Mazda3 to debut Sky engines

SELECTED versions of next year’s facelifted Mazda3 should be the first vehicles to go on sale in Australia with the Japanese car-maker’s groundbreaking new Sky engine technology.

The debut here is expected to be in direct-injection Sky G petrol form, coupled with the company’s new ‘Sky Drive’ six-speed automatic transmission.

Mazda’s next all-new model to appear will be a redesigned version of the one-tonne utility currently known as the BT-50, which enters production in Thailand in mid-2011 before going on sale here later next year.

The one-tonner is expected to make its global debut at this year’s Sydney motor show on October 15 alongside the next-generation Australian-designed Ford Ranger on which it is based.

It is unclear when the BT-50 replacement will be available with either the Sky G petrol or Sky D diesel engines, but the first Mazda model to combine the car-maker’s all-new sixth-generation chassis with Sky powertrains will be the next Mazda6, due here in 2013.

By then an all-new Mazda2 light-car with Sky engines will also have been released, again based on the same global B-segment platform as Ford’s Fiesta.

Left: Mazda Sky G engine and its development chief Kiyoshi Fujiwara.

A redesigned Mazda3 will emerge in 2014, using a smaller version of the next Mazda6’s new lightweight platform rather than sharing its foundations with Ford’s Focus.

This sixth-generation C/D-segment platform should also provide the basis for an all-new sub-compact SUV to be known as the CX-5, also using Sky engine and transmission technology.

Previewed by the Kazamai concept in 2008, the CX-5 is expected to go on sale globally by the end of 2011 and could beat the Mazda2 to be the first all-new Mazda model to be powered by the company’s breakthrough Sky engines.

European reports suggest Mazda could follow the example set by Land Rover with its forthcoming Evoque by producing both three and five-door versions of the small CX-5 crossover wagon.

Mazda’s efficient new Sky drive six-speed automatic transmission will come standard on all models with a fuel-saving idle-stop function and, as part of Mazda’s ‘building block’ powertrain strategy, will soon be joined by further fuel consumption-reducing electric aids including regenerative braking and a hybrid drive system borrowed from Toyota’s Prius.

GoAuto understands that Mazda, like Toyota, will combine the Prius’s hybrid drive system only with a (Sky G) petrol engine from about 2013, but it remains unclear whether the petrol-electric technology will be applied only to a new dedicated-hybrid model or to variants of existing or future Mazda models.

Exactly when Mazda will launch replacements for the current MX-5 convertible and four-door RX-8 coupe – which ceased global production this month – remains unclear, but expect them to be on sale by 2015, by which time Mazda has committed to reducing the fuel consumption of its model line-up by 30 per cent compared with 2008 levels.

Mazda Motor Corporation’s product planning and powertrain development chief Kiyoshi Fujiwara told GoAuto MMC has just signed off the next-generation MX-5 convertible, which should employ Sky G petrol engine technology to set new fuel efficiency standards for a sportscar.

Both the redesigned MX-5 and a next-generation rotary-powered Mazda potentially dubbed the RX-9 could emerge globally as soon as 2013.