Thursday, June 11, 2009

Mazda "considers" alliance with Ford or others on "Electrical Devices that boost fuel efficiency"

In the article on Bloomberg.com (linked in title) Mazda anounced that it's considering alliences with Ford (and others?) to cooperate on "electrical devices to boost fuel efficiency" This seems like a no brainer to me. Considering that Ford still owns 13.8% of Mazda and....
Has the most fuel efficient mid-size sedan on the market, which just happen to share a platform and powertrain components with Mazda. I don't know why Mazda hadn't committed to Ford's Hybrid program earlier. The Escape/Tribute, the Fusion/6. And even though Mazda was first to market ( among partners ) with Gasoline Direct Fuel Injection and Turbocharging, they could benefit from the new EcoBoost powerplants.

I know Mazda held high hope for their Hydrogen RX-8s, but with no real infrastructure it just doesn't pay. And with new EPA standards a couple of Hybrids couldn't hurt, especially in California.

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