Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Once celebrated as pioneers of gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, a new report finds that major Japanese automakers such as Nissan, Toyota, and Honda are poised to capture only a meager share of the global Electric Vehicle (EV) market.
Japan currently dominates the world market for hybrid vehicles, but as automobile companies in China, the United States, and Europe push towards fully electric fleets, Japanese automakers have proven reluctant to embrace the change.
This fact has once again been highlighted in a report issued earlier this month by the independent think tank InfluenceMap, which found Japanese brands pulling up dead last among major global automakers.
This wasn’t always the case. In fact, Nissan was the first automobile company to mass produce a battery-powered vehicle–the Nissan Leaf–which debuted in 2010. The Leaf was popular at the time and continues to be one of the best-selling EVs, unseated only recently by the popularity of the Tesla Model 3.
In past years, Nissan, Toyota, and Honda have downplayed the importance of EVs. Indeed, Toyota in particular continues to promote hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs) as an EV alternative, and the government has set a target of 200,000 FCEVs on the road by 2025.
However, according to the InfluenceMap report, only 8,000 FCEVs are likely to be produced by 2029.
Despite Japan’s advocacy, FCEVs face many challenges to wide adoption, not least of which is the need for a national-scale hydrogen refueling infrastructure, which most nations are not preparing.
Few others share Japan’s doubts that EVs may not be the vehicles of the future.
China and Europe are even mandating higher sales of fully electric vehicles and moving to ban sales of most gasoline-powered cars and trucks. Jurisdictions such as California and the United Kingdom already have plans to ban hybrid vehicles as well.
Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association Chairman Akio Toyoda, also the president of Toyota Motor, has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the feasibility of fully electric vehicles, a stance which puts him at odds with the mainstream of global industry opinion. Toyoda argues that the media has oversold the environmental value of EVs, noting correctly that the climate-protection benefits of EVs are compromised if fossil fuels are used to generate electricity for the national grids.
There are other reasons why Japanese automakers are hesitant to let go of hybrid technology.
According to James Edmondson, an analyst at IDTechEx, a market research firm, “For the manufacturers like Toyota, like Nissan, the hybrids are so prolific, there’s a good business case for them, so it’s in the interest of the government to keep pushing for them.”
Among Toyoda’s specific concerns are preserving the technological lead that Toyota has established in systematizing hybrid production, as well as protecting the many small- and medium-sized Japanese firms which currently act as Toyota suppliers. Many of these companies will not be needed once the less-complex EV technology is adopted.
While the instinct to protect jobs is admirable in principle, if these short-term benefits come only at the expense of further damaging the global climate and sinking the nation’s automotive industry into obsolescence, the benefit will have come at far too high a cost.
Recent Electric Vehicle Related Articles
Japan Automakers Playing Catch-Up on Electric Vehicles
Nissan Keeps Delaying Ariya Launch
Nissan Alliance Set To Triple EV Investment