The electric MX-30 was always hampered by its limited range, but now Mazda has introduced a rotary plug-in hybrid powertrain.
Mazda has produced almost two million rotary engines since the Mazda Cosmo of 1967 – it’s a huge part of the Japanese firm’s identity. Ten years have passed since the last rotary-engine Mazda was made however, with the RX-8 dying out in 2012. The new MX-30 R-EV marks a return of the iconic powertrain, but is this latest arrival cause for celebration among fans of the Wankel engine?
The short answer is, no. If you’re looking for a car that screams to the redline and gulps down fuel like the old RX-8 and RX-7 did, then the MX-30 R-EV is not for you. In fact, it’s designed to be the very antithesis of this. Anyone that has looked under the bonnet of the regular MX-30 EV would have foreseen the arrival of a hybrid model, such is the gaping space left unused by the compact BEV system. Choosing a rotary to fulfil the needs of an efficient hybrid and boost the usability of the MX-30 is an interesting proposition and certainly a unique offering in 2023.
A range-extender plug-in hybrid, the MX-30 R-EV first and foremost comfortably deals with the main stumbling block of the pure-electric MX-30, which is its lacklustre range. With the relatively compact 35.5kWh battery, we recently only managed to extract a maximum of 224km from the EV. The R-EV comes with a battery half the size at 17.8kWh but will offer 85km of pure-electric driving – not bad for a PHEV. The full range is over 640km for the R-EV.
The best part of the MX-30 EV is the interior and overall build quality, and this is unsurprisingly carried over to the R-EV – along with the rather wacky use of cork trim in the cabin and the rear-hinged rear doors that pay tribute to the RX-8. The MX-30 feels mature inside though, the physical switches on the steering wheel are assuring to use, as is the dial for the dash-mounted 8.8-inch touchscreen. We just wish the same functional approach would’ve been used for the climate controls – which aren’t the easiest to operate on a seven-inch screen positioned low-down on the centre console.
All MX-30s are well-equipped with adaptive cruise control, a head-up display, blind spot monitoring, lane keep assist, LED lights, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, and powered wing mirrors all standard. The Makoto version we’re driving features a 360-degree camera, adaptive LED headlights, 18-inch wheels that are bespoke to the R-EV, a powered sunroof and a three-pin 1500W socket to power appliances.
Only a few small rotary badges on the exterior, the wheels and an additional fuel filler cap give away that this is the plug-in hybrid variant. When you jump in and turn the R-EV on you’re not met with a grumbly idle you associate with a rotary either, and on the surface it feels just like the regular all-electric MX-30.
The front wheels are only ever powered by the electric motor and while there’s a smidge less torque than the EV’s motor, there’s an extra 20kW so the overall 0-100km/h time drops by 0.6 seconds to 9.1 seconds. The smooth acceleration and responsiveness of the electric motor again feels just like the pure-EV MX-30.
Three driving modes can be accessed via a new tiny switch on the centre console – itself otherwise unchanged from the MX-30 EV. Normal mode gives you the full power of the electric motor and when the battery drops to around 50 per cent, the rotary generator kicks in to top-up the battery. Charge mode is for when the battery is in need of replenishing and strikes up the rotary engine immediately, while EV mode is for electric-only running without any recharge from the rotary. On top of this there are three brake regeneration settings operated by paddles behind the wheel, but the differences between them are minimal and the system itself is quite subdued.
When the rotary generator kicks into life it delivers a hushed thrum which if you start to thrash the accelerator gets slightly louder along with the augmented sound of the electric motor. It’s just a noise really and you’re never actually in control of the rotary, but it does a good job of letting you know you’re starting to gather pace without having to check the speedometer.
Plug the MX-30 R-EV in and you’ll see a 20-80 per cent recharge in around 25 minutes on a 50kW charge point. We expect you shouldn’t have to do this too often, however, because we found the rotary’s ability to recharge the battery to be pretty rapid on the move.
The rotor itself is different to the Renesis twin-rotor of the old RX-8. A single rotor, it’s thinner but has a larger radius and comes with a new compression ratio that focuses on delivering efficiency rather than power. The rotary engine is famed for its high-revving capacity but for the purposes of generating power for an electric motor, Mazda has kept the optimum output of 55kW relatively low at around 4,500rpm. Owners of RX-7s and RX-8s may be interested to hear that reliability should be better with this new rotor, with thicker apex seals and less oil use.
One of the reasons Mazda decided to bring back the rotary for the MX-30 R-EV rather than slot in an in-line piston engine was due to weight and packaging. The compact rotary unit is 15kg less than the RX-8’s rotor thanks to use of aluminium and should mean the R-EV handles like the EV, according to Mazda.
On twisty roads it’s almost imperceptible to tell the difference from the EV, with a decent amount of front-end grip, reassuring steering feel and not too much body roll. The plug-in hybrid system does add 131kg to the kerbweight and it’s marginally less compliant over larger potholes, but for the most part it rides just as well as any of its rivals.
Considering prices for the rotary MX-30 – in Europe, for now – mimic that of the EV, it does feel like Mazda has admitted defeat with the all-electric model – and some rather poor sales figures would appear to back this notion up. The MX-30 R-EV is certainly easier to recommend not just because of its far more useful range but also because it seems like a more well-rounded proposition.
Mazda claims fuel efficiency of 1L/100km, and like most plug-in hybrids you’ll struggle to reach that eye-catching figure unless you’re in EV mode for the majority of the time, but we were impressed with the additional range of the battery. We ran the battery percentage down to zero and the MX-30 soldiered on in EV mode for a few kays after without a hint of engaging the rotary generator.
Perhaps the most exciting point to be made with the MX-30 R-EV is what it could precede. We know Mazda has been keen to re-introduce the rotary into its line up, but confining this technology to a mere range-extending generator seems a little depressing – even if the actual utilisation in the MX-30 R-EV is admirable.
Our main gripe with the Mazda MX-30 has been fixed thanks to the additional range afforded by the new rotary plug-in hybrid set up, though it’s still slightly flawed as a family car mainly due to its impractical rear seats. We hope this isn’t a fleeting visit from Mazda’s new rotary and that it finds itself in other applications.