Mazda Restarts Rotary Engine Mass Production After 11-Year Hiatus

But it's going into a far less exciting car.

By: Adrian Padeanu

Jun 22, 2023 at 3:57am ET

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Rumors about the return of the rotary engine had been swirling around the Internet for years before Mazda made it official in January when it unveiled the plug-in hybrid small crossover with a complicated name: MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV. Fast forward to June 22, mass production of the unusual gasoline engine serving as a range extender commenced at home in Japan at the company's Ujina Plant No. 1 in Hiroshima.

Coincidentally, the beloved RX-8 went out of production 11 years ago, in June 2012, when the last of the Japan-only 1,000 Spirit R examples was built. To date, the Zoom-Zoom company has assembled 1.99 million vehicles equipped with a rotary engine. Numerous patents have revealed that Mazda hasn't given up on the idea of a new sports car with a rotary engine. However, there's a long way from patenting a technology to putting it into production on a road-going car, so don't get your hopes up too high just yet.

2023 Mazda MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV

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At the beginning of the year, the assistant manager of the powertrain development division said the "rotary is our symbol." Yoshiaki Noguchi went on to say a performance application remains "a dream" but added now it's not the right time. Even though the achingly beautiful RX-Vision concept illustrating a rotary-powered sports car is already eight years old, enthusiasts certainly wouldn't mind an identical production version. It did go on sale, but only as a scale model.

Mazda's first rotary engine application was in the 1967 Cosmo Sport 110S with its two-rotor Wankel making 110 horsepower. It remains to be seen whether its modern-day equivalent with an 830-cc displacement feeding off of a 50-liter gas tank will be installed in other models or only the MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV will get it. In the crossover, the single-rotor engine producing a mighty 74 horsepower has no mechanical connection to the wheels since it acts as a generator.