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Does it produce more low end torque verses a traditional gasoline combustion engine? If not then why is it better suited for electrical generation? Is it more e

Does it produce more low end torque verses a traditional gasoline combustion engine? If not then why is it better suited for electrical generation? Is it more efficient with less load? The article mostly makes it sound like Mazda just loves the wankle and wants to find any possibly way to bring it back - even though it has “high” emissions… so coupling it with a hybrid electric motor makes it happen.. That can’t be the whole story?

jpgvm 3y ago
Wankels can be made extremely compact so that might have something to do with it, i.e it has both very high power to weight and power to volume specs. I honestly don't know if that is the reason though, perhaps someone more knowledgeable of the specifics of range extenders might chime in but I imagine that is an important factor.
- sethhochberg 3y ago
  They have a pretty narrow power band (produce efficient max power at a small range of RPMs) which always somewhat limited their use for normal ICE cars, but is a pretty workable constraint for an electrical generator. So you have compact size, good power to weight ratio, and power limitations that don't really matter for range extender purposes. Lots of potential. I can't find the article right now, but I'd swear I remember discussion here a handful of months ago about a startup marketing a similar EV range extender engine design.
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    They have low compression though, which really hurts the thermal efficiency.
  - coryrc 3y ago
    Then you may as well use a gas turbine, which is pretty much better in every way that matters for generating purposes.
    - iamthirsty 3y ago
      Except extremely complex and usually hard to repair and inefficiently sized for a consumer car.
      - userbinator 3y ago
        Actually far simpler than a piston engine; the fuel consumption and high production cost was what made them become extinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car
        kyleee 3y ago
        Of course Jay Leno has one; not sure if he’s featured it on his youtube channel (I don’t recall seeing it). Awesome
        01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
        Yep I've seen it on his YouTube. The "EcoJet" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10q9_pB6unU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10q9_pB6unU He said that they had to put really big brakes on it. I guess for some reason you can't just have a clutch. Personally if I was going for eco I'd want something more clever than "bigger brakes" but maybe building something like a Hybrid Synergy Drive is harder than building a turbine.
        SoftTalker 3y ago
        > He said that they had to put really big brakes on it. There's no compression braking (engine braking) with a turbine engine.
        ssl-3 3y ago
        Also: While Leno seems to be very interested in restoration, he also is clearly very interested in staying alive. He's got a ton of old cars that have been modified to have very good, modern disc brakes. The EcoJet is just one of many examples of his cars that have been improved in this way.
  - eep_social 3y ago
    Maybe you’re thinking of the Edison kits? They seem to be putting a genset into the truck bed to do EV conversions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38893567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38893567
  - seltzered_ 3y ago
    > I'd swear I remember discussion here a handful of months ago about a startup marketing a similar EV range extender engine design. Possibly https://liquidpiston.com https://liquidpiston.com Prior discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Liquidpiston&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- speed_spread 3y ago
  In a hybrid vehicle, the gas engine can be run mostly as a generator, which makes it possible to further optimize it for a very specific load. It's possible that such an updated+tuned Wankel could be a great fit for certain applications where space and weight are at a premium. They can simulate lots of it but to get real answers, they have to build the engine and see how it holds up. Also Mazda is a small-ish manufacturer at the Japanese scale. Since Wankels are part of their identity they could decide to build a car with it even though the downsides wouldn't make sense for a "rational" brand like Toyota. It can give them that creative freedom that help make desirable cars and keep Mazda relevant.
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
    Mazda Rotary 'Launch': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdjj52FUsEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdjj52FUsEo >These are some of the earliest ads I wrote and directed. Many of these ads cost our client just a couple of hundred dollars. When you look at this early attempt ant animation, it's not surprising that it didn't cost much more as a decent lunch these day! >It's hard to believe now how absolutely 'revolutionary' the rotary engine appeared to be in those days. Many of us expected that they would eventually take over from reciprocating engines completely. >This ad was produced just before the moon landing. >The Agency was Hayes Advertising, Sydney. My producer (and dear friend) was Max Cleary and the Account Director was Vic Violet. Mazda RX-3 Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo >Piston engine goes boing, boing, boing, boing. >Mazda engine goes Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Felix Wankel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Wankel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Wankel >Wankel and the Nazi Party >During the early 1920s Wankel was a member of various radical anti-Semitic organizations. In 1921 he joined the Heidelberg branch of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund and in 1922 he became a member of the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers Party (or "Nazi Party"), which was banned soon afterwards. Wankel founded and led youth groups associated with a cover-up organization of the NSDAP. With them he conducted paramilitary training, scouting games and night walks.[3] When his high esteem for technical innovations was not widely shared among the German Youth Movement, he was offered instead the opportunity to talk about the issue of technology and education to Adolf Hitler and other leading National Socialists in 1928.[4] >In the meantime Wankel's mother, Gerty had helped founding the local chapter of the NSDAP in his hometown of Lahr. Here Wankel not only rejoined the party in 1926, but also met the local Gauleiter, i.e. regional head of the NSDAP party, Robert Heinrich Wagner. In 1931 Wagner entrusted Wankel with the leadership of the Hitler Youth in Baden. But they soon fell out with each other, because Wankel tried to put a stronger emphasis on military training, whereas Wagner wished for the Hitler Youth to be a primarily political organization. In a particularly bitter and ugly controversy Wankel publicly accused Wagner of corruption. Wagner retaliated by stripping Wankel of his office by early 1932 and managed to have him expelled from the party in October 1932. >Wankel, who sympathized with the social-revolutionary wing of the NSDAP with Gregor Strasser, then founded his own National Socialist splinter group in Lahr and continued his attacks on Wagner. Since the Nazis' seizure of power on 30 January 1933 had strengthened his position, Wagner had Wankel arrested and imprisoned in the Lahr jail in March 1933. Only by intervention of Hitler's economic adviser Wilhelm Keppler and Hitler himself, was Wankel set free in September 1933.[5] A fellow native of Baden and member of Reichstag from 1933 to 1945, Keppler had been a friend of Wankel and an ardent supporter of his technological endeavors since 1927. He now helped Wankel to get state contracts and his own Wankels Versuchs Werkstätten experimental workshop in Lindau. >Wankel tried to rejoin the NSDAP in 1937, but was turned down.[6] With the help of Keppler, however, he was admitted to the SS in 1940 in the rank of Obersturmbannführer.[7] Two years later his membership was revoked for unknown reasons.[6]
- porphyra 3y ago
  nit: it's spelt Wankel not Wankle. Also for those who don't know, it's pronounced /ˈvaŋkl̩/ or /ˈvaŋkəl̩/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In German, "W" is pronounced as "V" in English, and the "e" in the syllable "kel" is reduced to a schwa ([ə]) sound, common in many German pronunciations of unstressed vowels.
  - jpgvm 3y ago
    Sadly enough I did know that but wrote it wrong anyway! Fixed, thanks. :)
pengaru 3y ago
> Does it produce more low end torque verses a traditional gasoline combustion engine? If not then why is it better suited for electrical generation? What does low end torque have to do with electrical generation?
- jiveturkey 3y ago
  It's not a direct connection. You do want efficient horsepower to drive a generator. More low end torque means the HP comes at lower RPM, which should mean less fuel consumption. Sibling says the achilles heel of the Wankel rotary is low end torque, but you don't take the direct output from the engine, it goes through gear reduction for final drive output. The real achilles heel is the awful emissions. It's more or less a 2 cycle engine from that POV. When driven at variable speeds it's hard to wrangle. The reason it's well suited for electrical generation is its mechanical simplicity, compactness, low weight, low NVH, and not least important, "rotary" brand value. I suppose that when run at constant RPM and constant or smoothly changing load, the emissions is easier to deal with.
  - pengaru 3y ago
    The side-port exhaust used in the rx-8 generation RE substantially improved the emissions situation, but the fuel efficiency is still trash by modern ICE standards. It's been awhile since I gave a damn about wankels (or ICEs in general), but ISTR there being a relatively low limit to achievable static compression ratio due to the fundamental geometry of the swept volume. Modern ICE engines are largely exploiting the combination of direct injection and the high compression ratios it enables to improve their thermal efficiency. Between the relatively low compression ratio and sub-optimal combustion chamber shape and the fact that it migrates around the housing with the power stroke, the wankel is pretty much doomed in a world that cares about efficiency. disclaimer: I've worked hard to discard all my gearhead knowledge, but went fairly deep down the rx-7 rabbithole in my 20s-30s. Take the above with a big grain of "I may be senile and overconfident in stale once-deep knowledge" salt.
    - jiveturkey 3y ago
WillAdams 3y ago
Pretty much. One (potential?) advantage not mentioned in the article is lighter weight relative to a similar traditional engine.
- joking 3y ago
  Would be good as a range extender motor. I think smaller battery cars with range extenders should be a better option than what we have now.
  - thehappypm 3y ago
    Oh my God, if Tesla sold a range extender gas generator that sat in the frunk, and could add an extra 150 miles.. take my money.
_ea1k 3y ago
Low end torque tends to be the rotary's Achilles heel. I think the claim being made is that efficiency is better at high, steady RPMs, but tbh, I've always found that claim a bit dubious. If you love the rotary engine, this does have some nice perks as the electric motor basically fixes the rotary engine's main weakness. Having said that, I'd have been much more excited about this 10-15 years ago.
- ianai 3y ago
  A YTer said it allows the rotary engine to operate in its best circumstances. It’s essentially a range extender while battery tech improves.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  It fixes the terrible efficiency by having an entirely different power source? As others have pointed out, the article doesn’t do a great job of explaining how the rotary helps.
- suprjami 3y ago
  It really isn't. Go and drive a 13BT car. They make almost all their torque by 2500rpm and the curve is flat. They're more torquey than any 4 cylinder I've driven.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    I've owned an RX-7 and an RX-8. They definitely didn't have flat torque curves. Even the twin sequential setup on the FC was far from flat. But even if it was, that was the most powerful stock configuration made and it topped out at ~184 lb/ft. :) Torque was never the strength of this motor.
    - suprjami 3y ago
      I had a turbo FC and beg to differ. A dyno graph of a stock car also begs to differ.
      - 3y ago
skellera 3y ago
I don’t understand why Mazda doesn’t just make a drift-tuned electric car. You could do amazing stuff with software focused on that driving style. A true electric successor to the RX-7 would capture so much attention.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  The unique sound is a key selling point for rotary enthusiasts. Kind of raspy, almost like a 2-stroke.
  - mikestew 3y ago
    Kind of raspy, almost like a 2-stroke. That's not what the TV commercials from the 70s told me: "Piston engine goes 'boing, boing, boing, boing'" "But the Mazda goes 'hmmmmmmm'" (Oh, of course there's a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo)
- porphyra 3y ago
  Sports cars, in general, are much loved but seldom bought.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    You’d think its a different time now that the kids who grew up lusting over these cars now have money for one, enough money to create a new car market where even a pickup truck can be almost six figures optioned out
    - porphyra 3y ago
      Yeah but by the time you're able to afford one you will be married with kids and therefore prioritize practicality over drifting.
  - Prcmaker 3y ago
    I'm literally waiting for it, have been for quite a while. Small cars have numerous benefits over just being sporty. An electric, or even a hybrid 86/BRZ or miata would be great, but can't be compared to the mini or fiat, and while tesla might be fast, it's huge. Even with a price increase these could be more affordable than a lot of sports cars. The 86/BRZ has been a huge seller too.
porphyra 3y ago
Low end torque is not that relevant to electrical generation, which typically involves the motor constantly running at a constant rpm. So, since low end torque is a weakness of the Wankel engine, that actually makes it more suitable for electrical generation than for driving directly.
dragontamer 3y ago
> Does it produce more low end torque verses a traditional gasoline combustion engine? If not then why is it better suited for electrical generation? Is it more efficient with less load? You've got it backwards. The Prius's Atkinson engine makes low-end torque *worse*, and then relies upon the EV Motor to drive the car at low speeds (0mph to 10mph) before the ICE kicks back in. If ICE is operating, its at higher RPMs where the generator can still be useful (low RPMs like 500 are too low for the Atkinson engine to be effective in any way, the computer instead increases the RPM to maybe 2000, and uses all the power to drive a generator instead) ------------ So you see, the name of the game is efficiency at all costs, with EV-motors assisting whatever compromise you built into the motor. In the case of Toyota, its absolutely undrivable crap for low-end torque ICE, but a powerful enough 60hp to 100hp electric-motor that can handle the low-speeds and stop-and-go traffic, smoothing out any problems. ------ IE: The engineers build a highly compromised ICE engine (the Atkinson engine) that has a far narrower band of usable RPMs than a normal vehicle. Then they smooth out those problems with electric motors. It sounds like Mazda is doing the same trick here with their Rotary engine, but the Rotary engine doesn't have the crazy-good efficiency curves that the Toyota Atkinson engine has. Efficiency isn't the "only" name of the game however, but Mazda now needs to find out a good way to market this engine / highlight its strengths.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
  It's not like the ICE doesn't do anything at low speeds, HSD uses the two motor-generators like a gearbox
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Isn't it a Miller cycle engine, not Atkinson? Miller cycle exploits variable valve timing to make the compression stroke effectively shorter than the expansion stroke (but reduces the amount of air being compressed, reducing power); Atkinson has some funky extra joints in the rod or crankshaft, I think. Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle However, these modern Miller cycle engines are being called Atkinson or Atkinson-Miller cycle for some reason.
brucethemoose2 3y ago
Power/Weight is extremely high. A tiny wankel will do the job, and weight is everything on cars. It does prefer a narrow RPM band, which is fine. Reliability is the biggest concern TBH, but maybe that's not a huge bummer if its more of a backup/assistant engine.
- suprjami 3y ago
  Reliability for rotaries hasn't been a concern for a long time. Modern apex seals work well and last a reasonably long time. There is a need to stop parroting facts from the 1980s.
pavlov 3y ago
It can be the whole story. Engineering organizations fall in love with superficial attributes of solutions that worked especially well for them in the past. When RIM/BlackBerry realized the iPhone was a serious threat, they built a touchscreen phone where the entire display produces a physical clicking effect because they were so convinced that what people really want from a smartphone is the click of a keyboard. Mazda is BlackBerry, and the rotary engine is their clicky keyboard.
- cpursley 3y ago
  > Mazda is BlackBerry No, they're not. Go test drive a Miata. They make the most fun cars to come out of Japan. And also have one of the better design languages.
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    As much as I love Mazda, if the only thing they'll have for them is fun, they are dead as a mass manufacturer.
    - itsoktocry 3y ago
      Every car/SUV they make is highly rated. Reliable, well priced, good looks, premium interiors and, yes, fun.
- interstice 3y ago
  Since the achilles heal of the rotary is wearing seals has anyone seriously invested in testing coating/material tech for this? It may not make sense for mass production but spending ~10k to make a bulletproof rx7 would be an incredibly good investment.
ryukoposting 3y ago
It has nothing to do with sentimentality. Wankels have tremendous power-to-weight and power-to-size ratios. Their main problem is reliability. The generally accepted solution to improve rotary engine reliability (oil injection) results in poor emissions. The wide, flat-ish combustion chamber doesn't help the emissions problem, either. The Wankel is at its most efficient and its most reliable when operating at a constant RPM. Conveniently, the EV generator application demands a pretty flat RPM band. As a result, the engine doesn't need to lean as hard into those emissions-increasing compromises. Thus, EVs allow the Wankel's benefits over a reciprocating-piston engine to be reaped without the same costs as before. In theory, at least. It remains to be seen if the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks. I'm glad they're at least going to give it a try.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  These three paragraphs would have been a far more enlightening article than the posted article.
- ghostly_s 3y ago
  > The Wankel is at its most efficient and its most reliable when operating at a constant RPM. Conveniently, the EV generator application demands a pretty flat RPM band. If I understand the article correctly, the "series" hybrid configuration means precisely that it cannot operate at the ideal rpm when charging the battery, because it is always driving the wheels directly as well.
  - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
    I think you have series and parallel hybrids backwards. Series hybrids have no mechanical connection between engine and wheels. It's just an EV with a generator wired in.
  - ryukoposting 3y ago
    Exactly the opposite. In a series hybrid, there is no mechanical connection between the engine and the wheels - only an electrical one, with the battery still providing considerable power in most cases, even when it's depleted. No hybrid ever runs its battery all the way to zero, and series hybrids are no exception. The Chevy Volt (the other notable series hybrid in Western markets) keeps its engine at a near-constant RPM by using the battery to supply torque, even when the battery is "dead." I would expect the MX-30 to do the same. IME in several thousand miles driving/riding in a Volt, it hums away within a very narrow RPM band unless you hoon it on a dead battery in cold weather. Even then, it's not nearly as wide of a rev band as a conventional hybrid.
simne 3y ago
Wankels have only one advantage - they are about two times more powerful on same volume (you could consider them as very clean two stroke engines). Unfortunately, Wankels have extremely huge mechanical problems - complex geometry (classic ICU are very close to just cylinders), need of better materials, depend on much better oil. And also big problem is production scale, as I talked with people, they considered Wankels as toy, you will just utilize when it run out guarantee term. For example, for standard ICU, considered big repair, sleeves, so they will continue working, sure, less heavy duty than new.
agloe_dreams 3y ago
One interesting detail is that Mazda never designed a wankel after the 90s. They have claimed since then that computer design and simulation has allowed for dramatic performance gains.
markhahn 3y ago
sorry, why would low-end torque be important?
jqpabc123 3y ago
Once you discover a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There are better designs than Wankel for "series hybrid" application. https://newatlas.com/automotive/innengine-one-stroke-engine-design/#gallery:5 https://newatlas.com/automotive/innengine-one-stroke-engine-...

jpgvm 3y ago

Wankels can be made extremely compact so that might have something to do with it, i.e it has both very high power to weight and power to volume specs. I honestly don't know if that is the reason though, perhaps someone more knowledgeable of the specifics of range extenders might chime in but I imagine that is an important factor.

sethhochberg 3y ago
They have a pretty narrow power band (produce efficient max power at a small range of RPMs) which always somewhat limited their use for normal ICE cars, but is a pretty workable constraint for an electrical generator. So you have compact size, good power to weight ratio, and power limitations that don't really matter for range extender purposes. Lots of potential. I can't find the article right now, but I'd swear I remember discussion here a handful of months ago about a startup marketing a similar EV range extender engine design.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  They have low compression though, which really hurts the thermal efficiency.
- coryrc 3y ago
  Then you may as well use a gas turbine, which is pretty much better in every way that matters for generating purposes.
  - iamthirsty 3y ago
    Except extremely complex and usually hard to repair and inefficiently sized for a consumer car.
    - userbinator 3y ago
      Actually far simpler than a piston engine; the fuel consumption and high production cost was what made them become extinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car
      - kyleee 3y ago
        Of course Jay Leno has one; not sure if he’s featured it on his youtube channel (I don’t recall seeing it). Awesome
        01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
        Yep I've seen it on his YouTube. The "EcoJet" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10q9_pB6unU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10q9_pB6unU He said that they had to put really big brakes on it. I guess for some reason you can't just have a clutch. Personally if I was going for eco I'd want something more clever than "bigger brakes" but maybe building something like a Hybrid Synergy Drive is harder than building a turbine.
        SoftTalker 3y ago
        > He said that they had to put really big brakes on it. There's no compression braking (engine braking) with a turbine engine.
        ssl-3 3y ago
        Also: While Leno seems to be very interested in restoration, he also is clearly very interested in staying alive. He's got a ton of old cars that have been modified to have very good, modern disc brakes. The EcoJet is just one of many examples of his cars that have been improved in this way.
- eep_social 3y ago
  Maybe you’re thinking of the Edison kits? They seem to be putting a genset into the truck bed to do EV conversions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38893567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38893567
- seltzered_ 3y ago
  > I'd swear I remember discussion here a handful of months ago about a startup marketing a similar EV range extender engine design. Possibly https://liquidpiston.com https://liquidpiston.com Prior discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Liquidpiston&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
speed_spread 3y ago
In a hybrid vehicle, the gas engine can be run mostly as a generator, which makes it possible to further optimize it for a very specific load. It's possible that such an updated+tuned Wankel could be a great fit for certain applications where space and weight are at a premium. They can simulate lots of it but to get real answers, they have to build the engine and see how it holds up. Also Mazda is a small-ish manufacturer at the Japanese scale. Since Wankels are part of their identity they could decide to build a car with it even though the downsides wouldn't make sense for a "rational" brand like Toyota. It can give them that creative freedom that help make desirable cars and keep Mazda relevant.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  Mazda Rotary 'Launch': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdjj52FUsEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdjj52FUsEo >These are some of the earliest ads I wrote and directed. Many of these ads cost our client just a couple of hundred dollars. When you look at this early attempt ant animation, it's not surprising that it didn't cost much more as a decent lunch these day! >It's hard to believe now how absolutely 'revolutionary' the rotary engine appeared to be in those days. Many of us expected that they would eventually take over from reciprocating engines completely. >This ad was produced just before the moon landing. >The Agency was Hayes Advertising, Sydney. My producer (and dear friend) was Max Cleary and the Account Director was Vic Violet. Mazda RX-3 Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo >Piston engine goes boing, boing, boing, boing. >Mazda engine goes Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Felix Wankel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Wankel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Wankel >Wankel and the Nazi Party >During the early 1920s Wankel was a member of various radical anti-Semitic organizations. In 1921 he joined the Heidelberg branch of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund and in 1922 he became a member of the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers Party (or "Nazi Party"), which was banned soon afterwards. Wankel founded and led youth groups associated with a cover-up organization of the NSDAP. With them he conducted paramilitary training, scouting games and night walks.[3] When his high esteem for technical innovations was not widely shared among the German Youth Movement, he was offered instead the opportunity to talk about the issue of technology and education to Adolf Hitler and other leading National Socialists in 1928.[4] >In the meantime Wankel's mother, Gerty had helped founding the local chapter of the NSDAP in his hometown of Lahr. Here Wankel not only rejoined the party in 1926, but also met the local Gauleiter, i.e. regional head of the NSDAP party, Robert Heinrich Wagner. In 1931 Wagner entrusted Wankel with the leadership of the Hitler Youth in Baden. But they soon fell out with each other, because Wankel tried to put a stronger emphasis on military training, whereas Wagner wished for the Hitler Youth to be a primarily political organization. In a particularly bitter and ugly controversy Wankel publicly accused Wagner of corruption. Wagner retaliated by stripping Wankel of his office by early 1932 and managed to have him expelled from the party in October 1932. >Wankel, who sympathized with the social-revolutionary wing of the NSDAP with Gregor Strasser, then founded his own National Socialist splinter group in Lahr and continued his attacks on Wagner. Since the Nazis' seizure of power on 30 January 1933 had strengthened his position, Wagner had Wankel arrested and imprisoned in the Lahr jail in March 1933. Only by intervention of Hitler's economic adviser Wilhelm Keppler and Hitler himself, was Wankel set free in September 1933.[5] A fellow native of Baden and member of Reichstag from 1933 to 1945, Keppler had been a friend of Wankel and an ardent supporter of his technological endeavors since 1927. He now helped Wankel to get state contracts and his own Wankels Versuchs Werkstätten experimental workshop in Lindau. >Wankel tried to rejoin the NSDAP in 1937, but was turned down.[6] With the help of Keppler, however, he was admitted to the SS in 1940 in the rank of Obersturmbannführer.[7] Two years later his membership was revoked for unknown reasons.[6]
porphyra 3y ago
nit: it's spelt Wankel not Wankle. Also for those who don't know, it's pronounced /ˈvaŋkl̩/ or /ˈvaŋkəl̩/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In German, "W" is pronounced as "V" in English, and the "e" in the syllable "kel" is reduced to a schwa ([ə]) sound, common in many German pronunciations of unstressed vowels.
- jpgvm 3y ago
  Sadly enough I did know that but wrote it wrong anyway! Fixed, thanks. :)

pengaru 3y ago

> Does it produce more low end torque verses a traditional gasoline combustion engine? If not then why is it better suited for electrical generation? What does low end torque have to do with electrical generation?

jiveturkey 3y ago
It's not a direct connection. You do want efficient horsepower to drive a generator. More low end torque means the HP comes at lower RPM, which should mean less fuel consumption. Sibling says the achilles heel of the Wankel rotary is low end torque, but you don't take the direct output from the engine, it goes through gear reduction for final drive output. The real achilles heel is the awful emissions. It's more or less a 2 cycle engine from that POV. When driven at variable speeds it's hard to wrangle. The reason it's well suited for electrical generation is its mechanical simplicity, compactness, low weight, low NVH, and not least important, "rotary" brand value. I suppose that when run at constant RPM and constant or smoothly changing load, the emissions is easier to deal with.
- pengaru 3y ago
  The side-port exhaust used in the rx-8 generation RE substantially improved the emissions situation, but the fuel efficiency is still trash by modern ICE standards. It's been awhile since I gave a damn about wankels (or ICEs in general), but ISTR there being a relatively low limit to achievable static compression ratio due to the fundamental geometry of the swept volume. Modern ICE engines are largely exploiting the combination of direct injection and the high compression ratios it enables to improve their thermal efficiency. Between the relatively low compression ratio and sub-optimal combustion chamber shape and the fact that it migrates around the housing with the power stroke, the wankel is pretty much doomed in a world that cares about efficiency. disclaimer: I've worked hard to discard all my gearhead knowledge, but went fairly deep down the rx-7 rabbithole in my 20s-30s. Take the above with a big grain of "I may be senile and overconfident in stale once-deep knowledge" salt.
  - jiveturkey 3y ago

WillAdams 3y ago

Pretty much. One (potential?) advantage not mentioned in the article is lighter weight relative to a similar traditional engine.

joking 3y ago
Would be good as a range extender motor. I think smaller battery cars with range extenders should be a better option than what we have now.
- thehappypm 3y ago
  Oh my God, if Tesla sold a range extender gas generator that sat in the frunk, and could add an extra 150 miles.. take my money.

_ea1k 3y ago

Low end torque tends to be the rotary's Achilles heel. I think the claim being made is that efficiency is better at high, steady RPMs, but tbh, I've always found that claim a bit dubious. If you love the rotary engine, this does have some nice perks as the electric motor basically fixes the rotary engine's main weakness. Having said that, I'd have been much more excited about this 10-15 years ago.

ianai 3y ago
A YTer said it allows the rotary engine to operate in its best circumstances. It’s essentially a range extender while battery tech improves.
lostlogin 3y ago
It fixes the terrible efficiency by having an entirely different power source? As others have pointed out, the article doesn’t do a great job of explaining how the rotary helps.
suprjami 3y ago
It really isn't. Go and drive a 13BT car. They make almost all their torque by 2500rpm and the curve is flat. They're more torquey than any 4 cylinder I've driven.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  I've owned an RX-7 and an RX-8. They definitely didn't have flat torque curves. Even the twin sequential setup on the FC was far from flat. But even if it was, that was the most powerful stock configuration made and it topped out at ~184 lb/ft. :) Torque was never the strength of this motor.
  - suprjami 3y ago
    I had a turbo FC and beg to differ. A dyno graph of a stock car also begs to differ.
    - 3y ago

skellera 3y ago

I don’t understand why Mazda doesn’t just make a drift-tuned electric car. You could do amazing stuff with software focused on that driving style. A true electric successor to the RX-7 would capture so much attention.

HPsquared 3y ago
The unique sound is a key selling point for rotary enthusiasts. Kind of raspy, almost like a 2-stroke.
- mikestew 3y ago
  Kind of raspy, almost like a 2-stroke. That's not what the TV commercials from the 70s told me: "Piston engine goes 'boing, boing, boing, boing'" "But the Mazda goes 'hmmmmmmm'" (Oh, of course there's a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzeGEHWMjo)
porphyra 3y ago
Sports cars, in general, are much loved but seldom bought.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  You’d think its a different time now that the kids who grew up lusting over these cars now have money for one, enough money to create a new car market where even a pickup truck can be almost six figures optioned out
  - porphyra 3y ago
    Yeah but by the time you're able to afford one you will be married with kids and therefore prioritize practicality over drifting.
- Prcmaker 3y ago
  I'm literally waiting for it, have been for quite a while. Small cars have numerous benefits over just being sporty. An electric, or even a hybrid 86/BRZ or miata would be great, but can't be compared to the mini or fiat, and while tesla might be fast, it's huge. Even with a price increase these could be more affordable than a lot of sports cars. The 86/BRZ has been a huge seller too.

porphyra 3y ago

Low end torque is not that relevant to electrical generation, which typically involves the motor constantly running at a constant rpm. So, since low end torque is a weakness of the Wankel engine, that actually makes it more suitable for electrical generation than for driving directly.

dragontamer 3y ago

> Does it produce more low end torque verses a traditional gasoline combustion engine? If not then why is it better suited for electrical generation? Is it more efficient with less load? You've got it backwards. The Prius's Atkinson engine makes low-end torque *worse*, and then relies upon the EV Motor to drive the car at low speeds (0mph to 10mph) before the ICE kicks back in. If ICE is operating, its at higher RPMs where the generator can still be useful (low RPMs like 500 are too low for the Atkinson engine to be effective in any way, the computer instead increases the RPM to maybe 2000, and uses all the power to drive a generator instead) ------------ So you see, the name of the game is efficiency at all costs, with EV-motors assisting whatever compromise you built into the motor. In the case of Toyota, its absolutely undrivable crap for low-end torque ICE, but a powerful enough 60hp to 100hp electric-motor that can handle the low-speeds and stop-and-go traffic, smoothing out any problems. ------ IE: The engineers build a highly compromised ICE engine (the Atkinson engine) that has a far narrower band of usable RPMs than a normal vehicle. Then they smooth out those problems with electric motors. It sounds like Mazda is doing the same trick here with their Rotary engine, but the Rotary engine doesn't have the crazy-good efficiency curves that the Toyota Atkinson engine has. Efficiency isn't the "only" name of the game however, but Mazda now needs to find out a good way to market this engine / highlight its strengths.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
It's not like the ICE doesn't do anything at low speeds, HSD uses the two motor-generators like a gearbox
pfdietz 3y ago
Isn't it a Miller cycle engine, not Atkinson? Miller cycle exploits variable valve timing to make the compression stroke effectively shorter than the expansion stroke (but reduces the amount of air being compressed, reducing power); Atkinson has some funky extra joints in the rod or crankshaft, I think. Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle However, these modern Miller cycle engines are being called Atkinson or Atkinson-Miller cycle for some reason.

brucethemoose2 3y ago

Power/Weight is extremely high. A tiny wankel will do the job, and weight is everything on cars. It does prefer a narrow RPM band, which is fine. Reliability is the biggest concern TBH, but maybe that's not a huge bummer if its more of a backup/assistant engine.

suprjami 3y ago
Reliability for rotaries hasn't been a concern for a long time. Modern apex seals work well and last a reasonably long time. There is a need to stop parroting facts from the 1980s.

pavlov 3y ago

It can be the whole story. Engineering organizations fall in love with superficial attributes of solutions that worked especially well for them in the past. When RIM/BlackBerry realized the iPhone was a serious threat, they built a touchscreen phone where the entire display produces a physical clicking effect because they were so convinced that what people really want from a smartphone is the click of a keyboard. Mazda is BlackBerry, and the rotary engine is their clicky keyboard.

cpursley 3y ago
> Mazda is BlackBerry No, they're not. Go test drive a Miata. They make the most fun cars to come out of Japan. And also have one of the better design languages.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  As much as I love Mazda, if the only thing they'll have for them is fun, they are dead as a mass manufacturer.
  - itsoktocry 3y ago
    Every car/SUV they make is highly rated. Reliable, well priced, good looks, premium interiors and, yes, fun.
interstice 3y ago
Since the achilles heal of the rotary is wearing seals has anyone seriously invested in testing coating/material tech for this? It may not make sense for mass production but spending ~10k to make a bulletproof rx7 would be an incredibly good investment.

ryukoposting 3y ago

It has nothing to do with sentimentality. Wankels have tremendous power-to-weight and power-to-size ratios. Their main problem is reliability. The generally accepted solution to improve rotary engine reliability (oil injection) results in poor emissions. The wide, flat-ish combustion chamber doesn't help the emissions problem, either. The Wankel is at its most efficient and its most reliable when operating at a constant RPM. Conveniently, the EV generator application demands a pretty flat RPM band. As a result, the engine doesn't need to lean as hard into those emissions-increasing compromises. Thus, EVs allow the Wankel's benefits over a reciprocating-piston engine to be reaped without the same costs as before. In theory, at least. It remains to be seen if the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks. I'm glad they're at least going to give it a try.

sanderjd 3y ago
These three paragraphs would have been a far more enlightening article than the posted article.
ghostly_s 3y ago
> The Wankel is at its most efficient and its most reliable when operating at a constant RPM. Conveniently, the EV generator application demands a pretty flat RPM band. If I understand the article correctly, the "series" hybrid configuration means precisely that it cannot operate at the ideal rpm when charging the battery, because it is always driving the wheels directly as well.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  I think you have series and parallel hybrids backwards. Series hybrids have no mechanical connection between engine and wheels. It's just an EV with a generator wired in.
- ryukoposting 3y ago
  Exactly the opposite. In a series hybrid, there is no mechanical connection between the engine and the wheels - only an electrical one, with the battery still providing considerable power in most cases, even when it's depleted. No hybrid ever runs its battery all the way to zero, and series hybrids are no exception. The Chevy Volt (the other notable series hybrid in Western markets) keeps its engine at a near-constant RPM by using the battery to supply torque, even when the battery is "dead." I would expect the MX-30 to do the same. IME in several thousand miles driving/riding in a Volt, it hums away within a very narrow RPM band unless you hoon it on a dead battery in cold weather. Even then, it's not nearly as wide of a rev band as a conventional hybrid.

simne 3y ago

Wankels have only one advantage - they are about two times more powerful on same volume (you could consider them as very clean two stroke engines). Unfortunately, Wankels have extremely huge mechanical problems - complex geometry (classic ICU are very close to just cylinders), need of better materials, depend on much better oil. And also big problem is production scale, as I talked with people, they considered Wankels as toy, you will just utilize when it run out guarantee term. For example, for standard ICU, considered big repair, sleeves, so they will continue working, sure, less heavy duty than new.

agloe_dreams 3y ago

One interesting detail is that Mazda never designed a wankel after the 90s. They have claimed since then that computer design and simulation has allowed for dramatic performance gains.

markhahn 3y ago

sorry, why would low-end torque be important?

jqpabc123 3y ago

Once you discover a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There are better designs than Wankel for "series hybrid" application. https://newatlas.com/automotive/innengine-one-stroke-engine-design/#gallery:5 https://newatlas.com/automotive/innengine-one-stroke-engine-...