This is sort of old news for us.. but cool to see this on the front page of MSNBC.com

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32658132..._drivers_seat/

 

I like reading rotary love in the mainstream media because these cars/engines are anything but mainstream.

I think too that Mazda will keep rotaries around for more reasons than one now.

 

true^ nice to see rotarys making the big news.

 

thats pretty cool

 

Always good to see the rotaries getting big press.

 

awwwh yeahhh

 

I wonder how the reliabity is on it? does it run cooler it being hydrogen? Its interesting to read!

 

Total dead end.

 

Way to be a downer...

 

I don't know much (read: anything) about hydrogen practicality or infrastructure, but it does make me a bit optimistic that Mazda is experimenting with it.

Sure, it creates a totally lame 100hp and change, but remember the Ford 999? Impressive technology back in the day, but was a race car with an 11.5 liter engine producing 100hp... Look how far we've come from that point with gasoline, and tell me you can't be a bit hopeful about hydrogen.

 

^^^Very, very true.

However I would think that the 100 ponies are because it's still a dual fuel [flex?] engine.
I think if they could get it to 150 -170 hp and keep the freakin' pounds off [let's say 2200 lbs to 2400 lbs] then it would be good enough for today.
Good enough for me anyway.

If Hydro is the future I think hydrogen sports car will be what we call slow and under power by today's standards for a while.
But I'll take a lower hp hydrogen rotary sports car over an ugly plain econobox any day.

 

^ My thoughts exactly. Do you guys know what the suspension is like on the Hydrogen 8?

 

No, the dual fuel set-up is not what is limiting the hp on this car; it is the lower potential energy of hydrogen as a fuel. You will have much better electric and series hybrid sports cars. There's no way to improve hydrogen ICEs that would put them ahead of similarly improved ICEs burning better fuels. There may be some hope for hydrogen fuel cells, but there again we're really talking about electrics and series hybrids. The better use of the rotary would be a small lightweight turbo (possibily running on Diesel bio fuel) rotary as part of a series hybrid. Do a search on the Frazer-Nash Namir and tell me that wouldn't be an exciting sports car. Too bad they had to use an airplane rotary from Wankel AG instead of Mazda pursuing this direction.

 

Thanks for that Robrecht.

I looked into both the concept car and hydrogen as a fuel.
I understand the drawbacks a little better.

 

I wouldn't say that Hydrogen is a dead end, sure, the Hydrogen ICE may not become standard, but at some point humanity will have to turn to Hydrogen for energy... it being the most abundant element in the Universe and all. Baby steps...

 

Even though this is old news, it's cool. I wonder what the exact limits of that car is..

 

I remember reading they could only get ~100hp out of it in hydrogen mode.

 

Looked like a 4pt AT

 

the same as the original RX-7. Man, if they could retrofit an H-RE into that I could have fun, green motoring, or more power if there's a small tank for gasoline.

I really hope H fuel cells replace batteries in EV cars, that way the dullards can have their vehicle/appliances, while I can still have an ICE with a pulse.

 

ts always great to see any kind distuptive technology from an automaker. Put that to an RX8 and a few people here might just have raised interest.

Hydrogen is years away. CNG is already here. It surprises me that hasn't been added to the program.

Hydrogen takes up a significant volume in the intake manifold - direct injection won't be something coming as hydrogen wreaks havoc on some metals that would be used for a direct setup. 100HP on hydrogen is probably optomistic.

 

That could happen, someone in Australia has an RX-7 running on LPG. The Japanese love Hydrogen because of its zero-emissions, and since they're on nuclear power, the whole "burning more coal" argument doesn't apply to them.

 

No, Mazda's hydrogen rotary is direct injection.

 

Are we going to travel to the sun every night (when it cools down) to fill up on hydrogen?

 

Okay smartass.

Are we going to biodegrade swamps to the point of coal every time we want to heat our house?

What is the makeup of the earth? oh, thats right 70% water, and 67% of each molecule is hydrogen. Thats quite a bit of hydrogen now isn't it. Wow! how super!

guess what hydrogen is also the most abundant element on earth. Not just the universe. It is the future. While not necessarily energy efficient yet, it will be the future.

 

But it's a waste of energy to derive hydrogen from water. A better hope at this point might be to scale up microscopic bio-production of hydrogen, amoebas that fart hydrogen.