| Green news | 2015 Mazda line-up |
Mazda has announced it will reduce fuel consumption across its entire range of cars by 30% by 2015. Lower weight, a new range of petrol and diesel engines (including a new rotary engine) and a soon to arrive Stop-Start system will all help towards this goal.
The aim is to lower all of its cars' weight by 100kg by 2015, following Mazda's current trend towards lighter cars. This will be backed up by a new range of petrol and turbodiesel engines that will arrive in 2011. A new rotary engine is being developed for the next generation of RX sports car, though Mazda has yet to confirm capacity or power figures for this engine.
Mazda is developing a new Smart Idle Stop System, which will cut the engine when the car is stationary in traffic. The Japanese firm says its stop-start technology is the first to directly inject fuel into the cylinder when restarting to make it quicker and quieter to begin working again. This technology will appear on production models in 2009.
Other new technology under development by Mazda includes direct injection petrol engines and an E85 flex-fuel engine that can run on both bio-fuel and normal unleaded petrol. This is being worked on alongside Mazda's hydrogen-powered hybrid that is already undergoing road trials.
On top of its work on the cars themselves, Mazda has introduced a new painting system at its factory which cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 15%. There are further developments planned for this, as well as the introduction of recycled plastics for use in the company's cars.
Alisdair Suttie - 23 Jun 2008