Mazda Motor Corp is ready to pump a huge load of money into their R&D funding – the Japanese auto maker wants to becoming a largely hybrid / green car maker by 2015. This will raise their ratio from above 20% in 2010 to about 40% by 2015.

According to news reporting agency Reuters: “In the current fiscal year, the carmaker earmarked 100 billion yen for group R&D spending, up 15 billion yen from fiscal 2009, of which slightly more than 20 percent will go toward developing green cars, the paper said.”

“Mazda is expected to spend an average of 100 billion yen on R&D each year through fiscal 2015, and will increasingly push more of the pie toward eco-friendly vehicles, the daily said.”

Mazda intends on stepping up efforts to improve energy efficiency for gasoline-powered vehicles, including combining compact SUV’s with a new engine, which is 10% more efficient than those existing today.

A capital boost of 100 billion yen, which was conducted last autumn, has made it possible for the firm to move “full-speed ahead” in the green car field.

Mazda has already joined forces with various auto makers in order to develop hybrid system, new technology and advanced car design. For now, a Mazda hybrid will only be available in Japan – as no word has been said on whether they’ll sell outside a home market.

Mazda has lagged these past few years in producing their very own hybrid technology – Mazda Executive Vice President Masaharu Yamaki stated; “We want to develop a hybrid car quickly.”

Mazda plans to start heavy manufacturing and selling a hybrid vehicle as early as 2013.

Mazda plans to combine Toyota’s hybrid system with its new technology and car design, in hopes to produce their very own gas / electric vehicle by 2013. For now, a Mazda hybrid will only be available in Japan – as no word has been said on whether they’ll sell outside a home market.

Mazda has lagged these past few years in producing their very own hybrid technology. Upon signing the Toyota agreement, Mazda Executive Vice President Masaharu Yamaki stated; “We want to develop a hybrid car quickly.”

Toyota does not solely share hybrid components with Mazda. On the contrary; Ford, Subaru and Nissan have all been in partnerships with Toyota for sharing of hybrid research, production and design.

Gas prices in the United States may be lower then just a year or two ago, but hybrids are still in demand. Toyota alone manufactured 655,180 vehicles in February globally, up 83% from 358,573 vehicles in the same month last year.

Mr. Yamaki added his insight on the growing demand for hybrids in Japan, sparked by government buying incentives as well as Toyota’s Prius model.

Sources: WSJ | Mazdapedia.org

The auto maker showed off a few of their upgrades at the Philadelphia Show Mazda booth, but it all comes out in Geneva. Our pals over at Car & Driver talked to Robert Davis, Mazda North America’s senior VP of quality and R&D, in Geneva. Davis dropped some very interesting news on their i-stop power train, hydrogen power and other fun developments at Mazda:

i-stop

This is what Mazda calls its engine stop/start system, which kills the engine at stops and already is available on the Mazda 3 in Europe. Rather than using the electric starter to re-fire the engine, as in other manufacturers’ versions of the technology, Mazda instead stops one of the cylinders at an advantageous point near the top of its stroke and fires that cylinder to get the engine restarted once the driver steps off the brake. The reason we haven’t yet seen i-stop—or most other companies’ versions—on U.S.-market cars is that the tech simply doesn’t have enough effect on EPA fuel-economy ratings.

Hybrids

Mazda is toying with the idea of hybridizing more of its lineup beyond the slow-selling Tribute hybrid, which is a clone of the Ford Escape hybrid, but Davis didn’t seem particularly bullish on the idea. As mentioned, weight is a concern—as is overall performance—and since Mazda is confident that it can reach looming federal efficiency requirements with some or all of the measures discussed here, it’s not convinced that more widespread hybridization is the way to go. We think part of the brand’s hesitancy to go hybrid could be pinned on financials; it costs a lot to develop your own hybrid powertrain, and licensing one from another company wouldn’t be cheap, either. When/if Mazda decides to more fully hybridize, we were told not to expect anything for at least ten years.

Diesel & Hydrogen

As we said, the plans will include diesel, too, if not in America then certainly in Europe, where Mazda already sells oil-burners. We had a chance to drive a CX-7 with a 2.2-liter diesel engine while we were in Geneva, and came away fairly impressed. (Again. Check out our initial drive of the vehicle for a more in-depth look.) A fair amount of turbo lag was our only real complaint. But we won’t see that engine in the U.S. market, should we actually get diesel Mazdas. The company would wait until the SKY-D engine is ready, and it is said to be a lot more drivable—i.e. less laggy.

We didn’t discuss this with Davis in Geneva, but hydrogen seems to be where Mazda’s sliding a decent chunk of its chips. Witness the rotary-engined, hydrogen-fueled RX-8s and 5s that have gone on lease in Norway and Japan in the past year or so. But given the current lack of meaningful hydrogen infrastructure in the U.S., they won’t come here anytime soon.

The Source: Car & Driver