Mazda R&D chief Seita Kanai confirmed last week that his company has no plans to commercialize its own hybrid technology, according to a report last week in Automobile Magazine. The Japanese automaker markets a hybrid version of its Tribute, a small SUV, which Automobile Magazine describes as a Ford-engineered system closely resembling the Ford Escape Hybrid. Kanai says that Mazda will instead achieve mandated fuel economy savings by improving engines and transmissions, and by redesigning vehicles to reduce their weight.
But Kanai also admitted that Mazda simply couldn’t afford to field a hybrid. And he acknowledged that the resulting technology gap represented a worrisome problem for the company with many buyers enamored of hybrids. Here’s how Kanai put it, according to Automotive News:
“We’re in real trouble,” Kanai said of the rapidly falling hybrid prices. “It’s a threat. We don’t have the resources to get involved in that kind of competition.”
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