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Mazda North American Operations CEO Tom Donnelly joins Market Domination Overtime Hosts Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton to discuss the automaker’s electric vehicle (EV) strategy.
Donnelly explains that Mazda's strategy is offering a combination of battery and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. “It's the right strategy for us as a brand, [of] our size. And we think it's proving to be the right strategy for the marketplace right now.” He outlines the company’s “three phases of this multi-solution strategy.” Donnelly explains that the first phase, which follows through the end of 2024, “was the introduction of plug-in hybrids.” The second phase spans from 2025 to 2027 when the company “will introduce more plug-in hybrid variations,” as well as the “first Mazda-produced battery electric vehicle.” The final phase goes through 2030, with Mazda offering a “multiple battery electric vehicle.”
“The market is illustrating with the growth in hybrid, a bit of, let's say, tempered growth in battery electric vehicles, that they're looking for multiple powertrain options at this point. So we think we've got the right lineup to capitalize on that right now,” Donnelly tells Yahoo Finance.
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He says the company’s EV strategy has always been market-based so as not to get ahead of demand. “We've been, we think, very thoughtful and intentional about how we've approached [EVs]. In fact, the word we've used over the last two years has been ‘intentional follower.’ For a brand our size, we're going to monitor the market, and then we're going to use our agility to make sure that we can shift our production and shift our products to meet the demand at that particular time. And I would say it's proving to be effective.”
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This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.