Mazda releases breakthrough in engine technology

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Japanese automaker Mazda has unveiled plans for the world's first commercial gasoline engine using compression ignition, placing traditional combustion engines at the center of its strategy just days after saying it would develop electric cars with rivals Toyota.

Mazda, whose research and development (R&D) budget is a fraction that of Toyota, could be the first automaker to commercialize a technology that many peers including General Motors and Daimler have been working on for decades.

Mazda said on Tuesday that it would start selling cars equipped with the new engine from 2019. It added that it would also launch electric and electrified vehicles at the same time in areas that restrict certain type of vehicles in order to decrease air pollution, or where clean energy is highly used in power generation.

Mazda's logo. /Reuters Photo

The new engine, called "SKYACTIV-X", would be 20 to 30 percent more efficient than its current SKYACTIV-G engine, said Mazda, adding that it would even match or surpass the latest diesel engines in efficiency while not producing many of the harmful emissions that diesel engines do.

"We think it is an imperative and fundamental job for us to pursue the ideal internal combustion engine," said Mazda's head of R&D Kiyoshi Fujiwara, emphasizing the internal combustion engine should come first.

The automaker also stated its ambition to make autonomous-driving technology available in all of its models by 2025.

(With input from Reuters)