"Mazda Said to Be Developing Hybrid System Very Similar to the Chevy Volt's" Green Car Advisor

Mazda Said to Be Developing Hybrid System Very Similar to the Chevy Volt's

By Scott Doggett, Contributor
and John O'Dell, Senior Editor

General Motors has reaped a ton of publicity from its Chevrolet Volt, a car with a grid-charged battery pack that will power an electric motor and an on-board gasoline engine that will generate electricity to keep the electric motor running and recharge the batteries when the initial plug-in charge is depleted.

Often missed in all the high-voltage buzz is that Ford Motor Co. showed a concept car with essentially the same system during the same January 2007 Detroit Auto Show at which the Volt took its bows.

Now comes word that Ford's Japanese subsidiary, Mazda, is putting its zoom into development of a Volt competitor of its own.

The British blog autocar says it has "learned that Mazda engineers are hard at work trying to develop a rival to the Chevrolet Volt -- a car which uses a petrol engine to charge a battery pack which powers the wheels via an electric motor."

High-ranking sources at Mazda, autocar reports, "say that trials are currently underway in Japan, with a prototype that uses a rotary engine to charge the battery pack. The tests are sufficiently advanced that Mazda has a working prototype in a Mazda 5 MPV bodyshell. Company bosses are said to be keen to put this system into production but no firm decisions will be made until the cost of batteries is reduced.

"In the meantime the company will concentrate on simpler green technologies. The first stop-start Mazda will go on sale in Japan next year and the system is expected to be rolled out globally on a variety of models."

In addition to Mazda's effort, Ford's European subsidiary Volvo Cars also has shown a potential Volt challenger, the ReCharge concept (left), which bowed at the 2007 Frankfurt auto show, used an ethanol flex-fuel engine as the on-board generator and, per Volvo's claim, would be capable of 60 miles of all-electric drive at highway speeds before the initial plug-in battery charge would be depleted.

GM is claiming a 40-mile all-electric range for the Volt, which it says will hit the retail market in late 2010.

Systems such as the Volt's -- and, apparently, Mazda's -- will be game-changers because right now every hybrid vehicle sold in the U.S. has a gasoline engine that runs almost all of the time to make the wheels go round, receiving periodic help from an electric motor.

The Ford system, which debuted alongside the Volt but got lost in the enthusiastic response to the GM car's eye-catching styling, used a hydrogen fuel-cell to generate electricity on board the plug-in vehicle.

Ford called its system HySeries Drive; GM calls its E-Flex.

Both companies have said, though, that their systems are flexible -- an E-Flex vehicle could use a fuel cell, or a diesel engine, as a generator, and a HySeries Drive car or truck could use diesel or gasoline generators in lieu of the fuel cell.

A version of the HySeries Drive powertrain is on the road in a Ford Edge prototype (below right). The vehicle, using a hydrogen fuel cell as a generator, debuted at the 2007 auto show in Washington, D.C.

Regenerative braking, rooftop photo cells and static electricity from Granny's sweater may ultimately help feed the Volt's battery pack, but let's not make this more complicated than we have to.

Point is, General Motors has been talking up the Volt like it will be the next big thing. An automobile without equal. A technology without peer.

Not, it now appears, if Mazda's engineers can help it.

Oh, piffle! Or words to that effect. You can practically hear the invective blasting from the lips of Bob Lutz, GM's foremost product proponent.

He and the Volt have been joined at the hip since the concept debuted 20 months ago, and he will no doubt introduce the production version when it makes its world debut later this year.

Used to be that America's Big 3 automakers trumped all others combined in vehicle production. Today, the Big 3 no longer produce more vehicles than Asia's automakers, never mind the European car and truck builders.

Now here comes Mazda reportedly with something close to a technological clone of the Volt's powertrain.

We wonder if Lutz feels a little relief knowing that Ford owns controlling interest in Mazda. Probably not.

Ford executives insist that they will let us know when the HySeries is ready for primetime, not before.

But while they are staying quiet about their system -- the HySeries Drive system, not the one Mazda's working on -- GM continues reaping reams of publicity about the Volt's.