Mazda vs EV future

[gova]

Looks to me like even the near future is electric. We've seen the Leaf, Bolt, Volt, Ioniq, Mev and of course Tesla S, X and 3 as well as the Rimac. In addition there have been Honda Fit EV and Kia Rio EV as well.

Now, I've not heard much about Mazda and its EV plans? Has anything been published?

Me thinks if they are so late, Mazda may not exist anymore in 5-10 years?

What do you think?

 

[mazdadude]

Yes Mazda has several hybrids. Using joint Toyota technology... We should finally see them in the USA after the diesel comes...

Electric to come in 2019, and plug in Hybrid coming ~2021

 

[ColoradoDriver]

Me thinks if they are so late, Mazda may not exist anymore in 5-10 years?

What do you think?

What? Come on...

Anyway, I thought I read something about Mazda getting electric tech from Toyota?

 

[Kaps]

Mazda sales have gone up from FY 2015 to 2016. They have gone up in EU, in many countries from Chile - NZ. Gone up in many places. In NA - the sales have gone down by a few percentages - but that is because Mazda has avoided fleet sales. This is a good strategy vs Nissan / Hyundai - which puts a lot of cash on hood.
Because Mazda makes few cars it makes sense to get most profit out of it. Btw 2016 Mazda sold 1.534 million cars worldwide. So this was the 3rd year mazda has returned 12% profit. A pretty solid number.

At this point they are better off than they were in 2013 after getting away from Ford. Understand that even though Mazda has little to no involvement with electric - its major stakeholder Toyota has. Scion iM is basically a Mazda. Now ofcourse auto manufacturers work with each other if there is profit to be made - Mazda makes the fiat 124 and miata in same plant.

On EV - Mazda has the Mazda 2 EV Demio in Japan. They have one of the best fleet mpgs in USA 29.6 mpg - meeting CAFE standards. Infact only one or two are in Mazda's position.
Mazda is one of the few betting a lot on improving the FE of gasoline engines. 30% on top of the skyactive engines is pretty rock solid - though I think its too far fetched.

I think Mazda will be there in 5 years time, chances of it merging with a bigger maker are also present. 10 years is a long period - but based on how they are doing so well in SE Asia, Australia and pushing sales up, 27% YOY in EU - they will be fine.
I am looking forward for Hybrids more than EVs. If you notice Tesla is a fun to drive electric - but on the hybrid front its the god awful Prius cousins with some uninspiring two digit hp Civic / Acura : if Mazda can add a fun hybrid thats zoom zoom with $$ saved.


Also some of the EVs you have mentioned are purely to satisfy CARB. Few of them are only leased and will be destroyed upon lease closure. Also note the FCF failures for Honda and the Mirai failure for Toyota. They are huge flops and never took off. Atleast that development money Mazda has not wasted. On the other hand the Rav4 electric was a good car - odd Toyota killed it just when it could have been profitable.

Also its Kia Soul EV - not Rio.

 

[Kaps]

Mazda 2016 Worldwide Sales (in 1000s)

NA 438
EU 257
China 235
Japan 232
Other Markets 372

 

[7eregrine]

There's always going to be demand for gasoline cars. Well...For a long time anyway. I doubt Mazda will fold Because of that.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[finch204]

Mazda believes that the internal combustion engine will still be the engine of choice in 2020. Their current lineup reflects that belief. Version 2 of SkyActiv should be coming 2018-2019. They will probably be the last company to introduce an EV here in the US. As others have mentioned though, they have a partnership agreement with Toyota, which is most likely where they will get the EV tech from, once they have to transition to EV cars.

 

[gova]

Mazda believes that the internal combustion engine will still be the engine of choice in 2020. ...

This is exactly why I started this thread. Hope not to see this on their grave - 'we are years too late to EV party and we still believe in ICE'

 

[sillyxone]

I don't know how well a pure EV will do in the cold of Minnesota and the like, especially how well the battery will cope if the car is parked in the open -10*F for the whole day. I haven't seen many Tesla around here, but to be fair there aren't a lot of charging stations around here neither.

The hybrid are doing fine though, so I guess that's probably Mazda will head into. A partnership with Toyota on hybrid, together with the HCCI engine will hopefully keeps Mazda within the emission/efficiency requirements. I heard the president is instructing the EPA to lower the standard requirement ...

 

[finch204]

This is exactly why I started this thread. Hope not to see this on their grave - 'we are years too late to EV party and we still believe in ICE'

I think they'll be fine. It's already 2017 and EV cars are still not dominating the market. I mean what really are the compelling and affordable EV choices right now? I can only think of the Tesla Model 3, which isn't even out yet. That said, If Mazda comes out with an EV, I will definitely check it out. As of right now I think focusing on SkyActiv 2 and prolly hybrids would be better for them, to make sure they don't go bankrupt before 2020.

 

[Kaps]

I think they'll be fine. It's already 2017 and EV cars are still not dominating the market. I mean what really are the compelling and affordable EV choices right now? I can only think of the Tesla Model 3, which isn't even out yet. That said, If Mazda comes out with an EV, I will definitely check it out. As of right now I think focusing on SkyActiv 2 and prolly hybrids would be better for them, to make sure they don't go bankrupt before 2020.

Fold by 2020 - i find it hard. CX-5 is already selling 7 times the estimate in Japan. If it hits 200K there - I am hoping it hits 150K here in 2017. Pretty solid for me. Mazda is the 15th largest car maker in the world - but a minor sales jump will see it in top 10 or 12. I dont think companies fold that easily - merger is a different thing. For all indicators - looks like Mazda's growth will continue. More so when they bring in signature trim for CX-5 and other cars and pull buyers from Japanese lux brands.

 

[piotrek91]

The thing about EV's is that they are very easy to design and manufacture.

The only thing holding them back is the weight/cost/recharge time of batteries.
Mazda is in no position to innovate with battery technology, and it would be foolish of them to do so.

 

[fdew]

This could change things in a few years
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/...nventor-does-it-again?cmpid=horizontalcontent

battery cells have at least three times as much energy density as todays lithium-ion batteries.
Because the solid-glass electrolytes can operate, or have high conductivity, at -20 C, this type of battery can perform well in subzero degree weathera previous concern for electric cares.
In experiments, the researchers cells have demonstrated more than 1,200 cycles

 

[finch204]

Fold by 2020 - i find it hard. CX-5 is already selling 7 times the estimate in Japan. If it hits 200K there - I am hoping it hits 150K here in 2017. Pretty solid for me. Mazda is the 15th largest car maker in the world - but a minor sales jump will see it in top 10 or 12. I dont think companies fold that easily - merger is a different thing. For all indicators - looks like Mazda's growth will continue. More so when they bring in signature trim for CX-5 and other cars and pull buyers from Japanese lux brands.

I was exaggerating a little. The point I was trying to make is that they need to worry about sales first before worrying about coming up with an EV. Which in this case, based on your post, they are doing relatively well with sales, which is good news to me.

The thing about EV's is that they are very easy to design and manufacture.

The only thing holding them back is the weight/cost/recharge time of batteries.
Mazda is in no position to innovate with battery technology, and it would be foolish of them to do so.

Why do you say that? Is it because there are less parts involved with an EV?

I don't think they will be innovating with battery technology. They are more than likely going to rely on Toyota for the battery/hybrid tech. That said, Mazda's engineers are a resourceful bunch though and they are already testing hybrids and EVs in Japan.

The "innovation" I want to see them come up with though, is an EV that is beautiful and fun to drive.

 

[piotrek91]

This could change things in a few years
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/...nventor-does-it-again?cmpid=horizontalcontent

battery cells have at least three times as much energy density as todays lithium-ion batteries.
Because the solid-glass electrolytes can operate, or have high conductivity, at -20 C, this type of battery can perform well in subzero degree weathera previous concern for electric cares.
In experiments, the researchers cells have demonstrated more than 1,200 cycles

Sounds very promising!

 

[piotrek91]

Why do you say that? Is it because there are less parts involved with an EV?

Electric motors are very very simple and they are in use everywhere. There are lots of commercially available control circuits.
You don't really need a transmission, and you don't have to worry about emissions, no fuel tank.

There are some difficult problems with battery performance in the heat and the cold, but Mazda is in no place to try to tackle those. Might as well let Tesla figure that stuff out.

Mazda did make an EV Mazda 2 with a rotary range extender back in 2013:
http://blog.caranddriver.com/mazda-2-re-range-extender-return-of-the-rotary/

 

[craigo]

Electric motors are very very simple and they are in use everywhere. There are lots of commercially available control circuits.
You don't really need a transmission, and you don't have to worry about emissions, no fuel tank.

There are some difficult problems with battery performance in the heat and the cold, but Mazda is in no place to try to tackle those. Might as well let Tesla figure that stuff out.

These are straight up material physics problems. It's why batteries have only somewhat improved in 30 years and CPU power has multiplied.

Electric also has other difficult issues. If all vehicles were suddenly switched to electric, there isn't enough generating or transmission capacity. Massive infrastructure investments have to be made, and those take years to build. There's also the issue of how long it takes to charge a battery - there needs to be the ability to recharge 300 miles worth of power in a couple of minutes to truly replace convenience of liquid fuel. That just isn't possible at the moment.

Lots of tech on the horizon to help these issues - but realistically, no sooner than a decade for mass market.

 

[Kaps]

It takes 2 hours for Tesla to swap motors out of a model S. Then they put a new one and use old for warranty repairs in few cases.
That's cool - what is cool is upgrading the roadsters to more range for more money.

The used market is great for EVs as well. 2015 Leaf for 8K - but the market is limited. For my money after Tesla the best EV is again the MB B class 250e. It uses Tesla drive train and 2014 models are about 20K USD for 40K miles.
Their battery degradation was measured at 1% after 12k miles by most users. Sweet.

 

[warwick5s]

This is exactly why I started this thread. Hope not to see this on their grave - 'we are years too late to EV party and we still believe in ICE'

Considering how many times Mazda's grave almost said "we still believe in the rotary" I have to admit I'm a little worried.

Rotaries have a cool potential to be used in a parallel or series plug-in hybrid setup, but I hope they're not putting substantial development time into ICEs past the next gen of Skyactiv.

 

[gova]

Thanks to all for their thoughtful comments.

In terms of handling cold/hot, lithium batteries need to be thermally managed. Tesla has perfected this already and I am sure that others who want to make an impact will too.

It is true, that currently the battery cost is about 40-50% of EV vehicle especially for pure EV with 200-350 mile range. The economy of scale will be achieved by the Gigafactory production and output. If all works out, it will bring the price to low level and provide adequate output for massive EV production.

The main issue now is not to have a EV available but to have one with massive quantities to start ICE replacement wave. Again the limiting factor is battery unit output/availability.

Tesla is on the best track to fulfill this. Other manufacturers may not as Nissan Leaf, GM Volt and others will not be able to output adequate number of EVs.

To the poster that is worried with MN temperatures - Tesla sells a lot of their cars in Norway for few years now. Norway has voted to go ICEless in a few years.

Wikipedia read

Tesla Russian Winter test

In general, the public is very uneducated in terms of basic EV research, physics and current state of things. A lot of great progress has been made in just past few years and it will only explode further.

If anybody feels like and would like to catch up, I do recommend watching some of Fully Charged