There is a vile rumor afoot that is probably true.
It is that Mazda is planning – more finely, has been planning – to turn the Miata sports car into a device; i.e., a battery-powered thing that is called “Miata.” It may still have an engine – even a rotary engine, like the no-longer-made RX-7.
But it will be there to charge the device’s batteries, not turn its wheels. They would be driven by electric motors, the same as other devices. Which – of course – would make the Miata the same as other devices, thereby taking away the main reason people have had for buying them for all these years.
The idea of a carry-it-with-you “range extender” – as engines that charge the battery as you go (and so you can keep going) are styled – is seen as a way to address the range-gimp and wait-hassle that attends owning a device that has to be plugged in to charge up, thereby (so the device makers hope) addressing the reluctance of most people to buy a device.
“It really shows how much we wanted to make it a car that manifests Mazda’s commitment for the future, especially in terms of sustainability (italics added) and the future role of our rotary engine technology,” says Mazda’s Naohito Saga, who is in charge of Research and Development Planning.
The obvious question that arises – why not just sell them a car instead? – cannot be answered because it would affront the Climate Communists who’ve managed to bamboozle the general public into believing that the life-giving gas plants must have to generate the oxygen we must have in order to be able to breath (as well as the food we need to eat in order to live) is a “pollutant” that must be not be “emitted” by vehicles.
Ergo battery powered devices.
Never mind that a great deal of carbon dioxide is “emitted” in the course of manufacturing devices and keeping them powered up.
And it may not even be that the general public – i.e., “most people” – have bought into the silly but dangerous lies peddled by the Climate Communists about carbon dioxide “emissions.” It is enough that the Climate Communists have infested the regulatory apparat of the administrative state, specifically the EPA. For decades – not just the past four years – these Climate Communists have been piece-by-piece and bit-by-bit working to transform vehicles into devices via regulations that wax ever-more-stringent.
What happened over the course of the last four years – which you can see in showrooms across the country, now full of devices and part-time devices – is the fruit of this decades’ long effort to fundamentally transform vehicles into devices.
With each uptick in the apparat’s mandatory-minimum MPG requirements, with each uptick in the apparat’s “emissions” standards – it has gotten progressively harder and will soon become nigh-impossible to offer vehicles with just engines.
Especially engines that run to drive the wheels – as opposed to running occasionally to charge a device’s batteries.
An engine that drives the wheels must run at varying speeds and must run most of the time. This not only burns gas – it results in more “emissions” of the dread gas that the Climate Communists insist is causing the “climate” to “change,” which s neatly non-specific and so ideal for justifying the changes that Climate Communists intend to impose on the basis of a false mass hysteria, which ought to sound familiar by now .
But an engine that is carried-along to generate electricity to keep the batteries charged can be set to run at a constant speed, which makes it much easier for the engineers tasked with this dreary work to fine-tune its “emissions” to as close to nil as possible. And because the generator-engine only runs some of the time, its “emissions” are lowered even closer to nil.
And that is why Mazda is apparently going to transform the Miata into a device, perhaps as soon as the 2027 model year.
Mazda hasn’t got much choice, of course – and neither do the other car companies – because only devices and part-time devices will be allowable in the very near future.
It did not happen overnight. Just the same as a pot belly does not grow overnight.
But it could change overnight.
Orange Man could directly challenge the Climate Communists by confronting the lie that the “climate” is “changing” on account of vehicles “emitting” the beneficial gas that plants must have in order for them to live – and for us to have oxygen to breath. He could demand that the Climate Communists be specific about what they vaguely assert is “changing” as regards the “climate” – and that they prove that these “changes” are both dangerous and attributable to people driving cars.
Since they cannot do this, their pretext for imposing the change they seek would be exposed as precisely that. Just the same as exposing the lies about “the cases! the cases!” eventually led to the end of “masking up.”
You will notice that these things have interesting similarities – because they were conjured by the same people and for the same end-goal.
Orange Man could also point out that the Constitution – which is nominally the law – does not empower the federal apparat to impose either mandatory gas mileage minimums or “emissions” requirements. Perhaps if Congress – the constitutionally authorized federal legislature – were to pass a law. But there is nothing in the law as it stands that constitutionally transfers legislative power to a regulatory apparat. Ergo, the apparat is acting outside the law and its regulatory edicts are null and void.
This could be done. If only he will do it.
And if he does it, he will have established the foundation of a fundamental transformation – in the opposite direction. The car industry needs to believe the changes are not going o change again in four years from now. Or twelve. It must be a sea-change in order them to commit the resources to making new cars again rather than more devices.
And Trump might just be a man audacious enough to make that change. Or at least, get it started.
If he’s serious about it.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $20 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you like items like the Baaaaaa! baseball cap pictured below, you can find that and more at the EPautos store!
I moved to Phoenix in 1991. There were far too many days, year round, when driving on the I-10 between the I-17 stack and The Tunnel, a good example, one could not see the South Mountain range just five miles away, their existence revealed only by the red obstruction lights on the TV/radio/comm towers. On more level ground, one couldn’t see the horizon. On “good” days, it was only really hazy. Our city wasn’t alone in this dilemma.
For about 15 years now, the air’s been crystal clear. All the time.
The job is done. The EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) shut down is long overdue.
States’ “inspection” stations, shut down. Now.
I bought a new SUV in 2023 and next year I have to take it to a “Department of Environmental Quality” drive-through to have a cable plugged in to the OBD2 (ODB-2? ODBII? ODB-II?) port. I don’t even have a gas cap to be checked for “compliance.” Repeat yearly even though I have an on-board computer to nag me if something is amiss with my emission suppression systems and evoking good-citizen guilt.
Good observation. The air is visibly cleaner than it used to be. Cars also are more fuel efficient, also not a bad thing. Of course we could argue the market would have met such demands regardless of the EPA, though.
Eric hits the point. Define a goal and we can measure success or failure.
The same argument was raised in 2001 with the War on Terrrrr. OK, take at face value 9/11 and the need for a response (big assumption I admit). What are the goals and how would we know we achieved victory? Of course the point of wars is open ended places to shovel money. But even the anti-war people rolled pretty easy attacking Iraq, a country with no claim to involvement in the WTC situation. The same could be said about the FED. What is the goal? They said in 1913 that it was to prevent boom-bust and only 20 years laters they’d caused the mother of all busts and haven’t got a gold star record since. So why are they still given any authority?
The 1st gen MX5 was 2100 lb…..the rumored replacement is 3000 lb….with electric motors driving the wheels…with a small rotary engine driving a generator for range extension….instead of a tow truck….
A ruined car….3000 lb is too heavy….it was originally a heavier copy of the Lotus Elan…a better car at 1500 lb ….the Mazda copy was 2100 lb….over weight….but not too bad….the latest MX5 2400 lb….
At 3000 lb and no engine sound….60% of the experience…it is a bad joke that will not sell….
It was originally a copy of the Elan…at 3000 lb it is two Elan’s….
Forget all this….buy the better original… the 1500 lb Lotus Elan…..far cooler too…
This video looks at the best generation of the MX5…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOFNouXbvvQ
“Uncle Tony” of Uncle Tony’s Garage dropped a Mopar 170 cube Slant Six in a Miata. The biggest challenge was building a housing to accommodate the lenghty six and a New Process A833 four-speed. Other than a very free-flowing exhaust (a cherry bomb), no mods to the Slanty, whatsoever, but this Frankenstein sporty job had plenty of “zip”!
I hope Orange Man does just this, and finally lets people think for themselves regarding what they want to drive. More efficient cars that use less gas to produce more power would’ve been driven by the free market anyway, balanced by cost, of course.
However, Eric, I must address this statement that you’ve been making in various forms lately:
“…The life-giving gas plants must have to generate the oxygen we must have in order to be able to breath (as well as the food we need to eat in order to live) is a “pollutant” that must be not be “emitted” by vehicles.”
Yes, greater CO2 concentrations make plants happier, and food production could be increased accordingly. However, the other part of the statement bothers me from a biochemical point-of-view.
If you produce CO2 by burning fuel, the carbon comes from the fuel, but the O2 comes from the air. Thus, when CO2 emitted from internal combustion engines is photosynthetically processed by plants, the oxygen produced is just that which was consumed by the combustion reaction. The equation is essentially summarized below. (Some biochemicals are involved, but that’s inconsequential for this argument).
6 CO2 + 6 H2O + light energy → C6H12O6 (glucose) + 6 O2
In summary, we have no more oxygen to breathe by making CO2, by combustion, for plants to process, than if we’d just left the O2 in the air.
I love your writing Eric, but I know that if this bothers ME, it may be used against you in the court of public opinion. 😉
Oxygen is the most abundant element in soils, lots of little critters live in soils.
You have nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and the plants grow, happens every spring up north. You end up with an agricultural behemoth, huge amounts of grains and livestock, living is much easier that way.
Brandon, Manitoba is the heart of wheat country in Canada. The Brandon Wheat Kings was the hockey team there.
A small lake can be depleted of oxygen, not enough oxygen in the water, a fish die-off can happen. Biological oxygen demand monitoring is necessary to prevent fish from dying in rather large numbers.
Greenhouses can be deficient in carbon dioxide, you want people in the greenhouse exhaling carbon dioxide for the plants to not be stressed. An alcohol lamp will emit carbon dioxide in a greenhouse to prevent low levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂).
All the leaves are brown which means more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the northern latitudes.
Don’t forget about the sun and the earth’s gravity, can’t ignore those.
“An alcohol lamp will emit carbon dioxide in a greenhouse to prevent low levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂).”
That’s pretty smart, Drumph. I’ll keep that in mind.
Don’t let your TDS drive you to axe murder your dad, lefty. 😉
Toyota owns 5.05 percent of Mazda stock, about 32 million shares.
Mazda pays a dividend of 19 cents per share, Toyota receives approximately 6,000,000 dollars in dividend payments from Mazda each and every year.
Mazda’s share price is hovering around 3.20 USD today, down about three dollars per share from the 52 week high.
Mazda is 104 years old this year, Toyota has a 100,000,000 dollar investment in Mazda, by the share price, so they don’t want to lose any money at all.
Maybe Toyota is looking at a 100,000,000 deficit in the share price, Toyota can handle the setback, hold and it’s still going to pay.
Mazda’s earnings are at 69 cents per share, so they’re not going broke.
Cars are manufactured because there is demand for them, just how it is.
An old friend, junkyard owner, has a first year Miata.
Having driven Miatas as my daily driver for the last 20 years of my driving life, the key to their popularity is their weight, and distribution thereof, and their superb control of that weight. They can’t do that with a 2 ton car. It’s no longer a Miata. It will drive like any other 2 ton appliance. Goodbye Miata, it was fun while it lasted.
Who cares what Mazda does? When they get the price of that up to 50 grand they won’t sell that either.
I’m optimistic about the future, I also feel a lot of his cabinet picks are merely to get them out of office so they can be replaced by patriots and then he can fire them after a week or two, the scaramucci model basically.
With that said, the markets will eventually correct and this Climate Communist Miata won’t happen or become something else
Only Man,,, a carbon based creature (like all life on this planet) would declare the very life giving gas as dangerous especially in the low quantities that exist today. Lowering/eliminating carbon further is just another method,,, like the clot shot, abortion homosexuality and the gender dysphoria crap,,, the lunatics use trying to eliminate us except eliminating CO2 will extinguish ALL life.
What is really incredible is how many say ” believe the science” refuse the science behind CO2 but believe the bullshit science dished out about masks and vaxxinations. Many are simply lazy dolts that don’t want to exercise their brains doing a little research.
————————————————————————————————-
Can life be non carbon based?
No, life cannot be noncarbon based. No life on earth can actually exist without carbon. All known living things have a carbon-based structure and system.
———————————————————————————————————
https://onlyzoology.com/are-humans-carbon-based-lifeforms/
Much of our present grief is due to Clowngress being too effing lazy to do their job; they outsourced rule making to the three letter agencies so they could be wined and dined aka bribed by lobbyists to make sure they had a cushy retirement when they were out of office. The Supremes ‘Chevron’ ruling is the perfect vehicle to kick the agencies to the curb and cancel their power. Not holding my breath that they will do that.
“Much of our present grief is due to Clowngress being too effing lazy to do their job”
Disagree
The public is too lazy to do their job. Just keep voting in the same bums and foolishly expecting a different result.
I think we covered this Nov 5, 2024. It takes a lot of pain to get people off their asses and do the right thing.. It’s only natural that the left thinks, because we don’t vote our complaints, that they don’t exist. Nov 5, 2024 was a new beginning. Thank God.
Diesel, dammit, diesel.
Mazda already has a great diesel engine that they spent a fortune to develop.
Lots of low rpm torque and very efficient high mpg.
A little work and Miata-D can still be 50-50 weight distribution with 50 mpg and 0-60 in 5.0 seconds.
It won’t rev high but it would sell like the first Miata did in 1989.
I’d want one, John. That sounds awesome.
Wish I could be more optimistic but..
If they had put that Harris women in, there may have been an actual revolution. Most people I know wouldn’t listen to a word she said. That alone is nullification, and a great leap in the right direction. But now everyone is relieved and resting easier because Trump was selected. No chance of revolution now you see.
The problem is that anyone allowed to play the role of U.S. President is owned by the banking cartel who own and operate the worlds counterfeit money scheme.
The Rothschild family has been tirelessly working on this rather large world takeover plan for at least 200 years.
Maybe they will have a change of heart all of a sudden and leave us all in peace?
Pardon me for being skeptical.. 😏
“If they had put that Harris women in, there may have been an actual revolution. Most people I know wouldn’t listen to a word she said. That alone is nullification, and a great leap in the right direction. But now everyone is relieved and resting easier because Trump was selected. No chance of revolution now you see.”
Indeed
Absolutely, AMC Guy. Been saying that for some time now. Unfortunately we just missed the best chance for Revolution 2.o we’ve had in my lifetime. I’m surrounded by friends and family who think Trumps victory was the best outcome. To them, the government has regained some part and parcel of its moral authority. Many people who were waking up to government illegitimacy will probably consent to whatever crackbrained shit Trump decrees.
It would be nice to see a disruptor like Matt Gaetz as AG, just to see some penalties for bad behavior around the edges. But I bet anybody here, when push comes to shove, Gaetz will be abandoned by Trump, because Trump doesn’t posses the will to go scorched earth on the countries enemies. People just don’t want to hear the truth. You cant make America great again, by making Isreal great again.
Trump’s re-election seems like it will achieve some of the same pacification as did Obama. You may remember that in 2008 there was a significant and growing disillusion over Afghanistan and Iraq, generally with the neocon agenda. Obama stunted that and drove a silver spike in the heart of any leftist resistance to war, domestic spying, airport groping and generally distrust of big government/business/finance motives. The Democrats are as publicly buddy-buddy with Wall Street and the defense industry as the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld ecosystem ever was.
“because it would affront the Climate Communists who’ve managed to bamboozle the general public into believing that the life-giving gas plants must have to generate the oxygen we must have in order to be able to breath (as well as the food we need to eat in order to live) is a “pollutant” that must be not be “emitted” by vehicles.” Eric P
I didn’t know this until recently but the minimum level of carbon dioxide in order for plants to live is 150PPM. Below that level, the plants die, then the herbivores die, then the carnivores die (us). Present level of CO2 is just above 400PPM. We are dangerously close to the death zone of low levels of CO2. Low levels of CO2 are associated with Ice Ages. We are living in a warm period of an Ice Age. The last time the Earth had levels of CO2 this low was the Karoo Ice age 600MM years ago and not a pleasant place to live. CO2 has been as high as 2500PPM or greater and life on earth flourished. Yes, there were no ice caps at that point, but CO2 is a lagging effect of the Earth warming not the cause. CO2 to cause a runaway heat cycle fly’s in the face of the laws of entropy. It would be equivalent to saying the more cigarettes you smoke the younger you get. However, a positive feedback loop in the direction of entropy can exist such as; when there is snow and ice on the ground (white color) reflects solar energy away from the earth and the earth gets colder. Colder the earth more snow and ice on the ground. It takes major changes in the earth’s rotation, position to the sun in our elliptical orbit and tilt to change this feedback loop. Not mere CO2. Take CO2 and apply a heat source to it, it will rise in temperature. Take the heat source away how fast does it cool? Very fast.
CO2 is the source of life, and we live in a carbon starved world.
Orangeman, please let’s have this debate and debunk the Marxist propaganda that has been spread.
There were plants in this world before we had cars; there are plants in this world with our cars; and, if for some weird reason we stop having cars, there’ll be plants in this world. If a tree falls to the ground, it will rot, and termites and suchlike insects that can metabolize cellulose will consume it — all processes that produce CO2. Production of CO2, as Eric has pointed out many times, makes the atmosphere more hospitable to plant life, as it wants to eat that tasty, tasty CO2. CO2 grows the grass, the cows eat the grass, and then the cows breathe out CO2, and fart and belch, giving back some CO2. I eat a cow every now and then, and then go out on my bicycle and pant and blow, spewing out prime CO2, for which the grass thanks me by growing and feeding cows, and so on.
Point is, the earth is a stable system, just loaded with negative feedback. Push it off center a bit, and many natural mechanisms push it in the opposite direction. It’s like a Weeble — it wobbles, but doesn’t fall down. No need to worry about “carbon starvation,” nor about “carbon excess.” We just need to realize how small human influence is, relax, and go about our business: driving real cars and trucks, raising cattle and eating delicious ribeyes, working, laying a little pipe every now and then so that babies come out of our wives, and … you know … living like sane men.
The only way I can see that we can seriously screw up our planet is by allowing Our Glorious Leaders to kick off an all-out, thermonuclear war. Which is what they’re currently fooling with, like a retarded eight-year-old with a box of matches and a barrel of black powder. Now, THAT’s worth some concern.
Call me what you will, but an electric dominant hybrid á la Chevy Volt makes a lot more sense than an EV.
If CO2 is indeed a pollutant (which it’s not), then the only way to reduce CO2 is to Burn Less Fuel.
Electric dominant hybrids Burn Less Fuel, whereas EVs don’t—they merely shift it around to the coal plant.
With electric dominant hybrids, the electric motors make the wheels go round and round—the gasoline engine powers a generator that powers the electric motors and charges the batteries. You can use electricity for short trips around town, and not worry about range on long road trips, because the gasoline engine provides the long haul power.
But solutions that make sense, like electric dominant hybrids, clean diesel engines, and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) aren’t even discussed.
That’s because it’s not about controlling emissions or controlling the climate—it’s about controlling YOU.
[If CO2 is indeed a pollutant (which it’s not), then the only way to reduce CO2 is to Burn Less Fuel. Electric dominant hybrids Burn Less Fuel, whereas EVs don’t—they merely shift it around to the coal plant. ]-Bryce (my bold)
If it’s NOT a pollutant then why bother with any of it? It’s a waste of time, energy and effort. The few at the top are making bundles of cash by simply regulating ICE engine driven vehicles out. We at the bottom are soaked for their good life.
I might not be the smartest guy out there but even I know a 2 ton car is not a sports car, because that’s what that monstrosity would weigh or about the same as a Cadillac weighed in 1970. A fine road car perhaps but definitely not a sports car.
While not all of President Trump’s picks will be great; some like Tulsi Gabbard being nominated for Dir. of National Intelligence will at least hopefully drain a little swamp water if only through the swamp denizens retiring.
The slave owners ruined all the new cars with technology….engineered for emissions… religious geen bs and driver surveillance and self driving….
This made them over weight, unreliable, very expensive to buy and maintain, horrible to drive, unsafe….you can’t even see out of them…..
They are so problem filled, expensive to fix….nobody will buy them used……and the plug in hybrid and EV versions are even far worse then that….
This video looks at some of the unsaleable used junk….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ZpzxrM74U
“Mazda hasn’t got much choice, of course – and neither do the other car companies – because only devices and part-time devices will be allowable in the very near future.”
They indeed have a choice. They could tell the FedGov, Commiefornia, Chicago, and the northeast to go to hell.
And then Blackrock will order the board to get a more “environmentally friendly” management team running the company.
“A business has two main functions: marketing and innovation.” – Peter Drucker
From ChatGPT’s summarization:
Peter Drucker, often called the “father of modern management,” was a visionary thinker, management consultant, and educator who profoundly shaped the fields of business management and corporate philosophy. His insights, spanning more than six decades, continue to influence organizations, leaders, and policymakers worldwide.
Anyone who takes college level management courses knows Drucker’s work. Anyone who’s worked in a Fortune 500 company in the last 40 years knows the impact of Drucker’s work. It’s the guiding influence over everything the company does.
When looked at in that light, imagine being a design or project manager at Mazda. You’ve wanted to make a mark in the company for a long time, but the existing fleet is just fantastic. Maybe you can add 4 piston brake calipers or get bigger/wider rims into the fender wells. Maybe come up with a more animated dashboard. Make heated seats standard. None of this really matters, it’s just playing with the gingerbread. If you’re heading up the engine group (if one still exists), maybe you try out a new gasket material that saves a few minutes on the production line. Don’t try to change piston displacement, that’s all settled science. Just refine the old plant.
Now look at the fertile innovation ground over on the EV world. Hokey smokes, it’s all uncharted! Anything we do can be innovative and revolutionary!
Just think of the ad campaign…
Mazda Project Manager, put a 50mpg Skyactive diesel in the Miata, you ignorant slut!
Middle Finger to the EPA !
I think one could take a lot of pride in being a curator of the Miata, loving honing and preserving its purity. Legacy guitar manufactures like Martin, Gibson and Fender are very good at this.
With that said, 1995 – 2010 was probably the apex of auto engineering and manufacturing (although 1965-71 in the US and 1988-95 Hondas were very impressive). It’s been heading in a downward trajectory since then. Current new cars are mostly dreadful devices, whether EVs or not.
I think there’s fertile ground for automotive designers/engineers to design affordable cars that are useful and usable for their market segment. Simplicity, lightness, efficiency, comfort, usefulness and fun to drive are laudable goals. A properly balanced combination of these qualities will produce a profitable, best seller. Until recently, Honda and Toyota struck a pretty good balance.
‘I think there’s fertile ground for automotive designers/engineers to design affordable cars that are useful and usable for their market segment.’ — Mister Liberty
… in the BRICS countries. Not so much in communist Europe and North America.
‘Orange Man could directly challenge the Climate Communists by confronting the lie that the “climate” is “changing”’ — eric
Likewise, Zionus Auranticus (Orange Zionist) could have put America first, instead of flopping down at the feet of a foreign lobby like a cheap floozy. But he didn’t.
Meanwhile, Trump plans to end-run the Senate with recess appointments. A gloating Thomas Massie told media stenographers this is how Matt Gaetz, who would face a rough ride in the Senate, will become attorney general. Somehow it never occurs to Republiclowns that Democrats can pull this stupid trick too.
Don’t be surprised if Chuck the Schmuck recesses the Senate in mid-December, so that ‘Biden’ can erect a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
Put an orange wig on Venezuela’s Maduro, and he’d be the spitting image of Orange Man Bad.
At this point, I’m a raging nihilist. Just burn it down. I am so done with foreign agents and warmongers and religious cultists, all beavering away like termites to SELL US OUT.
With Gabbard being nominated for Dir. of National Intelligence [sic] there might be a possibility that he WILL do such a thing. The hurdle is Senate approval, which is not a certainty. The Chevron decision is the key to all this.
The intertwined (incestuous?) nature of the political cesspool with multi-national corporations gives little hope that such a dismantling of the regulatory structure is possible. The same blackmail material that keeps political hacks in line for Israel can, and will, be used to keep them on the Globalist Plantation. Which is run by the same Tribe.
Perhaps the Fourth Turning and 250 year civilizational cycles will bring down this structure. What will result is impossible to predict. However, I wouldn’t be foolish enough to say “it can’t be any worse”. Who would have thought a seatbelt and tobacco warning label would get us where we are now? Well, other than the snakes that proposed those ideas in the first place. Which is rather ironic now that the same type of folks are complaining there are too many humans.
Ah, the law of unintended consequences…be carful what you wish for, you just might get it…good and hard.