At the Tokyo car show today, the new concept, the Mazda Vision X-Coupe, was shown off. Mazda calls it a coupe, even though it has four doors like a car and a plug-in hybrid powertrain. A turbocharged twin-rotor engine, an electric motor, and a battery make up the Vision coupe’s PHEV drivetrain, which gives it 503 horsepower. Mazda makes beautiful cars for everyday use, so it’s no surprise that their ideal cars are amazing.Take a look at Mazda’s newest design, the Vision X-Coupe, shown below. The “X” should be said as “Cross,” by the way. This “coupe” has four doors and the same number of seats as a sedan, but its sleek body is still beautiful, especially when you see it with the racy rear spoiler and hood that seem to go on forever. It’s too bad that stores won’t be selling it anytime soon. Instead, it’s a sneak peek at what Mazda wants to do in the second half of the next decade: use what it calls a “Human Body Sensing Model” to make a car that people can mentally connect with. We can say that we’ll happily spend time in any future Mazdas that look this good, even though we don’t know what an emotionally accessible car will look like. The Vision X-Coupe is more than just a pretty face.The plug-in hybrid motor and turbocharged rotary engine that make it what it is are what the brand is all about. The twin-rotor system is said to produce 503 horsepower when paired with an electric motor and a battery pack. Mazda says the PHEV’s battery will be huge enough to give it a range of almost 100 miles on electricity alone, and up to 500 miles when the power goes out. Instead of regular gasoline, the Vision X-Coupe runs on a carbon-neutral fuel made from microalgae. This is a new way of refining fuel that Mazda is actively creating. The company also says it is working on a product called “Mazda Mobile Carbon Capture” that will take carbon dioxide from exhaust and recover it. Even though Mazda didn’t tell us much about the Vision X-Coupe’s inside, we can see that it has a simple look with some interesting features. To begin, it’s important to note that the company believes a real shift lever should be included in a model showing how the inside of cars made after 2035 will look. The driver also sees three round digital gauges, which at the very least suggest that Mazda is moving away from the tablet-like devices in most new cars, even though the flat screen on the right side of the dashboard appears to have a built-in display. Does the four-door Vision X-Coupe show any design cues or features that might soon show up in production models? It’s hard to say for sure, but it’s good to see a small car company like Mazda continue to go against the grain.
