Mazda’s stand at the Japan Mobility Show never disappoints, with breathtaking concepts like the RX-Vision taking center stage. This year, Mazda’s show cars tell a tale of two futures. The small Vision X-Compact hatchback shows commitment to a segment that is all but gone in the US but still has market share in Japan, while the Vision X-Coupe is a look at what a rotary-powered blueprint for the future might be.
The Vision X-Coupe represents Mazda’s latest evolution of its Kodo design language. Its sleek-as-hell profile hides four doors in a bullet-shaped fastback. It continues the abuse of the word “coupe” and, somewhat alarmingly, Mazda says it’s pronounced “Cross-Coupe”. That likely means this is Mazda’s idea of what a a future crossover might look like, though its proportions lean more towards the wagon end of the spectrum, which we unabashedly dig.
Its taillights harken back to the Mazda RX-Vision, perhaps a nod to what’s under the hood, and that’s a turbo dual-rotor motor as part of a plug-in hybrid system. Mazda says the powertrain is good for 160 km (99 miles) in electric-only mode and 800 km (497 miles) in hybrid mode. The powertrain generates 510 ps (503 hp).
With an eye towards sustainability, the X-Coupe is equipped with a new technology that pulls carbon dioxide directly from the exhaust. Dubbed “Mazda Mobile Carbon Capture”, the company says the capture C02 can then be recycled as fuel for crops or in the manufacture of high-performance carbon materials.
Mazda, along with Porsche, is one of a handful of carmakers working on e-fuels, or synthetic fuels produced via carbon-neutral methods. In Mazda’s case, they’re using microalgae to pull C02 from the atmosphere and produce fuel that can be used in internal combustion engines.
Mazda can produce one liter of fuel in two weeks using an 11,000-liter culture tank, but presumably the technology will become more efficient as it develops. The leftovers from the process are nutrient-rich organic algae that can be used as food or fertilizer.
With these technologies, in theory, Mazda says, you can actually help reduce C02 by driving a car like the X-Coupe. Whether that comes to mass market remains to be seen, but no matter what they call it, if Mazda can make it to production with these proportions the future of crossovers won’t look so drab after all.
The Mazda Vision X-Compact likely portends the next Demio, last seen on US shores as the Mazda 2 or 2015+ Toyota Yaris Hatchback. It’s very “Mazda” with nicely sculpted fenders and surfaces that play off lighting angles with elegance.
The party trick for the X-Compact is an “empathetic AI” that acts as a shotgun companion. Mazda insists that this isn’t an annoying nanny, but a “warm presence, not intrusive” that can tell you things like, “Hey, remember that café you mentioned last week? There’s a fun back road that will get us there. Way more interesting than this highway.”
It’ll also blow smoke with comments like “Ooh, nice merge!” or issue warnings like, “Blind spot, left side”. Mazda says it can anticipate your moods and choose an appropriate playlist to match or, thankfully, just shut up and stay silent if that’s what you want.
For many years Mazda has designed cars by paying special attention to what it calls human-centric engineering. That included steering wheels dead-centered to the driver’s (you’d be surprised how many cars aren’t built this way), suspension movements that mimics the way a head balances and swivels on a neck, infotainment placement that helps reduce eye re-focusing time from the road (distance) to the screen (close).
However, those are passive and make driving more enjoyable without the driver necessarily even noticing. We’re not sure the AI will accomplish the same thing, but maybe we need to stop yelling at the kids to get off our lawns first.
The hatchback sure looks sharp, though, and though it’s unlikely to come to the US we’re glad to see small cars live on in the rest of the world. In past years, Mazda has hit it out of the park at the Tokyo Motor Show with stunners like the RX-Vision, Vision Coupe and Kai, and Iconic SP. We’re glad to see the tradition continue.
Images courtesy of Mazda.
