Each of these templates, called a platform, costs tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) to develop, and the reduction also was expected to shorten the time needed to role out new models, the Nihon Keizai business daily said.

Mitsubishi Motors, Japan's fourth-largest automaker, currently uses four separate platforms for its mini-vehicle lineup alone, and plans to consolidate that into one platform, the newspaper said.

The Tokyo-based company is racing to cut costs as it fights years of red ink brought on by a recall scandal several years ago.

Last month, Mitsubishi Motors said it narrowed its losses for the April-June quarter to 15.1 billion yen ($130 million; euro101.4 million) for the first fiscal quarter, an improvement from the 21.6 billion yen loss racked up the previous year.

Mitsubishi Motors _ which has booked three straight fiscal years of red ink _ kept unchanged its forecast to return to profitability for the full fiscal year ending March 2007, at an 8 billion yen ($70 million; euro55 million) profit.

Money-losing Mitsubishi Motors is the exception among Japanese automakers, with Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., reporting stellar results. The reputation of the Japanese for delivering good mileage has proved a boon amid soaring oil prices, especially in North America, where the companies are boosting market share.

In 2000, Mitsubishi Motors acknowledged it had been systematically hiding auto defects from authorities for more than two decades. The automaker announced a spate of recalls but disclosed in 2004 it had failed to come clean in 2000 and had more concealed defects.