will improve fuel efficiency in both non-electrified and hybrid vehicles. It will be decades until the (fully) electric vehicles replaces ICE vehicles to the extent that ICE vehicles have replaced animals.

Did the engine in the prototype have the mild hybrid stop-start? If so, was it terrible, or not really noticeable?

I think that Dave doesn’t quite understand the typical car buyer. He sounds like a car dealer who is dumb-ing down the tech to hard-sell the car. This feels like fake news (infomercial) to me.

that was a very interesting episode. congrats for putting it together

Interesting stuff there, loving the explanations by Mr. Coleman! I wonder how they thought about ageing properties of the damping glue / rubber bushings though, sounds like it works well when the car is new but what happens after a few years when material properties change? Or if you use aftermarket tires?

I really like the philosophy behind it though, it’s all about the car making you feel good while you drive it and not performance metrics over everything else.

I have to agree that SPCCI can not feasibly be implemented in current rotary engines, though. You would need to be able to change intake timings for Atkinson cycle to work, so you would need the ability to close off the intake port against compression pressure in some way, so a valvetrain on a rotary engine. Getting a homogenous charge in a rotary engine also sounds super difficult to achieve, they already had to use a second spark plug for regular combustion to work properly.