Electric Mazda MX-5 battery details emerge

The question of exactly what will power the next generation Mazda MX-5 has been largely unanswered and up in the air for some time. Will it be combustion? Will it be hybrid? Will it be electric with a rotary range extender, or simply an EV? Even more confusingly, just as senior figures at Mazda have been talking about a petrol-powered, manual, lightweight future MX-5 that would be very much in the image of bygone iterations, patent drawings have been revealed of what an electric MX-5 could look like.

The patent, filed in late 2024 and published in April 2025,  shows a two-seat roadster packed not with a piston engine and a fuel tank, but batteries and an electric motor. It’s something we thought we might never see given Hiroshima’s hesitation around electrification, particularly for its enthusiast models.

Thankfully, we don’t see a conventional skateboard architecture, of the type that is famously ill-suited to sports cars that need a driving position low-set in the chassis. Instead, with quite a novel setup, this version of an electric MX-5 would strategically position multiple battery packs around the car, centred around a main battery situated in the area we’d traditionally call the transmission tunnel.

Three separate blocks of batteries feature. Two are behind the occupants, about the size of a normal car battery and left and right of the centre line. The final one seems to be under the legs of the passenger and there’s none on the right-hand side of the car. Interestingly it’s mentioned that these batteries could either be of a more conventional lithium-ion constitution, or solid-state.

Just one motor sits between the rear wheels, while there is also mention of storage space both under the bonnet and in the usual boot area.

Patents are never confirmation that a car using the technology will be built. What they are, is confirmation of what a manufacturer is investigating with intent. It seems all-electric power, for better or worse, is potentially at least an option for the next Mazda MX-5.On the other hand, Mazda is notably in the trio of Japanese manufacturers, along with Toyota and Subaru, developing new internal combustion engines. Mazda is also known to be working on its new Skyactive Z engine architecture that will utilise compression ignition and lean-burn lambda:1 technology.

A lightweight petrol MX-5?

Around the same time as these patents pertaining to an electric MX-5 broke cover, new Mazda Chief Technical Officer Ryuichi Umeshita was doing the rounds discussing a very different version of the next MX-5; one that had to be lightweight (targeted to weigh under a ton), that would stick to internal combustion power, specifically a 2.5-litre Skyactive Z engine and that that it must have a manual transmission.

You can judge the health of the enthusiast car market by taking the pulse of the Mazda MX-5. As it stands, in its fourth-generation, it is as it ever was: small, petrol, manual, lightweight, rear-wheel-drive and now with an eCoty runner-up trophy on its mantlepiece.  

What’s next for the MX-5? Like in the rest of the industry, uncertainty prevails. Perhaps Mazda is considering a multi-powertrain approach for the next generation. Let’s hope the 2.5-litre, naturally-aspirated, manual car weighing under a ton – the fantasy MX-5 – is on the menu for UK shores.