BTW, i'd guess at some point in the not too distant future, they will figure out how to mate the mild hybrid with both the Boosterjet engine and an auto gearbox.

I thought the point of a mild hybrid was for the electric motor to provide the equivalent extra "push" of a a turbo during acceleration, but without the need to rev the engine so hard to get maximum benefit. It is using "free" power recovered during braking rather than more petrol. It would then probably be unnecessary to have a turbo as well in a regular car.

This gives a car which accelerates to legal speeds as quickly as a turbocharged equivalent, but with less mechanical complexity. Maximum speed will be lower, but it doesn't really matter whether a car has a top speed of 110mph or 140mph as it won't be used anyway.

In Mazdas, other than smoothing the torque curve, they also run the car's electrical systems. According to their own data, the newer version of the 2.0 SA-G engine (in the latest Mazda3 and CX-30), whilst still 120PS, is actually slower to 60 (and by some margin - 1.5 sec) than the one fitted to the gen-3 Mazda3 and (dropped) CX-3.

AFAIK, he only material difference that the owner sees is the addition of the mild hybrid system (it *may* have a PPF - not sure) and a bit better real-world mpg / emissions when meeting the newer testing regime. The 'headline figures' on that score, especially on CO2 emissions, aren't any different. Particulates may be a vastly different story, but getting data on that is more tricky.

Whilst the new gen cars are better looking, they are quite a bit more expensive. Not so good to get a slower car unless you shell out an extra £3k - £5k for a SA-X engine.

It's not as though owners are benefitting financially from the (real) lower emissions - in fact, some will pay £35 - £40 more pa (VED) for the 'priviledge' in addition to the much higher list prices compared to pre-March 2017 models.

I did some research. I found out why they stopped offering the 1 litre turbo. They are only offering the 1.2na as a hybrid and the 1.4t as a hybrid across the whole range. Nothing else. Its a transitional phase before they offer electric vehicles with hybrids. Apparently they may have also done some deal with Toyota. So big things happening. They are aiming to shift 50 000 units a year or 2pct of the uk market. They currently have about 1.4%. Course this is gleaned from the Internet but it seems plausible to me. A shame I like the 1litre turbo a lot.

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Edited by Ethan Edwards on 24/07/2020 at 22:46

Suzuki are considering a 7 seater for the European market due to increased demand for compact 7 seaters. I assume they would just import one of the Indian 7 seaters?

"just import" may not be that simple as cars for the Indian market fall a long way short of European safety standards.

And there she is, the Maruti Ertiga: www.marutisuzuki.com/channels/arena/suvs-muvs/erti...a

So thats 760,000 Rupee? Or about 8 thousand pounds. And it runs on LPG. Interesting .