Japan Seeks to Squelch Its Tiny Cars

This makes me sad.

I lived and worked in Japan for 6 years, returning to my native Scotland almost 2 years ago, after struggling for the few years after the M9 quake (lived in Koriyama, Fukushima prefecture and lost my job after the quake).

We bought a new Suzuki Wagon R Limited back then, and I loved that car. Its apparently small outward appearance is deceptive; inside, there was loads of space - a high roof height, and when you folded down the rear seats you could comfortably fit items such as chests of drawers, fridges, and the like.

The engine; 0.6 litre - but that was augmented by a turbo, so there was plenty of power available, plus it sipped fuel. The automatic gearbox provided 4WD in first gear, which was awesome during winter - we lived in rural parts of Fukushima and the roads frequently iced over. Once during winter we went for a drive up a mountain road covered in about 3 inches of fresh snow and made it to the top of the Katasoniyama mountain because of the 4WD+studless tyres. Our Wagon R Limited also had niceties such as aircon, electric windows, and a minidisc(!)/radio.

All in all, a fantastic vehicle, and I wish we had sent it over to Scotland when we moved as the equivalent Wagon R's available here are made in Europe and just aren't the same standard of equipment and features, sadly.

The silly thing about the move by the Japanese government is that these Kei cars are an ideal solution to crowded cities as they require less space on roads and for parking, as well as being (or were) an extremely economical choice.

As others here have commented, I suspect there has been lobbying by the makers of large gas-guzzlers to make Kei cars less desirable. I think this decision by Abe's government will inevitably impact Japan's struggling economy - crony politics is notorious in Japan, something which contributed to the design and layout flaws of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

Just speculation, maybe this is a result of US pressure in the recent trade talks (trans-Pacific partnership?) It looks like Japan's domestic auto market is a key issue in TPP:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/12/us-trade-asiapacif...

(edit): Here's a whole article about US TPP pressure against kei cars:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/01/27/business/lower-t...

    "When American automakers expressed their opposition against Japan
    joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations due to its closed
    market, the U.S. makers also pressed Tokyo to end special tax
    treatment for the country’s unique “kei” super-minivehicle segment."
    
    "The outside pressure to end the low taxation for one of Japan’s most
    popular car segments has jolted the industry, which has protected the
    smaller end of the domestic car market for half a century."
    
    "Some industry observers point out that reviewing the tax rules for
    the super-mini segment would hit Japanese automakers hard. But others
    say a review would be a good thing because kei cars have received
    favorable treatment for too long."

Reading those two articles, I think it's credible that US negotiators got a concession from Abe on kei taxes, and we're seeing the result of that. As I understand, this kind of deal would be made in secret (like many aspects of TPP), so we wouldn't be aware of it at this point.

This is pretty short-sighted, in my opinion. If anything, smaller-sized cars seem likely to become more popular globally, not less. A walk through any chinese city will reveal any number of hand carts and jury-rigged bicycles just begging to be replaced by space- and fuel-efficient microvehicles.

As the world moves to cities, cars get smaller. Japan should be capitalising on this trend, trying to spread the culture overseas, not trying to smother it!

Kei cars are (were) cheap, economical, Eco friendly, favourably taxed and actually quite fun to drive. Now they are "too popular" and the government wants everyone to buy larger, less fuel efficient cars - I know someone personally who bought a larger car simply because of the new penalty taxes on Keis. Abe really has lost it.

>But industry and government officials are increasingly worried that these microvehicles have become a distraction for the nation’s automakers — still bastions of the Japanese economy — and are moving to wean drivers off them. In April the government took what its critics charged was a hard-line route. Kei drivers were hit with a triple whammy of a higher sales tax, higher gasoline tax and higher kei car tax, the last of which the government raised by 50 percent, sharply narrowing their tax difference with regular-size vehicles.

I feel like there's more going on than the article is saying. "industry and government officials are increasingly worried that these microvehicles have become a distraction for the nation’s automakers" sounds like lobbyists for full-size cars feeding politicians what to say. I don't buy that a bunch of politicians decided it was the for the greater good of the country to increase taxes on a cheap, fuel efficient vehicle.

This reminds me of Happoshu[1]: beer was expensive in Japan because malt content was taxed[2]. Brewers introduced fizzy beer-like beverages with lower malt content ("happoshu"). Beer tax revenues consequently dropped, so the tax on most happoshu was raised to parity with beer. Brewers responded by putting even less malt in their fizzy alcohol drinks.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happoshu

2. As I have been led to understand, this was intended to dissuade rice-growing land being switched to barley: Japan seeks to preserve self-sufficiency in rice production.

Kei cars make perfect sense in Japan- the density in city areas, the lower speed limits (compared to the US), smaller house driveways which could probably fit two kei cars but not two "regular" cars. At some point I saw a house (in either Okazaki or Kanazaa, I forget) that had a Ford Excursion in the driveway, and it stuck halfway into the road- that was a very rare sighting. Most people speak pretty positively of their K-car experiences. Instead of trying to pressure people in Japan into buying larger cars, wouldn't it make more sense to try to reduce the preconceptions about them and develop an export market? It sounds like this attempt will only result in more people ditching cars for scooters again, or dropping down to one car when they previously had two. Cars- of any kind- are already rather expensive to own there.

They've already had to replace most of their nuclear power with fossil fuel based sources. Pressuring people into buying less efficient cars seems like a giant backward step for a country that's generally considered to be fairly eco-conscious (when you ignore the past destruction of ecosystems for building, and the effects of concreting all the riverbeds). It's much easier to breathe in Tokyo than Beijing, it would be great if it stayed that way!

As an aside, I think Japan's regulation on diesel exhaust for large hauler trucks is actually less strict than the US. I was in Okinawa last year, and there was constant traffic from large construction trucks that were always billowing black exhaust that smelled horrific- it seemed much worse than 18 wheelers here. I also noticed it when I tried backpack from Nagoya to Osaka on a rural road in 2010- the truck exhaust seemed to hang in the air longer and felt more choking than modern truck exhaust in the US (familiar with this from doing distance runs on roadsides).

This is stupid Japanese auto makers were fairing way better in this economic crises than American ones.

Why would you like your car companies to be like GM or Ford and fail at the first sign of bad economic times.

Everyone is trying to make cars more eco friendly the Japanese seem to be ahead in that regard and now their going to opposite way.

Shouldn't it be up to the private automaker to make decisions about the economy of scale of its products or what is better for the private company's future? Why would the government get involved in securing the future of its automakers by taxing a class of products? The only legitimate argument for taxes might be reduced safety features. Does the US government do something like this? Imagine it adding a tax on Apple products or even American cars because of a sales demographic issue?

For those wondering the definition of "squelch": make a soft sucking sound such as that made by walking heavily through mud.

Curses...and here I was excited that many of the best Keis are finally hitting the 25 year mark and becoming eligible for import into the US. I had my hopes high that they would catch on and actually encourage Japanese brands to bring over some of the cooler Keis.

I'd buy one of these ... most of my driving is in town and the Kei would be perfect for that type of driving. (Note that our primary car is an eight passenger Sienna with just above half the city fuel economy claimed by the NT100.

"Even Ford’s smallest car, the Fiesta subcompact, has a substantially larger engine."

I am fairly certain that Ford's smallest car is the Ka[1], not Fiesta.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ka