2014 Mazda Mazda3 Hybrid Announced... But Only For Japan

Are there still incentives for hybrids in Japan? Or other regulatory reasons to release a hybrid there?Nissan only released their Toyota leased hybrid in 10 states here. Why widely offer something that a competitor gets part of the profits of?

 

The big incentives for hybrids are gone, but they still pay lower taxes.
With high gas taxes and prices it makes sense for Mazda to experiment with this hybrid. They are a much smaller company, and spent a great deal of money on skyactiv technology. They needed to pay someone for their hybrid technology, and that was going to be ford or toyota, the only two companies that looked to be doing it sucessfully. Since they planned for manufacturing in the Japan, and Toyota is the hybrid leader, Toyota was the obvious partner, unless they charged much more than ford.

Many of the hybrid patents expire soon. If Mazda is successful, they likely will get lower prices in a couple of years, or make there own parts. I am curious to see what mazda has done with the toyota hsd technology.

 

The front of that sedan looks very similar to the Tesla Model S. Nice looking car for sure.