Is The Next Mazda Miata Going Electric?
Rumors have been percolating that the next Mazda Miata might be an electric vehicle, or at least electrifed.
Yes, I know the buffs had this about a week ago (we have a small team, remember), but it's worth digging into a bit.
To be clear, it appears that the Miata will still have a gas engine and available manual transmission, at least for one more generation, but European patent documents filed in April show a Miata-looking vehicle with an electric motor in the front.
Not only that, but the motor and batteries would be setup in such a way that the car would maintain 50/50 weight distribution. This vehicle would be rear-wheel drive.
It's not clear if the car in the patent docs is a Miata or perhaps a new model that Mazda has planned. There's a drawing of a car that looks like the Miata -- but that doesn't necessarily mean that this patent is targeted at that car.
Nor does it mean Mazda will even build a vehicle with this setup.
It will be worth keeping an eye on, either way.
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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put a 25hp/35TQ three phase motor in each rear wheel.. drop the gasser displacement to 1.2L and let it rev to 8500rpm, put the battery pack off center to the passenger side in front of the now smaller gas tank to keep the balance.. get rid of the 12v battery and pull juice into a 12v tiny inverter to eliminate old lead acid battery weight.
it will make all the right noises, be a smidge faster, and only a tiny bit heavier and keep all the handling.
Come on Mazda, don't steal and repurpose an icon for electrification like Geely did to Lotus, make your own e-box from scratch. Let some heritage exist without correctness insisted. Hell is for those electrifying classic Alfa-Romeo and patronizing them. Dissecting the twin cam soul and purpose of these vehicles creates automotive zombies.