Mazda Reboots Rotary Engine Manufacturing After 11-year Hiatus

After an 11-year halt, Mazda has rebooted its rotary engine manufacturing in Japan.

Following the introduction of the MX-30 R-EV earlier this year, Japanese automaker Mazda has rebooted its rotary engine production line in Japan after an 11-year hiatus.

As a recap, said unusual engine tech, usually renowned for high-revving and high-output performance, was recently adapted to form a range-extender motor for the MX-30 R-EV. These range-boosting wankel motors are being made at the company's Ujina Plant No. 1 in Hiroshima.

Mazda's latest rotary mill is an 830cc direct-injected unit tasked as a range-extender in the
MX-30 R-EV.

The last time this facility mass-produced said engine type was back in June 2012 where it built engines for the Mazda RX-8 – the last Mazda production sportscar to feature this piston-less mill. Up until this point, Mazda had successfully produced up to 1.99 million units of said engine type.

Though it went out of production for just over a decade, Mazda never really let the tech go fully over said years. In fact, the marque hasn’t completely shelved the idea of making a new rotary-engined sportscar and continue the lineage of the RX-8 and its legendary predecessor the RX-7.

It seems with the rotary range-extender primed, the MX-30 now stands as a plug-in hybrid (PHEV).

Numerous patents incorporating said engine tech have surfaced in said period too, but it seems this latest range-extender meant to boost the MX-30 range is the first to get off the drawing board and into production.

In the MX-30 R-EV, the rotary range-extender it employs is a single-rotor type that displaces 830cc. Primed with direct injection and a high compression ratio of 11.9:1, it develops 75 HP @ 4,700 RPM and 115 NM @ 4,000 RPM. It’s also fed by a retrofitted 50-litre fuel tank, but it still doesn’t power the MX-30 directly.

Rotary logo badge on the front quarter panels of the Mazda MX-30 R-EV.

For rotary fans, this may seem a far cry from what many of which are more accustomed to. Mazda can trace its first use of the piston-less wankel rotor mills as far back as 1967 through the Mazda Cosmo Sport 110S. Said sportscar featured a dual-rotor mill that made 110 HP.

Earlier this year, Mazda’s assistant manager of the powertrain development division Yoshiaki Nguichi said that the "rotary is our [Mazda’s] symbol." However, he also downplayed things by admitting that the tech’s performance application remains "a dream", even noting that now it's not the right time for its return.