Beginner

Electric Cars

Electric Cars, Japan is not China or Europe

Unlike China and perhaps Europe, electric vehicles have not grown in number in the same way. There is limited popularity in Japan due to a few reasons.

1. Toyota which leads the way in the JDM, internationally has not chosen the way of the battery. Rather, Toyota has kept pushing the envelope of development on the hybrid vehicle. This makes the models made and sold by the Japanese makers very limited.
2. Charging. Charging facilities nationwide exist for electric vehicles, but if the numbers increased, these facilities would not cover requirements, leading to ques and waiting times for charging.
3. Public uptake. The majority of Japanese do not live in their own house but rather rent or have bought an apartment within a major city. There are limited to no charging facilities within these apartment buildings. Often people will rent a park place for their vehicle near where they live. Again there are no charging places here as well. So charging does NOT occur at home.
4. Again, the primary purpose of the family car in Japan is to go out on the weekends and the public holidays with your family in the car. Monthly fuel bills are only a minor expense of owning the family car. Monthly parking fees, highway toll bills and car related taxes take just as large if not a larger bite out of the family budget each month.

There are however a lot of imported models, as listed below.

Japanese Maker list:

HOWEVER … we have a problem.

Due to the risk of RORO ships going extinct, we can NOT ship these vehicles in the Northern Hemisphere. RORO in the northern hemisphere shipping lines will not touch an electric car with a barge pole! When there is a fire on a RORO ship, which seems to happen more often than not, the first thing the press mentions is electric vehicles. When they burn, they burn HOT.

Somehow, this seems to be a northern hemisphere problem. Either that or the shipping lines having a case of “corporate amnesia” as electric used vehicles can easily be sent to Australia and New Zealand.
So, until a fire breaks out on a RORO ship heading down south, Kiwis and Aussies indulge yourselves on the following electric cars available in the auctions in Japan. Northern hemisphere clients, window shopping only thank you.

Word of caution: they are NOT cheap, especially the foreign brands.

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