Mitsubishi Motors Corp. plans to keep its U.S. strategy of letting customers drive off in new cars or trucks for no money down and no interest or payments for a year as rivals shift to more expensive rebates, according to a Bloomberg News story by Alan Ohnsman.

The Tokyo-based maker of the Lancer small car and Montero sport utility began offering consumers the option to finance new cars and light trucks under the so-called 0-0-0 program in 1999. It helped increase sales while cutting incentive costs, said Pierre Gagnon, president and chief operating officer of Mitsubishi's U.S. sales unit.

Mitsubishi's system helped cut incentive costs to about $1,400 per vehicle, less than an industry average of almost $2,500, according to Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research Inc., a Bandon, Ore., firm which tracks incentive spending by automakers.

Sales for Mitsubishi, the eighth-largest automaker in the U.S., this year through May rose 15 percent to 151,202, and Gagnon said the company is on pace to beat its goal of selling at least 350,000 vehicles in the largest market in 2002.