From Tokyo News Paper Web (in Japanese) (06/06/2012)
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/ec...602000121.html

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President Yamauchi, of Mazda Japan announced their plan of start leasing Electric Vehecle (EV) with Hydrogen Rotary Engine (RE) as range extender Next year. Hydrogen RE will double the range of EV on a single charge.

RX-8 will end it's production this month, however, Pres. Yamauchi emphasis that "Mazda is developing new technology using RE as Range extender." Light weight and compact size, will be great benefit of RE to solve the problem of current EV, it's short range.

Ymauchi also noted, that "We cannot simply move the production from Japan to over sea (to fight recent strong yen), (because we need to support Japanese's local business), we will keep the current production rate, while adding more production over sea. With cost reduction of production line, as well as increasing production in developing country where cost is low, we will try improve our business.

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I did very quick translation, but you get the idea...

 

i can't read japanese!!! i wish i paid attention when i took that class lol. thanks for translating.

 

Interesting article.

 

All they need to do now is become environmentally friendly by getting rid of that hydrogen crap and using good old gasoline instead.

 

What, you don't like the idea of cars going up in flames like the Hindenburg?

BC.

 

I was afraid that was going to happen.

 

I think they've got it backwards... Harness a battery and alternator to create electrolysis that converts H2O to H and O, feed that into the Renny and away we go pumping our cars full of water.

And I hate the idea of the Rotary becoming a "backup" system.

Granted what I'm proposing fuel cell wise is still years away from being practical but one can dream... especially if the concept behind our next rotary is a backup system for EV

 

Electrolysis is hugely inefficient. You can't make enough hydrogen and oxygen to even come close to breaking even on the amount of energy that you put into separating water into them in the first place.

 

ugh. if you bring up the Hindenburg fire in a conversation about hydrogen as a transportation fuel you lose. its like the Hitler rule. only we'll call it zoom's law.

 

The only laws I abide by are the laws of motion, the laws of physics, and the law created by that guy named Murphy.

Zoom's rule will have to find some other victim. :P

BC.

 

This keeps their "rotaries in production every year since..." record going...

Though some may dispute the validity of the shift.

While it's not the rotary we want, it is a direct revenue source from a rotary and real life test bed for rotary technology. They won't give up on it as a direct power plant (Sky-R WAS mentioned by the CEO after all), so this is all good news to me.

 

here in EU gasoline is also highly flammable...dunno in US

 

1 person per day in the USA is killed in car gasoline fires.

BTW, here's an english version: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...s/#more-447988

 

Not to mention the terroni filling up their car's lpg tank with gas from their house... and discovering it just explodes.

 

what about that moron (pulled by police) who crossed the border between Austria and Italy with a pickup with 500 lt of gas?

 

We're a country of misunderstood geniuses.

 

rofl lololol

 

not in my yard

 

like i said, one can dream... About 25 years ago when I was in high school I made a nice little explosion in my bedroom (read lab) late one night after about 2 hours of soaking an old battery electrode in water with a current running thru it.

 

so...i'm guessing we aren't going to see a new gen petrol powered RE for a while...?

what happened to the 16X? does anyone know perhaps? is mazda leaning more towards fuel economy/greenhouse emissions or power/reliability/etc. with their new RE?

 

The 16X isn't the new engine. It was just where they were in development at the time. It's still in development.

 

hopefully this is only an -additional- application for the Rotary and not the -only- one...


Mazda can lower bsfc drastically, it has been done in research, they only need to bring the research into mass production!

Ultra lean strat combustion with special catalysts... Oh but Mazda recently developed catalysts for lean burn... hmmmm...

 

http://i.autoblog.com/2012/04/18/maz...ans-for-skyac/
Hopefully they are right...so far not far off.

 

Nice hammer

 

I love the idea of a RE as a range extender - it makes a lot of sense. And even though it's not an RX-n application, one thing to keep in mind is that the more places RE tech is leveraged within Mazda to make $$$ the more they can justify continued RE R&D.

As for RG's comments, it's too bad that home-based generation of hydrogen is too expensive (according to one site I've seen, anyway). It would be awesome if you could power a hydrogen generator at home via solar panels - generate hydrogen during the day and re-up your car when you get home in the eveing. But alas, it appears that's not a viable option right now.