They might actually have a point.
Mazda’s been talking up its new Skyactiv-X engines quite a bit, and for good reason. It’ll be the very first time a petrol-fuelled mill will utilise diesel-style compression ignition, a system that offers up to 30% reduced fuel consumption but has thrown up a myriad of technical and engineering hurdles for Mazda to overcome, but the plucky chaps at the Hiroshima firm appear to have done it.
To put the achievement into perspective, both Mercedes-Benz and General Motors toyed with the idea of compression ignition, and they both abandoned their respective endeavours to turn it into a reality. Much like how everyone gave up on the rotary engine, before Mazda got a hold of it and made it legendary.
Anyway. The complex and impressive Skyactiv-X mills will not only bring benefits for the consumer, but Mazda reckons it’ll be better for the environment too. So much better in fact, that it may be as-green if not greener than an electric vehicle, or so Mazda claims.
We’ve gotten very used to seeing electric cars buzz around with ‘Zero Emissions’ stickers and badging and marketing, but Mazda sees differently. Because two-thirds of the worlds’ electricity is produced by fossil fuels, Mazda says it’s “disingenuous” to claim that EVs are truly zero-emissions, as you have to take into account the CO2 emitted when producing the power to charge them.
EVs are only zero-emissions when you evaluate them on a Tank-to-Wheel method, measuring the amount of pollutants generated for the propulsion of the vehicle as it moves about. Mazda says it’s more ethical to consider a ‘Well-to-Wheel’ evaluation method, that takes into account the total amount of pollutants generated from a vehicle, including “fuel extraction, manufacturing, and shipping.”
This is not unlike the rhetoric that venerated British motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson has been saying for years, that one should consider the environmental cost of battery production on electric and hybrid vehicles before calling them holier than all else.
Mazda says that by their calculations, the average EV has an average emissions rating of 128g/km of CO2, a figure that fluctuates depending on the source of electricity. Their present-range of Skyactiv-G engines, like-for-like, produce about 142g/km they say, though they claim that even the Skyactiv-G mills are greener than EVs if the battery-powered cars are juiced up by coal-fired or petrol-generated electricity (to that end, electricity generated by LPG are significantly kinder to the environment).
However, the Hiroshima-based carmaker says that when Skyactiv-X arrives on the scene in 2019, it’ll be clean enough to match traditional electric vehicles in Well-to-Wheel pollutant measurements. It must be said that while Mazda is dragging its feet on electrification in the near-term (EVs and mild-hybrids due only in 2019, with PHEVs due in 2025), their claims of making internal combustion as lean as can be appear to hold water. You can read our more extensive report on the Skyactiv-X mills here, and geek out to our Editor-in-Chief’s anorak-level dissection of the industry-leading innovation.
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