Confirmed: Mazda Is Bringing Back The Rotary Engine!

I’m very sorry, but I’ve just written the headline to this article and need to do a bit of a jump for joy.

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Okay, now that’s over, let’s get into the nitty gritty. The majority of us have been wanting the rotary engine to return since its demise after the RX8, but after several rumours of RX9s and rotaries returning to the roads, we finally have a confirmation from Mazda regarding the Dorito powered engine.

Mazda is revealing their first ever road-going EV at the Paris Motorshow ready for its 2020 release. And like many other EVs on the market, it’s going to have a combustion engined range extender. For Mazda, this will be in the form of a “small, lightweight and exceptionally quiet rotary engine.”

So it’s not exactly what we wanted, but due to the fact that rotary engines are so small but still able to pump out a modest amount of power, they make for the perfect range extenders. But let’s not forget that this is keeping the Wankel engine in the books of Mazda’s senior employees. They’ve obviously been working on the design behind the scenes, so let’s not give up hope that we won’t have another RX car in the near future.

Mazda seems to have fallen behind since their removal of sports cars from their lineup. The MX5 is still a potent part of their brand, but their other cars are, arguably, boring. On top of that, they’re very late to the EV party with competitors like Honda, Toyota and Nissan spouting out EVs (or hybrids) left right and centre. But again, let’s not forget that they’ve been developing their efficient engines for years now with the SkyActiv-X engine found in the latest MX5 which are able to rev higher and produce more power.

It seems as though Mazda seem to know what they’re doing, so let’s see quite how this new EV compares to the best of the business.