Toyota gets all the green press, but there are other car companies doing their part to advance more environmentally-friendly automotive technologies.

Mazda will be replacing the 2.3-litre 4-cylinder engine found in many Mazda, Ford and Volvo vehicles with a new, higher performance engine that actually gets 20% better fuel economy.

A really useful new technology from Mazda is the Smart Idle Stop System - You know how one green driving tip that keeps coming up is to stop your car instead of idling it all the time, and no one does it becuase it's a pain in the butt?  Yeah, well this system does that for you seamlessly whenever you apply the brake and come to a complete stop.  As soon as you release the break it restarts the engine for you.  Look for this to become a standard feature in the near future.

Mazda has also developed a new low-cost painting process that reduces VOCs by 45% and CO2 emissions by up to 15%.

Mazda is developing other cool technologies like a clean diesel engine and a new high-performance rotary engine, but you'll have to hit the jump to read about those at MSN Autos.

» MSN Autos