[elihu]

A lot of people want electric Miatas. I think the main reasons they aren't being made is that Mazda would have to invest a lot of R&D into designing it and they're a relatively small car company that can't do everything and they're probably not convinced that they can make an EV that feels like a Miata.

The main issue is batteries. They could either make a light EV without much range, or make a long-range EV that's quite heavy. Placement's an issue too. If they put the batteries in back under the trunk, they'll have too much weight in the rear causing it to spin out on corners. If they put it under the middle of the car like in most modern EVs, it'll make the car taller and look very un-Miata like. Best case is probably to put most of the battery in the front where the engine was, but I suppose that might be a safety issue (it could be crushed in a collision).

I think an electric Miata will happen eventually, but probably not until Mazda can buy cells that are in the 250-300 watt hours per kg range.

(Personally I would love to see an EV Miata with a manual transmission, but that's probably not going to happen.)