TOKYO – In September, Narumi Abe did something that is still rare Japan: she bought a foreign car, choose one Peugeot e-208 on one Honda’s motobike e because, she said, Peugeot can travel longer distances between charges.
Abe joins a small, but growing group of Japanese motorists who are shunning home brands for foreign batteries. tram (EVs).
While this trend is unlikely to produce a major drop in sales overall, it highlights the perception that many domestic automakers have been slower to catch up. the battery EVs, instead focusing on hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell and alternative fuels for internal combustion engines.
“I want to buy something that’s best for the environment,” said the 30-year-old, who runs a company that sells agricultural products in Tokyo.
Toyota has committed 8 trillion yen ($69 billion) to electrification by 2030, and expects to sell about 3.5 million battery electric vehicles worldwide by that time. That number represents about a third of Toyota’s current annual sales car sales.
From Germany Volkswagen AG predicts half of its vehicles will be battery EVs.
Nine-tenths of the five million cars sold annually in Japan are owned by domestic companies such as Toyota Motor CorpHonda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co.
But while overall auto sales in Japan, excluding light vehicles, fell 3.2 percent last year, sales of foreign models rose 1.7 percent. Imports of battery electric vehicles nearly tripled to a record 8,610 vehicles, according to the Japan Automobile Importers Association.
Analysts estimate about half of that is Tesla Inc Automotive. Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, is one of the foreign manufacturers seeing the opening of battery-EVs in Japan.
Country manager Matthias Schepers said at a press conference in January that it plans to sell more than a dozen such models in Japan by 2024, including cheaper Audi sport utility vehicle models. and Volkswagen this year.
He said the company expects battery electric vehicles to account for a third of Audi’s sales, or about 10,000 vehicles, in Japan by 2025. The VW Group will expand the installation of fast chargers to 250 of its own showrooms. himself by the end of the year, he said.
Stellantis, the owner of the Peugeot brand that Abe bought, is also expanding its lineup in Japan, with two new models going on sale this year.
They are being joined by South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co, which this month said it would return to Japan 12 years after leaving because of poor sales. Japanese drivers will be able to order Nexo SUV hydro fuel cells Its mid-sized EV and Ioniq 5 intersection EV batteries from May.
To increase the chances of success during this time, the Korean company has linked up with car sharing service provided by online social game company DeNA Co and insurance Sompo Holdings company to let Hyundai owners sublease their zeros emissions car.
