i know some of you peoples have already seen and read about the hybrid rotary that mazda has been tinkering with and i wanted to see what you people think about this. personally i think its freakin awesome i read on mazda.com that it is expected have a fuel efficiency of about 650 km with a full tank of hydro and gas (100km on hydro and 549km on gas)= about 400 miles on a full tank. The power rating for the hydro 109ps, torque=140Nm and the power for gas is 210ps, torque=222Nm.( if anyone has the conversions for the power/torque ratings feel free to post). these ratings are achieved with a four speed auto tranny. i hope they are able to keep the overall feel of the car, and i also hope they are able to mate the power plant with a manual tranny. if you wana see where i got my info check out

http://www.mazda.com/mazdaspirit/env.../rx8_hre2.html

 

The hydrogen system is the future. The oil companies want to push more batteries cause they would be in trouble $$$. You can't mix the fuels they need seperate feed. It needs it's own tank. There is some ignition differences and probably intake mods. Mazda has produced over 3000 Rx-8 RE's in Asia and Europe. To me they prove hydrogen is do-able.

 

Hydrogen stores a quarter of the potential energy that gasoline stores. That's why the hydrogen rotary gets such abysmal mileage, even though hydrogen burns cooler so less heat is wasted out the hot side of the engine.

I'd much rather see a hybrid gas-electric rotary, because the things that rotaries suck at are effciency and low-RPM torque, and the things that electric motors are great at are efficiency and torque. A hybrid rotary with an electric motor taking the place of a third rotor, and accessories powered by separate electric motorrs, would be a match made in heaven.

That being said, if Mazda built a hydrogen-gas rotary with a solar panel on the roof and an electrolyzer in the engine bay, so it could produce its own hydrogen from a tank of water while the car is sitting in the sun, that would be cool too.

 

im not a science wiz but what im happy with is the fact that mazda is sticking with the rotary engine. but i aslo agree about the batteries instead of hydro. they should take the premacy re and drop the hydro tank.