Last year, 59,000 new electric vehicles were sold in Japan, a record and a threefold annual increase, but still less than two percent of all car sales in the country by 2022 – Copyright AFP Richard A. Brooks
Etienne BALMER
Atsushi Ikeda loves his car so much that he founded a club for Tesla owners, but his embrace of an electric vehicle makes him something of an outlier in Japan.
As China’s U.S. markets race to put more electric vehicles on their roads, the pedal is still nowhere near the metal in Japan, where the hybrid still rules.
Last year, 59,000 new electric vehicles were sold in Japan, a record and a threefold annual increase, but still less than two percent of all car sales in the country by 2022.
It’s a situation that may seem counterintuitive, given that Japan’s auto industry, which employs eight percent of the country’s workforce and accounts for a quarter of all its exports, pioneered hybrid cars and electric
But experts say the popularity of hybrids has hampered the adoption of electric vehicles, and Japanese automakers are in no rush to abandon existing lines.
The skepticism is no secret, and the former head of Toyota, the world’s best-selling carmaker, regularly questioned the growing focus on electricity.
“I think Toyota didn’t want the trend to tilt towards plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles because of their focus on hybrids and also their significant investment,” said Kenichiro Wada, president of the Japan Electrification Research Institute, which helped develop the first electric vehicles. at Mitsubishi Motors in the 2000s.
He compared the company to a top-level sumo wrestler, eager to “maintain the status quo as long as possible.”
When Ikeda went looking for a car that was “affordable, safe, polluting free,” he quickly turned to Tesla.
“I like high-performance cars,” he told AFP, describing the few Japanese options on the market when he bought in 2016 as small and unattractive.
There are now government incentives for people to go electric, but Ikeda says “the charging infrastructure is too weak in Japan”, blaming “heavy regulations”.
– Zero emissions goals –
The situation in Japan is increasingly inconsistent with priorities elsewhere.
Electric vehicles accounted for 20 percent of new car sales in China last year, about 15 percent in Western Europe and 5.3 percent in the United States, according to a PwC study.
Ironically, electric vehicles have a long history in Japan, with Mitsubishi Motors introducing its i-MiEV in 2009 and Nissan its Leaf model a year later.
At the time, however, the models were expensive due to their batteries and considered impractical given the lack of a nationwide charging network.
Hybrids seemed like a better bet and have proven enduring popularity, accounting for more than 40 percent of sales in Japan last year.
Government and industry efforts have also been sidetracked by a push to develop hydrogen-powered vehicles, a sector that has grown much more slowly than electric vehicles.
The European Union, Britain and several US states want all new cars sold to be zero-emissions by 2035.
However, Japan’s target includes hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the same year.
Despite the obstacles, there are some signs of change, spurred in part by more demanding EV targets in overseas markets.
If they can’t “react quickly” to these new demands, “some Japanese automakers could disappear,” said auto analyst Koji Endo of SBI Securities.
– “It must be EV first” –
Japanese companies have begun rolling out more ambitious electric vehicle targets, even as foreign automakers try to establish a foothold for their electric vehicles in the country.
Last year, Nissan launched its ‘Sakura’ model, an all-electric car in the mini-sized ‘kei’ category that is popular in Japan. It accounted for one-third of the country’s electric vehicle sales by 2022.
“Japanese drivers’ daily travel range is shorter,” compared to European or American consumers, Nobuhide Yanagi, Nissan’s director of electric vehicle marketing in Japan, told AFP.
Thus, small cars “could gain more share in the electric vehicle market, not just for Nissan.”
The Japanese government plans to increase the number of charging stations from 30,000 to 150,000 by 2030.
However, their acceptance remains qualified, with an official from Japan’s trade ministry warning that electric vehicles “are expensive and resources are limited.”
“Hybrid technology is affordable and offers significant (emissions) savings,” Kuniharu Tanabe, director of the ministry’s auto industry division, told AFP.
He described Europe’s electric vehicle strategy as “extreme” and pointed to a last-minute reduction for synthetic fuel vehicles.
Japan’s caution is not entirely unwarranted, especially given potential shortages of raw materials such as lithium, said Christopher Richter, auto analyst at CLSA.
“If you’re all EV, you could be putting your franchise at great risk. That said, it still has to be EV first,” he told AFP.
“Climate change is real, the effects will get worse over time, so at some point there will be a demand for zero emissions.”
