We've known Mazda has been working on its compression ignition engine technology for a while now, but according to Japan's Nikkei business daily, it'll be good to go for production cars by late 2018. The technology, considered to be part of the next generation of Skyactiv engines, works by igniting the mix of fuel and air by subjecting them to pressure, resulting in combustion becoming more efficient than using conventional spark plugs. In fact, Mazda says efficiency will be increased by 30 percent by using pressure to ignite the fuel.

This is yet another example of how Mazda is continuing to develop internal combustion technology instead of switching over completely to hybrids, a common trend in today's industry. However, Mazda claims it's still working on, in the long term, electrical vehicles, but those aren't expected until sometime in 2019. A so far unnamed hybrid model will also go on sale but not before 2021. The compression ignition engine technology will debut on the next generation Mazda 3, which we can now safely expect to arrive for the 2019 model year. The new engine tech will then continue to be rolled out on future Mazda products on a gradual basis.

Mazda has previously gone on record stating that it believes internal combustion engines will still be around for the foreseeable future, and it doesn't make sense for them, as a small automaker, to abandon proven technology. Evolving it with clever engineering in order to reduce emissions, in Mazda's view, is the smarter decision. But make no mistake: those EV and hybrid models will come, but at least Mazda internal combustion is here to stay.