[Cartoday]
We all love the Mazda RX-8 for its quirky styling and screaming rotary engine, but it’s something of an understatement when we say it’s not the most eco-friendly car on the market. Mazda has cottoned on to this issue and is planning to offer a hydrogen-powered engine in the next-generation RX-8.
In a recent interview with AutoExpress,insiders at the firm have revealed that work is underway to develop a dual-fuel version of the RX-8’s rotary powerplant capable of running on both petrol and hydrogen. There is also a suggestion that the ‘RX-8’ nomenclature may be replaced by ‘RX-9’ to further distance this less polluting model from its predecessor.
It all sounds great, but there is a big challenge facing Mazda’s engineers in the shape of a 20 percent reduction in engine power with the application of hydrogen. Considering that the current car’s party piece is its ability to squeeze as much as 177 kW from its relatively small powerplant, such a development could potentially dilute the brand’s appeal. The engineers have therefore envisaged the hydrogen mode being utilized for city driving with the driver switching to petrol out on the open road where more power is required.
Mazda is no stranger to the concept of hydrogen-fuelled powerplants and its experiments with hydrogen have spawned such concepts as the RX-8 Hydrogen RE and Premacy MPV.The current car’s rear-wheel drive set up and choice of manual and automatic transmissions is expected to be carried over to the upcoming model and the styling is likely to carry a number of ‘Nagare’-flavoured overtones similar to that of the Taiki concept.By adopting hydrogen technology, Mazda claims the new car will better the current model’s fuel economy and emissions ratings by as much as 20 percent – roughly equivalent to that of a 1,8-litre compact saloon. Sales are expected to start in 2012.