Mazda's new small car based on the Toyota Yaris will go on sale in the spring, replacing the Mazda2.
The hatchback will be built at Toyota's plant in Valenciennes, France, alongside the Yaris and will be hybrid-only, Toyota Europe said in an email to Automotive News Europe.
Pictures of the car, which will be called the Mazda2 Hybrid, show it is largely unchanged from the Yaris except for the addition of Mazda badging.
The new Mazda2 Hybrid offers "nimble handling, a high quality ride, a comfortable cabin and the latest safety technology," Mazda said in a statement.
The Mazda2 Hybrid will use the Yaris hybrid's drivetrain, which pairs a three-cylinder gasoline engine with a lithium ion battery to reduce CO2 emissions to 92 grams per km measured on the WLTP cycle.
Mazda said it would add a Yaris-based small car during an earnings presentation in November 2020. The car will help achieve the company comply with stricter European Union CO2 regulations, the automaker said in the presentation.
Mazda also pools its European Union vehicle sales with Toyota along with Suzuki and Subaru to help it avoid fines for missing CO2 reduction targets.
The current Mazda2 was launched in 2014 and overhauled in 2019 to include mild hybrid technology.
European sales of the Mazda2 rose 16 percent in the first 10 months to 17,714, according to JATO. But the volume is well below the 37,112 Mazda sold in Europe during the whole of 2019.
Toyota would not comment on the how many Mazda2s it will build per year. The Yaris was Europe's second best-selling car in the 10 months to the end of October, JATO figures show.
However, Toyota has warned that European sales will slump in the final quarter as a result of the chip shortage.
Mazda will also use Toyota's hybrid system on a new SUV for the U.S., expected to be the new CX-50, as well in a model for China, the company said in its November 2020 earnings report.
