A pledge to boost economy will be hit by the ETS, writes motoring editor Alastair Sloane
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Mazda's pledge to cut fuel economy across its fleet by 30 per cent over the next seven years is good news and bad news for New Zealanders: good that there will be still more fuel-efficient vehicles coming on stream, bad that the benefits from such vehicles will almost certainly be affected by the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Mazda New Zealand managing director Andrew Clearwater says the ETS has the potential to initially drive up the cost of a litre of petrol by 11c "unless there is a price safety valve on the price of carbon".
"The energy industry comes under this legislation from 2011 and it will pass on its carbon emitter charges through increases at the pump," said Clearwater. This will have a significant impact on fuel prices.
"For example, in the eight months since the ETS went to Parliament and [Energy Minister] David Parker was widely quoted as saying the ETS would push the price of fuel up by only 4c cents a litre, the international price of carbon has gone from $15 per tonne of CO2 to around $40 per tonne."
Independent agencies also believe the ETS will hit motorists harder than Parker's 4c a litre forecast. Government was going to start taxing the energy industry next year, when the ETS comes into effect. But it backed off in the face of soaring fuel prices.
Clearwater believes the price of fuel will not return to the lows of previous years. But, he says, there is still plenty of oil about, one reason why the Japanese carmaker is working on improving the fuel economy of combustion engines rather than developing electric or hybrid options.
He says such powertrains are likely to be niche products for many years to come, so they won't have a real impact on the environment. "It makes sense from our perspective that we also focus on improving the fuel economy of the predominant part of our volume. As we all know, there is a long way to go before we run out of oil.
"It's not that we are ignoring the need in the future for alternative powertrains, but we are taking a different path and have been working for many years with hydrogen and burning this in our rotary engine."
Mazda aims to cut fuel consumption across its fleet by reducing the weight of its cars, improving aerodynamics and introducing new-generation, direct-injection engines.
The company's product-led growth strategy has seen global sales in the first fiscal quarter of 2008 (April-June) increase by 11 per cent over the same period last year.
Sales in New Zealand to the end of August were also up 11 per cent against an industry-wide drop of -1.2 per cent. While Mazda faced difficult business conditions, it is satisfying that its strategy was working, said Clearwater.
Mazda is in fourth place on the new-vehicles sales chart with 4328 sales, behind Toyota, Holden and Ford. Its 7.2 per cent share of the market has been boosted by a classy small and medium car line-up, including the hatchback Mazda2, the 2007 world car.
In these times of environmental focus and the potential adverse impact on vehicle pricing and running costs, having a reputation for producing smaller sporty cars is without doubt benefiting the Mazda brand, said Clearwater.
"While there are economic challenges that are beyond our control, we remain confident about our ongoing success and we are optimistic that the demand for new cars in this country will hold up.
"We are still comfortable that the new vehicle industry should be around 98,000 to 100,000 vehicles this year, although it will be hard work until we get through the election circus."
Mazda has pulled back the price of many of its vehicles as it seeks to boost sales going into an expected slow last quarter.
The face-lifted four-door RX-8 coupe it launched on the Pukekohe race circuit 48 hours ago has also had its retail price slashed, from $61,995 to $55,395.
The carmaker says improvements to the transmissions and 1300cc Rotary powertrain, along with a stronger body and chassis, has given the rear-drive RX-8 better road manners.
The six-speed manual and automatic transmissions are a development of the units used in the sporty MX-5. Mazda says it reworked the ratios to better suit the characteristics of the high-revving (9000rpm redline) Renesis engine.
The sequential "activematic" unit has a mode that allows the driver pedalling along in Drive, for example, and wanting to overtake to instantly switch to a lower manual gear by using steering wheel-mounted switches.
When engine revs have settled, the transmission goes back into Drive. The double-clutch unit in the new BMW M3 has a similar system.
The rotary engines peak power figure remains unchanged in the updated model. Instead, Mazda says it improved low- to mid-range engine response and torque delivery.
Power for the manual remains unchanged at 170kW at 8200rpm, while the automatic increases 17kW to 158kW at 7500rpm. Both transmissions develop peak torque of 211Nm at 5500rpm.
Says Clearwater: "We are expecting the RX-8 to be well received by the many rotary fans out there."
