#InternalCombustionEngine

The Mini Convertible will continue for the foreseeable future, with a new model to come in 2025.

“There is great demand for the latest, freshly updated model,” Bernd Körber, Head of the Mini brand said. “The vehicle’s future success is convincing.”

Zesty yellow is the new, exclusive color for 2022 Mini convertibles. However, there’s no indication that yellow ragtops are fueling that demand.

With environmentalism gradually neutering the internal combustion engine, small motors are increasingly cropping up in cars they seemingly have no business in. While that’s partly the fault of there being so many gigantic automobiles on the market, at least historically speaking, none of it would be possible without increasingly stringent fuel economy mandates.

As emission rules are unlikely to soften globally (we’ll see what the United States does), larger engines are assumed to go the way of the dodo bird — or some other overly specialized creature.

Certain green-tinged websites would sure want you to believe it. At the Handelsblatt automotive summit in Volkswagen’s home base of Wolfsburg, Germany this week, VW strategy chief Michael Jost etched a tombstone for the internal combustion engine.

But is the coming decade really the last one to feature VWs with exhaust pipes?

Full autonomy by 2020? An all-electric automotive portfolio by 2025? Not at Mazda, where deputy general manager for product, Kenichiro Saruwatari, says the internal combustion engine will be a part of Mazda’s lineup for at least another three decades.

“We need to have the internal combustion engine,” Saruwatri told Motoring. “Even beyond 2050 we will still utilise the combustion engine.”

But just because Mazda’s plans for the future aren’t limited to hybrids, EVs, and fuel cell vehicles doesn’t mean the engines under the hood of your 2050 Mazda CX-5 will resemble the engines of today.

The German government has passed a resolution to ban the sale of internal combustion engines in the European Union by 2030.

Receiving bipartisan support in the German Bundesrat, the resolution calls on the EU Commission in Brussels to ensure only zero-emission passenger vehicles be approved for sale within the next fourteen years.

While the act has no direct legislative implications for Europe as a whole, German regulations could still undoubtedly influence and shape future automotive policies in the EU.

The internal combustion engine, with all its amazing sounds and brutal power, looks slated to become endangered if a group of politicians have their say about it. The ZEV Alliance wants to completely ban the sale of non-zero-emissions vehicles in its members’ constituencies by 2050.

That’s just a mere 35 years away, folks.