Mazda adds hybrid option to its popular compact hatch.

Badge engineering happens. And in a world of escalating R&D costs, you can expect to see it happen – a whole lot more.

Mazda is the latest company to ask for a favour. This time, from Toyota.

Although Mazda has a promising fleet of pure electric and PHEV vehicles on the horizon, it needs to dramatically reduce its fleet CO2 numbers – now.

To help Mazda, it has a new hybrid that looks an awful lot like Toyota’s European specification Yaris. Because it is.

Requiring a Mazda2 hybrid right away, Toyota has allowed its Japanese rival to put a Mazda badge on the Yaris hybrid. The result is an absence of Kodo design, with Mazda badging inside and out.

The Mazda2 hybrid uses a 1.5-litre three-cylinder engine, augmented by a single electric motor. Total system output is 85 kW, which is good enough for a benchmark 0-100 kph sprint time of 9.7 seconds.

Top speed is an undramatic 175 kph, but as with any hybrid vehicle, the true appeal is fuel economy.

The Mazda2 hybrid is claimed to run at 3.1L/100 km, making it a remarkably efficient proposition.

To reduce inefficiency, the Mazda2 hybrid defaults to full EV mode on start-up. Instead of burning fuel, it uses the electric motor at low speeds, to overcome inertia.

Regenerative braking technology also helps to harvest maximum efficiency from this hybridized Mazda2, feeding the recovered energy back into the battery and keeping it topped up.

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