2007 Mazda Mx-5 Miata on 2040-cars

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This is what a 1,200-hp twin-turbo 4-rotor looks like in a Miata

We've seen the diminutive Mazda MX-5 Miata swallow plenty of big engines, but New Zealand drifting ace "Mad Mike" Whiddett is roaring into where-no-man-has-gone-before territory. Wanting to replace his 515-horsepower "MADBUL" RX-7 and its twin-turbocharged, three-rotor 20B engine, his new ride is an NC-series Miata with four rotors and twin Garrett turbochargers courtesy of Pulse Performance Race Engineering. It is called "RADBUL," and expected power at standard boost is 1,200 hp, but the builders at Pulse Performance think it will get up to 1,500 hp at full boost. And yes, that exhaust exits through the hood. Four-rotor engines are actually popular - builds are detailed on forums like this one from 2007 and this one from 2008, this UK company or this Canadian company will sell you one complete - but they're usually being prepped for an RX-7. Mad Mike's choice of a Miata for this enterprise makes this about as extreme as you can get, short of throwing it into a Mazda R360. You can watch Mad Mike tell the story of the build in the video, and check out the first and second installments about the build on the Red Bull site.

Mazda's new Mexican plant capacity rises to 230,000

After the turmoil of last year, 2013 is getting off to a much better start for Mazda. The company has issued a release indicating that the forthcoming plant in Salamanca, Mexico has had its production capacity raised even though it isn't scheduled to go online until March 2014. The original plans called for a 140,000-unit capacity, 90,000 of that allotted for the Mazda2 and Mazda3, the remaining 50,000 for a small car Mazda would build for Toyota that would be based on the Mazda2. The new plans call for raising that by 90,000 units to a total of 230,000 units within two years, by the end of March 2016, and it looks like it will all go toward Mazda production to satisfy growing demand for Skyactiv vehciles. The Mexican plant's opening will be the return of Mazda manufacturing to North America, after Mazda6 production was moved back to Japan last year.
More good news for the company is that it projects 10 billion yen ($114 million) in net income for the financial year that will end in March. That would be a welcome turnaround from the 100-billion-yen loss in the previous financial year, part of a series of three annual losses in a four-year span.
You'll find the press release with the factory update below.

WAVE 2015: Metron 7 sets new record of 513 miles on one charge

Sometimes you just gotta push harder, faster, longer. Last fall, the Metron Institute team from Slovenia took their converted all-electric Mazda5 minivan on an impressive 457-mile journey from Bled (in Sloveniva) to Dubrovnik (in Croatia) without stopping to recharge at an average speed of 40 miles an hour. Today, as part of the WAVE Trophy 2015, the Metron 7 EV just finished up a drive of 826.1 kilometers (513.3 miles) on a single charge. The drive started in Berlin and ended in Karlsruhe, Germany. As you might suspect, a drive of this length on normal roads required a big battery pack. The total pack capacity was 108 kWh, thanks to the combination of the built-in 86-kWh pack that uses lithium polymer cells from Kokam and a 130-pound, 22-kWh external pack that Metron has developed that can charge the built-in pack while driving. The average speed of the 500-mile journey was 45 miles per hour (72 kilometers per hour) through rural countryside, towns, and some time on the highway. The drivers –Andrej and Jasna Pecjak – did not use air conditioning, but the fans were running. The weather was temperate enough that AC wasn't needed anyway these last two days. The Metron 7 was a part of the last two WAVE events and has been updated since the last record was set in October 2014. On the new record journey, the minivan was loaded up with gear, but the Metron engineers made improvements to the car in the last eight months: the side mirrors are smaller and they fitted a better aerodynamic cover underneath the vehicle, for example. Andrej said that the cost for the batteries was around $50,000, since some of the cells he got were used. Today's record is unofficial, but AutoblogGreen witnessed both the sealing of the charge port in Berlin and was in the car for the last 125 kilometers today. Featured Gallery WAVE 2015: Metron 7 EV Distance Record Green Mazda AutoblogGreen Exclusive Fuel Efficiency Green Culture Electric mazda mazda5 mazda5