me and my subaru buddies were talking about cars yesterday, and as i told them how much i knew about piston engines (NOTHING!! besides basics) we came across an interesting question, what's the percentage of rotary engines over all other engines? in cars only, not counting motorcycles nor airplanes, just automobiles. . .. i know percentage will be bigger in japan but i wanna know percentage in u.s. only...in case anyone has that info handy :P

 

very low when you consider the number of vehicles on the road. Id say something stupidly low like 1% if that

 

i'd say its probably 5 percent. for every 100 cars i see driving i usually only see 5 RXs. and it changes depending on where you go. if you go to a club meet it might be close to 100% haha. just kidding. i'd say its probably 5 - 20?

 

lol in ga its less than 5 i sware.. in my town ive seen 3,.. mine my neigbors and a 89 convertibles with s5 tail lights. hah

 

Figure this way. Number of rx7's sold in america (or north america) compared to the millions of every other car.

I would bet its not even a percent

 

^^^^ not only 7's have rotaries tho :P, ....... me and my friends were thinking in the 2-5% range, but i just thought it was an interesting question.

 

sounds about right to me 2-5%

 

100% if people get their heads on straight

 

Don't forget the RX-8's too, but yeah 5% sounds right

 

hahahah nice!!!

 

Maybe 0.1%? Thats my guess, don't see many around.

 

I'd say 1% sounds right.

 

i'm going to have to go ahead and guess something like 0.1% or less.

Think about it: if it is 1%, one out of one hundred cars on the road would have to be an rx2/3/4/5/7/8 or nsu or whatever. Considering mostly rx7's and rx8's, that seems awfully high.

Consider (and I don't mean to offend here) populations outside of large cities. I take 'rural' wisconsin as an example. Hardly any of the vehicles there are imports. Hardly any of the vehicles that are car, are sportycars.

At my office, there are two rotaries in the lot from time to time: my 79 and an rx8. Two out of ~350 cars. Across the road, at the mfg facility, there are easily twice as many cars parked, and zero rotaries. Now, this is one data point, but it's a start.

I sure wish there were more like 5% or so, if only so more people would be trained on maintaining the motors....

cheers,

 

think about the number of trucks the big produces per year. That alone would dillute the numbers down to negligible.

 

that is right it just never crossed my mind that new piston powered vehicles are still being made lol.....well damn...do you think it'll reach maybe 2/3% if we include japan :P haha.

 

mazda needs to sell the rotary much like they used to, as an engine option.

808 / rx3 kinda deal.

 

5%? are you crazy? the number of corollas alone would make it less than that..JK

do you mean number ever sold, or on the road? just look up the production numbers for all rotory cars and then just a few piston cars. its definitely more like 1%