The Ford Motor Company has canceled plans to re-enter the minivan market in the United States. Instead, Ford said on Thursday that it would introduce a smaller, five-passenger hatchback version of the minivan that it was going to build and offer it only as either a hybrid or plug-in hybrid. [Prius v chaser?]

The car, called the C-Max, would be Ford’s first hybrid-only model in North America, in the same way that the Toyota Prius is offered only as a hybrid.

In addition, Ford said it intended to triple its production capacity for hybrid and electric cars in North America so that it could build more than 100,000 of them annually by 2013. The increase will add 220 jobs in Michigan, Ford said.

James D. Farley Jr., Ford’s group vice president for global marketing, sales and service, said the carmaker was planning for a future in which fuel efficiency remained a high priority for consumers.

“Customers have really changed in the last 120 days,” Mr. Farley told reporters at a transmission plant north of Detroit. “People are so focused on fuel economy.”