It is time to learn more about rotary engines! A long time ago rotary engines were considered engines of the future and apart from some European manufacturers Mazda was the only major company who tried to use them on a scale large enough to justify the mass production. We remember the awesome Mazda RX cars using them with the RX-8 being the latest in the line of legendary RX cars.
Our favourite automotive engineer from Engineering Explained is here to explain in two videos how do rotary engines work and why they will not be the successor of the classic internal combustion engines with pistons. As it turns out, the main reason for the fall of rotary engines is fuel efficiency and awful emissions which are much harder to control compared with the CO2 emissions from the classic ICE.
Engineering Explained went into great details teaching us about rotary engines, but he did not reveal one crucial information – these engines are often far less reliable than the more robust cylinder and piston counterparts. True, they can spruce up insane amounts of power from low capacity, but nowadays, modern turbocharged engines are not only making the most of the fuel, they surpass rotary engines in every conceivable way.
Tags: Rotary, Rotary Engine, Wankel