The Mazda Miata holds a special place in the hearts and driveways of a great many gearheads. The little roadster is among the last of its kind, born as a rebirth of a kind of basic, light, fun sports car, in the style of many early sports cars like MGs and Triumphs and Austin-Healeys, all about the joys of driving something affordable, light and tossable, with less emphasis on raw power. They’re great. And Mazda deserves a lot of credit for keeping the Miata going, though where it goes next may be a bit of a question.
Recently, Mazda CEO Masahiro Moro told German outlet Auto Motor und Sport that the next MX-5/Miata may need to not use a combustion engine. Here’s the quote:
“The successor must also be ready for a scenario without a combustion engine . The challenge for us is to make the basic structure lighter without using exotic materials like carbon fiber.”
Previously, EV power for the Miata had always seemed to be a non-starter for weight reasons. EVs are heavy because batteries are heavy. Very heavy. That heaviness is antithetical to what a Miata is, which is why Moro made a point to talk about making the basic structure lighter, while avoiding expensive, exotic materials.
Now, okay, great, lighter is better for a Miata, sure. And exotic materials I absolutely agree are not what the Miata is all about. But what that hypothetical resulting light, sporty EV may become could still be cool, but I’m not sure it’ll be a Miata.
EV powertrains are high-torque, high power, smooth, and fast. Those are great, but they’re not really what I think would be part of Miata DNA? And even with some clever body lightening techniques (will this resulting car look like a trypophobic’s nightmare?) can it match or even beat a current Miata’s weight of 2,300 to 2,500 pounds?
Maybe. But there will definitely be a cost for range, which is still largely a function of how much battery a car has. Sure, aero and weight and gearing and a host of other factors are important, but fundamentally, battery capacity is the analogue to the combustion aphorism of there not being any replacement for displacement. But you know, for range instead of power.
That’s just not a Miata! Miatas should be light and agile, and not too heavy on the power. The current highest-horsepower Miata is still below 200 hp, and that’s fine. Personally, I think even approaching 200 hp is starting to miss the point.
I just don’t know who the market for an EV Miata is, really. Even an automatic Miata I can understand, because there are people who can’t drive stick who want to feel all of the other engaging qualities of the car. I mean, I think the manual experience is the better one, but I don’t want to gatekeep too hard here, because that’s jerky.
An EV Miata is even more different, though. It’s just not a Miata at that point. It’s somehow too refined, too advanced, too smooth, too, well, just too much.
Now, that said, I do think there is one context where electrification can make sense for a Miata, and the answer to that is a mushroom.
Well, a metaphorical mushroom. I’m thinking of the Mario Kart-style mushroom, which is an instant speed power-up.
You know what I’m talking about – it’s brief, limited-run speed boost. These sorts of insta-speed boosts actually do exist in the real world, but not via fungal means. It’s electrical, and it’s usually known as a KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System).
Here’s a good explanation from – holy crap, 14 years ago, look how young our man Jason Fenske looks! – Engineering Explained:
F1 cars have used electric KERS systems since 2009; in 2014 they moved to a more modern energy recovery system that also adds a heat recovery system.
What I’m thinking for the Miata is more like an old KERS system, with a motor that can act as a generator and a small battery. Small is key here! I’m imagining a small electric motor, maybe one that adds, at most, 50 hp or so, in the car’s drivetrain, and a small battery to store recovered braking/coasting energy.
The implementation would be a simple SPEED BOOST button; maybe it has an LED behind it to show when it’s ready or not – red, not ready, yellow, charging, green good to go! Our hypothetical, very mildly-hybrid’d future Miata driver could push the button and get a momentary burst of extra horsepower to pass or get up a steep hill or just enjoy a kick in the pants.
I’m talking a burst that lasts, oh, maybe 10 to 15 seconds of an extra 50-ish hp, and then can recharge after a few minutes of driving. It’s not constant high power; it’s a literal boost, and part of the fun of using it is figuring out when to use it.
That’s all I’d want from an electrified Miata – an extra bit of fun. A KERS system like this maybe has an effective electric-only range of, oh, two miles at 35 mph or so, if you, say ran out of gas and had to desperately get to the next exit or something. But it’s not for that.
And it’s not to improve gas mileage, which on a Miata is already quite good. I suppose it would save a bit of fuel, since you can get bursts of speed without mashing on the throttle, but again, that’s not what it’s really about.
What it’s about is fun. And that’s why it’s different than an all-EV Miata with a carefully-engineered lightweight body. Because that’s less fun. Impressive, sure, but a Miata? I don’t think so.
So, Mazda, if you’re so dead set on having an electric motor in a Miata, I think this is the way. The way of the mushroom.
Top graphic images: Mazda; Nintendo
“There’s Only One Way An Electrified Miata Makes Sense”
Yes, NONE…EVER. Best way to completely ruin a great car that’s “always the answer.”. Get rid of all EV’s that need to be crushed since they are fake boring appliances. Any wussy motor added is not a real engine therefore not a real car. I’d rather put in a big ol awesome V8 in a Miata (no room though) from Uncle Buck’s car so it can backfire and belch black smoke at EV’s, ha ha
As the driver of an electric MINI Cooper, I can tell you that there is a place for small EV sport cars. Yes, the MINI EV suffers from truncated range, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to drive. Give me one of those without a top and I’m in. 😀
Way back, probably 25-30 years ago, I remember the very first time I heard of a hybrid vehicle and I instantly assumed it was for the purpose of adding power and making a car more sporty. Of course, all we got was the Prius and Leaf for quite some time and they are the antithesis of a sporty car so you can understand my frustration. I still don’t fully understand why hybrid systems with the primary purpose of adding performance aren’t more popular.
They’re out there, but the bigassed motors you need to make them power-adds instead of efficiency aids are expensive, so they tend to be found in exotics like the Porsche 918. And even in that car, the electric motors only added 50% more power compared to the 600-ish hp coming out of the ICE motor.
A Prius driver isn’t going to want to spend well into 5 figures more for the car just to go faster. Wrong demo.
And a lot of the performance enthusiasts are still stuck in the old “electric cars are soulless appliances” crap so they’re a hard sell as well. That reminds me of the 90s/2000s when people were running around saying bullshit like “there’s no replacement for displacement” and earlier eras when, for some reason, people decided OHC was wussy and bitched that we were getting rid of pushrods.
It’s very strange how resistant some car people are to technological advances.
Actually we got the Insight first. Great car.
Make it so.
Aluminum is the only answer to non-carbon fiber light weight chassis. Range and packaging will be the main problems after cost.
IF they can retain the original embodiment of “Horse & Rider As One” they may arrive at with a winning product, but if compromises distracting from this become apparent it wont work. Create an electric Miata today, in the days before automotive batteries reach their final form is a very hard if not nearly impossible task. Lets be open minded.
I guess I’m in the minority, but I like the idea of an electric Porsche Boxster or Miata.
OPTION1: Electrify the rear axle, batteries in the tunnel and behind the front axle for mass centralization. 200 HP max, simulated shifts ala Hyundai N as a toggle. Target a real world range of 220 miles.
OPTION 2: Add a 50 hp through-the-road hybrid to the front axle and downsize the gasoline engine for weight savings. No major modification necessary to engine or transmission, and expands the viable market and useability with basic awd traction.
I like option 1, we can go BEV or in-line hybrid and still have a really fun chassis.
I’m not keen on option 2, though. Adding an independent front drive system is the wrong way to electrify a sports car.
It’s much lighter and simpler to sandwich the motor between the engine and clutch, and leads to a more consistent driving experience. Consistency is my highest priority in a sports car, the more different ways it can react to an input, the harder it becomes to have fun with it, especially as the software that controls said system gets smarter and more meddlesome. An independently- powered front axle means there’s a computer that decides when to send power to the front, and that computer could decide to do so when you’re trying to initiate some rotation on corner exit, or it could decide to not send power to the front when you’re trying to use the throttle to weigh the rear and straighten out.
Boxsters and Miatas are great because they’re simple to drive, and messing with that would be a mistake. The 918 and NSX are cool performance-focused supercars, but neither one was ever accused of being chuckable.
Not to be a Dick or anything, but Do Autopians Dream of Electric Miatas?
Good one! But, I think they just want to do less Phillips, K?
Not sure how I feel about an electrified Miata in general. I’ll reserve judgement until I see what the NE gen can actually is.
I figure since people convert Bugs to electric, someone must be doing this for Miatas. Lo, C&D has an article about one in Dec 2024.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a63098752/mazda-miata-ev-conversion-kit-details/
For an NA, it adds 200 pounds — like, another me in the passenger seat, and it is about the weight of the more recent Miata. The cost might be the same as another Miata, though.
Electric motors have the rocket engine problem going – for rockets, the ratio of fuel weight to payload weight is something like 10 or 100:1, that is 100lbs of fuel for 1lb of payload. EVs aren’t that bad, but they’ve got the same doom-spiral – a more powerful engine requires larger batteries requires a more powerful engine.
I’d love to see a real attempt to say “ok, we’re comfortable with the performance of a Miata today, so what’s it look like to pull the weight down far enough we can get away with a weak enough motor to get good enough range without the batteries driving us out of our desired weight/power envelope?” A Miata doesn’t need to go 0-60 in 2 seconds – hell, 5 seconds is fast for a Miata – so you don’t need 1000hp of electric motor, so what’s the rest of the equation look like?
The payoff here is the trade the Miata’s always been making – small engine means low torque (yeah yeah don’t @ me) – goes away. The electric gives you torque wherever, which means all the sudden you’ve got a go-kart with razor handling and instant response in a road car package, which is like the Ur-expression of a Miata.
True, but the same issue exists for ICE engines as well. The ZR1 has a bigger fuel tank than my ES350 for exactly that reason, because doing one 0-60 run between gas stations would get old.
I also think that as battery technology continues to evolve, we’ll see this doom spiral get much better. I remember back when I was in TV news, when I first started out the camera batteries were stupid-heavy. You wore them in a Batman-style utility belt around your waist, and they weighed around 13 pounds. Then we went to NiMH camera-mounted batteries at around 5 or 6 pounds. Then it went down to 3 pounds when Liion came out.
That’s going to continue to drop, especially when charging technology gets faster – people won’t feel like they need 600 miles of range in an EV so they don’t have to waste a bunch of time charging in the middle of a trip, so you can use fewer of those lighter batteries.
Dude 7 seconds would be fine. 1st gen miatas were slow but fun.
Yeah, and the Miata’s always gotten that it’s about power delivery, not raw numbers, too. Get the feeling right and 7 seconds is plenty.
I’m not sure the added expense or trouble of boost button would be worth it, but maybe if the KERS function could optionally be automated somehow.
Mazda already has a blueprint for its EV Miata: the J01 Mini Cooper SE, a car not sold in the US thanks to tariffs. The 54-kWh battery adds over 700 pounds, but it is legitimately fun to drive, as quick as the Miata, and a range over 200 miles is not bad.
The Mini weighs a little over 3,100 lbs. I think with some effort Mazda could get the EV Miata under 2,800. Better yet, by avoiding drivetrain trickery the company could keep the Miata’s price somewhat reasonable.
Torch: “trypophobic”. I had to look it up. Why do you know what this means?
I was a lead designer on the Mercury Avator electric outboard, and I pushed this idea SO HARD, because you technically CAN run an electric motor above what it’s rated for, for a brief time period before things start to overheat. It’s like a turbo button, that wouldn’t last very long. I didn’t win that fight, but I do think that idea has merit and would be a lot of fun. Technically though, it wouldn’t “need to recharge”, you could spam that button and the only limitation would be the temperature of the the motor or batteries. If those aren’t overheating, you could press that button again, right away. Or maybe the boost would last long enough until temps started to get near maximum? idk.
TLDR: It doesn’t need to ‘recharge’
Wouldn’t that be the perfect application for this?
If you could boost a boat’s motor up to get on plane, you could keep it up there with normal power. It’s a great way to let boaters use a smaller, lighter, cheaper motor without the drawbacks.
Yes. Nobody listened to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
BMW I3 weighed under 3000 lbs, surely the basic setup there with crucially a range extender should be doable. imagine if they used a single rotor taco motor to run the generator. that could be fun, but of course nobody would buy it unless the taco motor could be pulled out like a suit caes for track use or short stints to and from work.