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By Bloomberg

Ford Motor Co. introduced its Focus RS hatchback as the automaker adds more performance vehicles to its U.S. lineup to help spur sales.

“The demand was consumer driven,” Omar Odeh, North American marketing manager for the Focus, said Tuesday in Dearborn, Michigan. “We are listening to customer feedback that says, ‘We want the RS in North America.’” The RS, built in Germany, will be available worldwide starting late this year, the automaker said in a statement.

The Focus RS, previously available only in Europe, is among 12 performance models Ford plans to add by 2020. At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last month, the company unveiled the GT supercar, the Shelby GT350R Mustang sports cars and the F-150 Raptor pickup.

The Focus RS offers all-wheel drive and a new 2.3-liter EcoBoost engine that can generate more than 315 horsepower, Ford said in the statement. The price wasn’t disclosed. The car will compete in an industry segment known as “hot hatches” that includes models such as Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.’s Subaru WRX and Volkswagen AG’s Golf GTI.

Ford’s U.S. sales of cars and light trucks fell 0.6 percent to 2.47 million last year, including a drop of 6.4 percent to 219,634 for all versions of the Focus. The Dearborn-based automaker lost almost one percentage point of market share as the industry had its best year since 2006.