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The company's CEO claims that affordable and reliable vehicles with combustion engines are a priority for US buyers:
Mazda is late to the electrification party. The MX-30 is far from being the roaring success the Japanese automaker had hoped it would be. It was axed from the United States at the end of the 2023 model year due to poor sales. The range-extending version with a rotary engine is only offered in certain markets, and the US is not on the list. In addition, the EZ-6 electric sedan isn't coming here either. However, the situation isn't all that bad.
Why? Because Americans primarily want gas cars. Speaking with Automotive News, Mazda CEO Masahiro Moro said ICE has a long future in America. Even at the end of the decade, traditional gas cars and mild-hybrid models will make up about two-thirds of annual sales. Plug-in hybrids and EVs will represent the remaining third. In other words, most vehicles will still have a gas engine five years from now.
Mazda's head honcho primarily referred to entry-level models, specifically the 3 and CX-30. Moro believes EV growth in the US has slowed down in the last 18 months or so, adding the trend will likely continue in the foreseeable future. That buys the company more time to develop a lithium-ion battery entirely in-house. The goal is to have it ready for 2030 in plug-in hybrids and purely electric cars. Expect a much higher energy density and "very short" charging times. Interestingly, the engineers already have a "very advanced research base for solid-state batteries."
In the meantime, work is underway on a two-rotor gas engine that will serve as a generator.
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(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 14 2024, @03:30PM
All in the same vein. If you can run 200,000 miles without maintenance, that's a great achievement. Whether it's self-sufficiency requiring zero repairs, or modular design whereby I can pop the hood, pull out the worn component in 2 minutes or less, pop in a new one (delivered to my home via common carrier), and send back the core for a small refurbishing fee... either is fine.
I don't want to put mechanics out of business, but I do want their jobs made easier to where repairs are as fast, cheap and reliable as possible. Obviously independent mechanics should be on equal footing with dealerships in terms of access to information and parts. Parts themselves should be as universally compatible as possible.
All these things should be folded into a TCO metric, and the manufacturers should be incentivized to sell the vehicles with the lowest possible TCO. I like the following basic structures:
Progressive initial vehicle sales tax. In today's US market, that might look like: zero tax on vehicles up to $20K actual sales price, 5% on everything over $20K, an additional 10% on everything over $40K, an additional 20% on everything over $60K, an additional 40% on everything over $80K, and if you feel the need to spend more than $100K on a vehicle, an additional 25% (meaning a total of 100% tax) on everything over $100K. This means that a vehicle with $100K sales price would be taxed 5% of 80, 10% of 60, 20% of 40, 40% of 20 and 25% of nothing, or +$26K, but a vehicle with an initial sales price of $120K would be taxed $46K, $150K would be +$76K or a net tax rate of 50.6%, $200K would be +$126K or 63%, and by the time you're in McLaren territory you're paying close to double for your luxury vehicle. Trust me, if you can afford the McLaren, you can afford the tax - even if you're pissy about it.
Take those high initial cost of purchase taxes and re-distribute them back, to the manufacturers, for vehicles still in service - with bonuses for vehicles on the road meeting modern emissions and fuel economy guidelines. No credit in the first year on the road. 1% of the tax pool goes back to the makers of all vehicles which have been in service for more than a year, proportionally based on the number of their vehicles still in service and the miles they have driven (50% of the credit just for being registered and insured, the other half to be distributed proprotionally based on total miles driven of vehicles in the group). An additional 1% for vehicles that have been in service more than 2 years, an additional 1% for 3 years, and so on up to 50 years or more in service. For vehicles in service that demonstrate meet TODAY's emissions and fuel economy guidelines, bump that 1% to 2%.
Big changes are a shock to industry, roll that scheme in over the next 20 years with a linear ramp up, and linearly ramp down all other incentives, tax convolutions, etc. currently propping up the automotive and truck industries, including electric incentives. If electrics really are better, let them earn their returns on low TCO. I'm assuming that vehicles which are difficult (aka expensive) to repair will be the ones being sold for scrap, falling out of the manufacturer's bonus tax return pools.
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