Mazda gets Hy with Toyota

Sustainable Zoom Zoom is Mazda-talk for its long-term driveline efficiency program. It is also a main driver behind the company's recent deal to buy hybrid technology from Toyota.

The agreement announced this week is a significant validation for Toyota, which has invested heavily in hybrid knowhow -- not just in developing it to the point where it operates seamlessly and effectively in everyday use, but also in selling the concept to customers at affordable prices.

From the first iteration of the Prius in 1997 (the world's first mass-production hybrid) Toyota has maintained momentum with more petrol-electric models appearing across its model range (including Lexus) and culminating most recently in the arrival of the locally-manufactured Camry Hybrid.

Toyota's amassed knowledge of how to make hybrids work -- with the cost benefits of accrued experience across a wide range of applications -- places it ahead of other companies such as Honda which also uses hybrid technology. And being first to go mass-production tends to put Toyota in the box seat in terms of technology sharing.

The deal with Toyota will allow Mazda to reach its target of 30 per cent reduction in fuel consumption across its range by 2015. Mazda says it will introduce its first hybrid car in Japan in 2013. What it won't say is what that car will be. Or how much the deal with Toyota will cost.

According to Mazda national public relations manager Steve McIver, the company went the Toyota route because it was "the quickest and surest" way of bringing a Mazda hybrid to the road in the near future.

Hybrids are not the only thing on Mazda's Sustainable Zoom Zoom horizon however. The company believes conventional engine technology will be with us until at least 2020. This is the policy driving its development of efficient SKY petrol and diesel engines planned to roll out in the near future.

According to Mazda, the company will introduce its first vehicle using the next-generation SKY engines in 2011. The SKY engines embrace petrol and diesel, and employ latest efficiency technologies including direct petrol injection and piezo injectors with two-stage turbocharging for diesels to maximise efficiency. The petrol SKY engine aims at reducing consumption by 15 per cent over current 2.0-litre engines, while the diesel engine claims a 20 per cent efficiency improvement.

Under the Sustainable Zoom Zoom banner, the new engines will be accompanied by more efficient auto gearboxes using optimised conventional transmission technology as well.

Mazda -- the company that persevered with rotary engine design to the extent that it was once almost sent broke -- has been out of the limelight, as far as engine technology is concerned, for some time.

Notwithstanding, rotaries are far from dead. Mazda has had "conventional" rotary engines using hydrogen in RX-8, and hydrogen-powered rotaries with hybrid drivetrains in Premacy MPVs on the road on a trial basis in Japan for some time. The hydrogen rotary is, according to McIver, "not a mainstream likelihood but remains a possibility."

The rotary hydrogen hybrid Premacy was a Mazda/Ford development and still, according to Mazda, has "market potential."

But although the company will be focusing on SKY technology, and its compatibility with hybrid "electrical enhancement", pure electric cars are still some way off for Mazda.

"Electric vehicles (EVs) are not on the radar at the moment," says McIver. Rather, the company will introduce efficiency enhancing engineering to its hybrid adventure.

A press release from Mazda concerning the Toyota deal says it "will enhance the core aspects of its vehicles -- including engines, transmissions and weight reduction -- and then progressively add electric devices such as idling stop, regenerative braking and hybrid systems."

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