Could Mazda’s e-TPV be the ideal electric vehicle?
OSLO As electric vehicle powerhouses go, Mazda is an extremely unlikely candidate. The ZoomZoom company has barely ventured into electric, and is one of the few mainstream automakers selling neither electric vehicle nor hybrid of any kind in North America.
And yet, not five minutes into the presentation from Mazda’s head of vehicle development and product planning, Hiroyuki Matsumoto, in Oslo, Norway, I knew I was looking at exactly the electric vehicle I would be designing, were I still using my now-45-year-old engineering degree.
Let’s start with the basics. Mazda has calculated the optimal battery size is 35.5 kilowatt hours. Now, that may seem an awfully precise and, more importantly, small rating for an EV’s battery, but thanks to some efficiencies it was unwilling to volunteer at this juncture — the final spec of the company’s first electric car won’t be released until this year’s Tokyo Motor Show — that’s good enough for around 200 kilometres of inner-city driving.
Why not go for a Tesla-like 500 km of range, you ask? Well, there are two reasons. The first is that people seldom use anywhere near the required 100 kWh needed to guarantee 500 km of autonomy. And fewer kilowatt-hours means less weight, reduced cost and dramatically better handling in any EV.
It is also, according to many, including electrification-powerhouse Toyota, an inefficient use of lithium. The theory being espoused is that increasing the size of a car’s battery brings diminishing returns in terms of greenhouse gas reduction.
Of course, that means the basic e-TPV — electric-Technology Prove-out Vehicle — is largely an urban runabout. Its 200-or-so-kilometre range will be just fine for suburban forays and will almost assuredly cover most consumers’ daily drives, but it isn’t the range-monster that is going to get someone across the Prairies on a cross-Canada excursion. That’s why Mazda’s production EV, due late in 2020, will offer — a range extender. And not just any range extender, but a rotary-powered generator.
“Mazda” and “rotary” are fairly entwined, the company being the last automaker to produce a rotary-engined car — the 2012 RX-8 for North America. What you may not know is that Wankel engines are extremely efficient in both size and fuel consumption. Though greedy when revved to their extremely high redline, they are more efficient than piston engines when maintaining a constant rpm. In other words, their small size serves a range-extended EV perfectly.
The Mazda gets closer to perfection when Matsumoto announces the TPV’s rotary range extender can run on hydrogen. That’s right, zero-emissions, greenhouse gas-friendly hydrogen.
That means, save for a few hydrocarbons that squeak past a rotor seal, Mazda’s range-extended rotary would be as emissions-free as any ludicrous Tesla. And, in fact, Mazda already has experience with hydrogen-fuelled rotaries, having produced a fleet of H2-powered RX-8s for Norway’s “hydrogen highway” experiment.
Putting aside the fact hydrogen stations are finally starting to pop up everywhere, Mazda’s last little trick is that the rotary could be — and, to be clear, is not yet — dual powered. That is, future Mazda range-extended EVs could run on both gasoline and hydrogen.
So, at some point in the nowmuch-nearer future, I will be able to drive a Mazda that will fulfil all my daily driving needs emissions free via a convenient charging port at home, drive in between cities without poisoning the atmosphere when H2 refuelling stations are available and then, if I find hydrogen not available in some far-flung rural location, I can squeak by with a dash of gasoline.
For those still trumpeting Tesla superiority, hear this: A dual-fuel, range-extended Mazda means that, in the best of circumstances, I will have completely eliminated my tailpipe carbon footprint. In a worst-case scenario, my automotive CO2 production will have been reduced by some 80 per cent.
And all this without having to visit one slower-than-molasses Supercharger station.
That’s what I call the perfect electric vehicle.
Driving.ca