Though it has not confirmed persistent reports it will open a plant in Mexico with trading house Sumitomo, Mazda Motor’s president Takashi Yamanouchi has hinted the automaker might open plants in emerging markets, saying the company has already sent research teams to Brazil, India and Russia.
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”In such areas like Russia, I think we cannot play a game unless we go there from the stage of production or opening a plant,” Yamanouchi was quoted by Kyodo News as saying at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo, citing, for example, the Russian government’s preferential treatment for local production.
Sources have said Mazda is also planning to open a car assembly plant in Mexico by 2013 through a joint venture with Sumitomo, its first partnership in an overseas plant project with a company other than Ford, formally its top shareholder.
Yamanouchi said he intends to have Mazda’s global sales surpass its target of 1.7m units in the business year ending in March 2016 by around 300,000 units through a sales expansion in emerging countries.
As for its relationship with Ford Motor, which reduced its stake in Mazda from 11% to 3.5% last month, Yamanouchi said Mazda and Ford are keeping a strategic alliance even after the share sales.
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By GlobalData”I would like to draw your attention to the fact that (Ford) is still holding a 3.5% stake (in Mazda),” he said, adding, ”We are not considering at all forming a capital alliance with a company other than Ford.”
According to Kyodo, he said it is probable Mazda will form cooperative ties with other companies on specific technologies, like a deal with Toyota struck earlier this year to receive hybrid technology.
As for its steps to meet intensifying competition in the market of environmentally friendly vehicles, Yamanouchi said Mazda is accelerating efforts on strengthening its technologies, and showed confidence in the automaker’s upcoming petrol-powered vehicle that boasts enhanced fuel economy as good as those of similar-sized hybrids.
Mazda, Japan’s fifth-largest automaker by sales volume, plans to roll out a new Demio [Mazda 2] petrol-powered car that will run for 30km on a litre of petrol without the help of electric motors in the first half of 2011.
The car will be equipped with the Skyactiv-G direct-injection petrol engine and Mazda plans to sell it cheaper than the JPY1.59m sticker on Honda’s Fit [Jazz] hybrid that boasts the same level of fuel economy.
”We believe they are the most efficient engines anywhere,” Yamanouchi said, referring to the new Demio. ”It will be more affordable than a similar sized HEV,” or hybrid electric vehicle, he added.
Yamanouchi said there will be a certain level of demand for petrol-powered vehicles about 10 years later, referring to third-party projections.
But Mazda will also keep up efforts of introducing greener technologies, Yamanouchi said, noting that the automaker plans to introduce a new braking system in 2012 to realize better fuel efficiency and launch hybrid cars by 2013. The company is also ”considering” introducing plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, he added.
”I am determined to drive Mazda, despite its relatively small size, to become an indispensable one and only brand,” he said, according to Kyodo News. ”Many more great things will come from Mazda in years ahead.”
