Carscoops recently quoted Vinesh Bhindi, CEO of Mazda Australia, as saying in an interview that the company's leadership has confirmed the upcoming development of the next generation of the Mazda MX-5 roadster, although the launch date has not yet been announced.
Notably, according to Mr. Bhindi, a senior executive at the Japanese automaker, this could be the last generation of the MX-5 to use an internal combustion engine (ICE) before the line enters a fully electrified era.
Still retaining the MX-5 "essence".
Despite having to adapt to the trend of electrification, Mazda affirms that it will not lose the values that have made the MX-5 famous for over three decades.
Senior executives have repeatedly emphasized that the top priority remains maintaining the design philosophy of compactness, light weight, naturally aspirated engines, and especially manual transmissions. These are the elements that the sports car community considers the soul of this roadster.
According to Carscoops , the next-generation MX-5 may use a 2.5L Skyactiv-Z naturally aspirated gasoline engine instead of the current 2.0L engine. The car is also expected to add a mild-hybrid system to meet increasingly stringent emissions standards without significantly increasing its weight.
One of the biggest challenges for Mazda is maintaining the MX-5's agile handling characteristics, which are its strength. The company aims for the next generation to weigh under 1,000kg, a figure that will be very difficult to achieve given increasingly stringent safety standards and the potential need for electrification.
If successful, this would be one of the very few modern sports cars that would still maintain a similar weight to its predecessors.
Electric vehicles are the inevitable future.
Mazda has not yet announced the launch date for the new MX-5 generation. However, many executives at the Japanese automaker have previously stated that the successor model is still several years away, while the current generation is already in its 12th year on the market.
Given the already long lifespan of the MX-5, the next generation will likely continue to use an internal combustion engine until the early 2030s. However, after that, a shift to purely electric vehicles will be almost inevitable, especially in markets with strict CO2 emission regulations like Europe.
Even before the advent of the electric vehicle era, Mazda had to adapt the MX-5 to meet environmental regulations.
In Japan, the new version is expected to be equipped with quieter tires and an exhaust system with improved sound dampening to meet new noise standards. The larger muffler even reduces the luggage space somewhat on the RF hardtop version.
This change shows that even an iconic sports car like the Mazda MX-5 is having to adapt to increasingly stringent global environmental and emissions requirements.
(According to Carscoops)
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