The automotive world spent more than two decades chasing a white whale: a gasoline engine that ignites its fuel the way a diesel does — through compression alone, without a spark. Mazda claimed it had finally cracked the code. The technology was called Skyactiv-X, and it arrived with the kind of fanfare reserved for genuine breakthroughs. It was billed as the holy grail of combustion engines and a credible lifeline for internal combustion at a moment when electrification was rapidly reshaping the industry.
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