LOS ANGELES -- Cheap gasoline and tight supplies from a new factory in Salamanca, Mexico, have persuaded Mazda Motor Corp. to forgo selling the redesigned Mazda2 in the U.S., a top executive said.
Last year, as Mazda's international sales offices jostled for allocation of the fuel-sipping subcompact hatchback, U.S. executives decided it wasn't a priority, Rob-ert Davis, senior vice president of U.S. operations at Mazda, said in an interview.
"We could have had it, but we would have had a number that didn't make much sense with 600 dealers and with the marketing it takes to launch a new car," he said. "I wanted to allocate resources to those products that make us and our dealers considerably more profit than a Mazda2 does."