{"id":35216,"date":"2025-11-04T15:07:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T19:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=35216"},"modified":"2025-11-04T15:07:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T19:07:29","slug":"planet-japan-highlights-from-the-tokyo-auto-show-and-its-different-auto-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/planet-japan-highlights-from-the-tokyo-auto-show-and-its-different-auto-culture","title":{"rendered":"Planet Japan: Highlights from the Tokyo auto show, and its different auto culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tokyo<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 The Japan Mobility Show is an ocean, 6,397 nautical miles, and a world away from the Detroit Auto Show.<\/p>\n

The vehicle mix inside the Tokyo Big Sight convention center \u2014 and the streets outside \u2014 are as different from Motown’s Huntington Place as the fish in the salted Pacific Ocean versus unsalted Lake Michigan. Except the whales are in Huntington Place.<\/p>\n

Where the streets of Metro Detroit are dominated by huge Detroit Three pickup trucks and three-row SUVs, the byways of Tokyo are awash with tiny, boxy, so-called kei cars. You won\u2019t see the best-selling vehicle in the United States, the Ford F-150 pickup truck, because Ford doesn\u2019t sell here \u2014 and rural pickups are small. The best-selling SUV in America, the Toyota RAV-4, is also a rare sight due to its large (by Japanese standards) size and price. Japan\u2019s $4.25-a-gallon gas prices aren\u2019t outrageous like Europe ($7 a gallon), but city streets are Euro-narrow.<\/p>\n

Six-lane Route 20 runs thought the heart of Tokyo and is the city\u2019s Woodward Avenue with a variety of supercars, European exotics and historic vehicles preening for attention. But most metro areas are a tangle of small roads and alleys with citizens crammed into tall apartment buildings.<\/p>\n

Japan is deeply nationalistic, and the Top 10 brands here by sales are Japanese and right-hand drive. Only four non-Japanese brands stocked booths in Tokyo. Like U.S. shows, however, the floor was awash in EVs despite low Japanese consumer demand.<\/p>\n

Here are highlights from the show floor \u2014 and the streets beyond.<\/p>\n

\"Tokyo<\/figure>\n
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Tokyo – Box, box, box. Kei cars like this N-Box make up 80% of Honda Japan sales.<\/em><\/div>\n

Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/em><\/div>\n

1) Kei cars.<\/strong>\u00a0These shoeboxes on wheels are made by every mainstream manufacturer. Encouraged by government tax policy since World War II, they are an affordable class of vehicle that fit a defined footprint and put out no more than 63 horsepower (usually from a three-cylinder gerbil wheel). Suzuki, nonexistent in the U.S. market, is the No. 2 automaker here thanks in part to prodigious kei car production. Its Tokyo show headliner? The electric Vision e-Sky Kei car.<\/p>\n

In Tokyo drivers ride coach in kei cars next to First Class Porsches, Mercedes and BMWs. Go further out into Tokyo\u2019s suburbs and small cities like Tochigi and Kei cars dominate thanks to their ability to shoe-horn into tight spaces, sidewalks, and garages.<\/p>\n

\"BYD<\/figure>\n
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BYD has wowed with its electric supercar (front), but its Kei car concept will sell volume in Japan.<\/em><\/div>\n

Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/em><\/div>\n

China\u2019s BYD made a splash here by introducing a Kei car, showing its commitment to the market. Eighty percent of Honda\u2019s Japan sales are Kei cars like the N-Box. Its second-best seller? A small minivan called the FREED. Sightings of the Civic, Accord and CR-V (Honda\u2019s No. 1 sellers in the States) are rare.<\/p>\n