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6 Sep, 2017 11:00pm James Brodie

We've been for a drive in a car powered by Mazda's new SKYACTIV-X engine, which promises improved performance, better economy and less CO2

In 2019, Mazda hopes to become the first car manufacturer to offer compression ignition petrol engines in production vehicles by way of a completely new generation engine – SKYACTIV-X. 

While other mainstream carmakers have been bigging up electrification, Mazda thinks that time isn’t up for internal combustion just yet. The firm claims that the new engine technology will deliver substantial improvements in performance, fuel economy, and cleanliness compared to the current generation SKYACTIV-G units found under the bonnets of most Mazda cars. 

Electrification will be part of Mazda’s future – an all-electric car will arrive in 2019, while every car in Mazda’s range will be electrified in some way by 2035 – but in the shorter term, cleaner combustion engines are on the agenda. This is where SKYACTIV-X comes in.

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Mazda claims that with a ten per cent improvement in real-world fuel economy, a current SKYACTIV engine powered car will actually emit the same amount of CO2 over its lifetime as an electric vehicle using energy generated by a conventional power station. As such, in the immediate term, cleaner combustion is just as effective as electrification in Mazda’s point of view. 

SKYACTIV-X works through what Mazda coins ‘Spark Controlled Compression Ignition’. Compared to the compression ignition engines you’ll find under the bonnet of any diesel car, this new generation engine still uses a spark plug, which is used as a controlling factor rather than a primary source of ignition.

Compression ignition with petrol is much more inconsistent than it is with diesel, so Mazda has developed the spark plug to suit a new role – it’s simply there to create additional pressure in the combustion chamber, so leaner fuel-air mixtures can combust under compression alone.

Using this system, Mazda claims that SKYACTIV-X engines will produce 10 to 30 per cent more torque than an equivalent SKYACTIV-G engine, improved throttle response with higher revs, but also a 20 per cent improvement in fuel economy, with a flatter fuel usage level across urban and motorway driving. 

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During our early test drive, engineers tentatively put a performance figure on the supercharged 2.0-litre cars we drove – 187bhp with 230Nm of torque is targeted at launch, but these prototype cars are still running with the wick turned down considerably. As such, that level of performance is still a long way off, but it was possible to pick up on the improved throttle response with a dip of the accelerator pedal. 

We’ll have to rely on simulations to gauge improvements in fuel economy though. According to Mazda, over our 50km run in an automatic SKYACTIV-X equipped mule, including urban, rural and autobahn driving we managed 42.2mpg. According to Mazda, a similar SKYACTIV-G equipped Mazda 3 would have returned 36.2mpg if driven down the same route identically, representing a predicted 13 per cent improvement in fuel economy. 

With at least a two-year wait until SKYACTIV-X technology begins to appear under the bonnet of new Mazda vehicles, these early prototype vehicles are not completely representative of what will be powering next generation versions of the Mazda 3. It is, however, possible to pick up on the improved throttle response, while computer simulation suggests a worthwhile improvement in efficiency.

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