Mazda Continues To Focus On New Rotary Engines

You are undoubtedly familiar with Mazda’s rotary engines, mainly from sports enthusiasts such as the RX-7 and RX-8, but Mazda also used the technically interesting rotary engines in various models in the more distant past. Even in 2024, you can buy a Mazda with a rotary engine, although it is a car of a completely different order than its mainly sporty predecessors. Mazda sells a variant of the electric MX-30 with a rotary engine that functions as a range extender. Mazda cannot let go of the rotary engine and is now setting up a department called RE (Rotary Engine) Development Group, with which it says it wants to accelerate the development of new rotary engines.

The RE Development Group will be a department within what Mazda calls its – hold on – Powertrain Technology Development Department, or Powertrain Development Division. Mazda says that the club of 36 technical minds will continue to develop rotary engines that can be used as generators. This seems to evaporate hopes for a sporty model from Mazda with a rotary engine on board. However, Mazda’s Chief Technology Officer Ichiro Hirose says that with the new rotary engines, Mazda is keeping to its promise to “create attractive models in the era of electrification that excite customers about Mazda’s Challenger Spirit” 

For the time being, it seems that Mazda sees a future for the rotary engine as a generator in electrically powered cars, but that can also be done in a more dynamic manner than with just a crossover such as the MX-30 R-EV. In October last year, Mazda showed in broad terms what an electrically powered coupe with a rotary engine could look like. It is not yet known whether there will be a production version.

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