Nissan Motor Co.'s purchases of hybrid technology from Toyota Motor Corp. is only a stopgap measure, says CEO Carlos Ghosn.

"I don't think this agreement will go for a very long time," he said Tuesday. "We have other projects and are developing our own technology."

Ghosn made the comments at a press conference to announce Nissan's earnings for the fiscal year that ended March 31.

The company plans to buy components from Toyota to use in a hybrid Altima. Nissan plans to build that car at its plant in Smyrna, Tenn., to go on sale in late 2006 or early 2007.

The hybrid Altima is expected to be sold in only eight states: California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and Maine. The states have adopted California's stringent emissions regulations.

Nissan will have capacity to build 50,000 hybrid Altimas a year but has indicated it does not expect to sell that many. Although the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid have sold well, Toyota and Honda Motor Co. have scaled back their hybrid production plans. Ford Motor Co. is offering 0 percent financing on its hybrid Ford Escape SUV.

"You have to be prudent when all competitors are cutting production or offering incentives" on their hybrid vehicles, Ghosn said.

"Developing a technology and mass-marketing a technology is something very different," said Ghosn, who has criticized hybrids because they are sold at a loss.

In September 2002, Nissan said it would use Toyota's hybrid components to build up to 100,000 vehicles over five years starting in 2006.

I'm glad Nissan is taking this position. While it was certainly an effective way to get into the Hybrid market fairly quickly, I think Nissan can do MUCH better than Toyota's Hybrid Synergy drive. I've never liked Toyota's setup, and I'd like to see someone do things better.

I also wonder about future arrangements between hybrid manufacturers. For instance, Ford right now is using CVTs built by former Toyota supplier Aisin Seiki and has licensed certain aspects of Toyota's HSD due to similarity in order to avoid patent issues.BUT, Ford is not happy with Aisin Seiki from what I understand. And where Aisin Seiki was the only choice for Ford as a source for CVTs when the Escape Hybrid was new, Nissan now produces some of the best CVTs on the market. And, for those who aren't aware, Ford (through subsidiary Mazda) was a partner in Nissan owned JATCO in the 90s. JATCO made transmissions for (and sometimes shared by) Nissan, Mazda, and Ford (among other brands). JATCO now makes Nissan's CVTs. It makes sense to me that Ford would look to JATCO to supply CVTs if their deal with Aisin Seiki turned sour. And if Nissan already had a hybrid technology of their own developed to go along with their excellent CVTs, both companies (Nissan and Ford) could stand to benefit assuming Nissan doesn't run into the same patent issues Ford did when designing their system.Perhaps the 2nd generation Escape Hybrid will have an all new powertrain with a JATCO CVT and Nissan co-developed hybrid components shared with the next-gen Altima Hybrid.