October 31, 2025 - Mazda wants to Capture Carbon While Driving

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 31, 2025, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

At the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo this week, Mazda unveiled two new concept cars with some interesting technology, including an AI chat-based interface, rotary engines, plug-in hybrids, algae-derived fuel, and carbon capture. 

The more interesting of the two is the Vision X-Coupe. This 5-meter-long four-door coupe looks much like what would happen if you took a Mazda 3 hatchback, put it on the rack, and stretched it in every direction. Apart from the mostly closed-off face, this is a clear evolution of the brand's current Kodo design language. The important stuff is all hidden away. Since this is a concept, it probably has no functional propulsion system. But the press release claims a 503-hp plug-in hybrid system that includes a turbocharged two-rotor Wankel rotary engine, the power unit that Mazda just won't give up on. It is claimed to provide 100 miles of electric driving range and 500 in total. While rotary engines are incredibly compact and power dense, they have traditionally been thirsty with commensurate carbon emissions. 

To combat this in the aim for carbon neutrality, the engine is meant to run on fuel derived from microalgae. While this is an interesting form of biofuel, no one has yet scaled production of such fuel and managed to bring the cost down to near parity with crude oil-derived fuels. The other component of the environmental effort is mobile carbon capture. Mazda has been developing an on-board carbon capture system for about three years. The exhaust flows through zeolites that capture the carbon dioxide, and then a pair of electric compressors store it in a removable canister. The canister can be swapped out when the vehicle is being fueled and replaced with an empty one. The CO2 can then be used for a variety of industrial uses, including growing microalgae. 

The challenge is that an ecosystem would have to be developed for the collection and distribution of storage canisters, as well as emptying the full canisters. To make this even remotely commercially viable, most automakers would need to adopt the technology and use common canisters. Speaking with Honda at the show, they are interested but not ready to commit, as they are currently researching direct air capture to collect CO2 from the atmosphere, which may be a more effective solution than Mazda's mobile system, which is only expected to capture about 20% of the CO2 in the exhaust stream. 

Thanks for listening.