Plans For Electric Mazda MX-5 Patented

First of all, don’t panic. The Mazda MX-5 isn’t going electric any time soon. Mazda recently confirmed that much, stating that the in-development fifth generation will actually get a bigger petrol engine than the outgoing car to compensate for the drop in power that’ll come from keeping it emissions-compliant, and keep the manual gearbox too.

But while it might not happen as soon as we once thought, there’s a good chance that regulations will eventually force Mazda’s hand in making the MX-5 battery-powered further down the line. Now, some patent drawings filed by Mazda with various patent offices around the world, and discovered by Autoguide, show what form that might take.

Simply titled ‘Electric Automobile’, the patent was filed in October 2023 but has only been published this month. It shows a very clearly MX-5-shaped car, and shows where Mazda would position all the electric gubbins in order to keep everything as MX-5-ish as possible.

Going electric would bring an inevitable weight penalty to the famously spritely roadster, but Mazda’s patent shows how its engineers have tried to counteract this as much as possible by strategically placing the battery modules within the chassis.

The biggest battery packs run down the central spine of the car, through what would be a transmission tunnel in a front-engined, rear-drive ICE car. Towards the back of this tunnel is an electric motor sending power to the rear wheels.

Meanwhile, smaller battery modules are located behind each seat, and there’s even one shown behind the passenger footwell, with the purpose of counteracting the mass of the driver for a more even weight distribution. This may be many years off reality, but Mazda clearly isn’t messing about.

If Mazda’s engineers are to be believed, then whether we’ll ever see an electric MX-5 hit the road depends largely on the direction regulations take. If it does happen, though, then at least the company’s thinking about how it can preserve the model’s personality as much as possible.