In Europe, the EV electric vehicle market already accounts for 8% of the total car market. Tesla cars have even caused a stir around the world.
Despite Japan's excellent fuel cell industry, the current share of EV cars in Japan is less than 1% according to the survey.
Looking at the sales of EVs around the world, there is little room to choose from in the EV EV market in Japan.
To achieve the popularity of EV electric vehicles, there are 3 conditions that are essential. They are: 1. reduction of the price of the car body, 2. complete preparation of charging facilities, and 3. extension of the range.
For now, I believe many people have noticed that the cost of EV body is steadily decreasing. However, the fact is that there is no significant downward trend in the current new vehicle selling price of existing EVs.
In 2010, Mitsubishi Motors and Nissan developed the world's first mass-produced EV, the "i-MiEV," but unfortunately the i-MiEV quickly faded from the spotlight. The second-generation Japanese high-performance EV LEAF "NV200" is currently attracting attention.
According to the annual sales figures of Japanese cars in 2018, the LEAF was 35th with 26,722 units sold, while the i-MiEV sold only 128 units. This shows that although EV electric vehicles have become a hot topic, they are still not able to sell sales.
In terms of price, the lowest specification of LEAF 40KWH is priced at 3.24 million yen and 62KWH is priced at 4.72 million yen.
Generally speaking, the range of an electric car = the capacity of the battery used in the electric car. Therefore, the larger the capacity of the battery, the higher the range. But large capacity battery also means higher price. If the price of batteries cannot be solved, it will be difficult to reduce the price of EVs in the future.
The Japanese government currently provides a maximum subsidy of 400,000 yen to buyers of new energy vehicles, and there is a 4-year restriction on selling them.
This has directly led to a downturn in the secondary market, which has forced some users to abandon the purchase of EVs due to the use of discounted prices. Also, the sluggishness of the secondary market has indirectly reduced the number of users who want to start EV EVs through the secondary market.
Infrastructure and Law
In terms of infrastructure, charging facilities such as charging posts have started to spread in Japan, especially in the vicinity of highway entrances, roadside stations, and general roads, where general charging and fast charging facilities have increased significantly.
However, it is still not possible to meet the minimum demand of EV users. At present, due to the small number of EVs, it is difficult to balance and form a virtuous circle between the number of charging posts and EVs. Japan is in the dilemma of not being able to sell EVs and not being able to increase the number of charging posts.
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Of course, the 3 problems mentioned above are all theoretical problems that Japan is currently facing. When it comes to the actual promotion of EVs, we must also consider the role of administrative promotion.
Currently, many countries around the world, including Japan, offer purchase subsidies. These subsidies include tax breaks, subsidies for buyers and sellers, priority access to parking facilities, etc.
However, it has to be said that just encouraging people to buy EV electric vehicles will not promote the full popularity of EV electric vehicles. In other words, the popularity of EVs is currently too dependent on administrative policies.
In China and parts of the United States, there are already laws related to new energy vehicles. The U.S. enacted the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) law in 1990, while China began implementing the New Energy Vehicle (NEW) law in 2019.
China's NEW law requires car manufacturers to produce a certain percentage of new energy vehicles, EV electric vehicles. If they fail to meet a certain percentage of the production target, then they will be forced to purchase new energy vehicles from manufacturers that exceed the target and limit the number of vehicles they sell.
This system has led to the rapid growth of China's EV industry. 2018 sales of new energy vehicles in China increased by 60% over last year, reaching approximately 1.25 million units. It became the world's largest country in terms of new energy vehicles.
And the Chinese government expects that number to increase to 2 million by 2020 and 7 million by 2025.
But on the other hand, in order to allow full competition in the market for China-made trolleys and new energy vehicles, the curtain will be raised on the large government subsidies in 2020.
After the end of the government subsidies, it is still a question of whether EVs and new energy vehicles will continue to grow healthily.
Although there have been several discussions about the future of EVs and new energy vehicles in Japan, there are still no laws in place. There is also no relevant department to take the responsibility to organize and promote the industry, so the whole development of new energy vehicles is completely stagnant.
In Japan, hydrogen-powered vehicles were also expected to be more popular than EVs in Japan for a while.
However, I believe smart readers will find that there is no easy way to overcome the problems that EVs are currently facing in terms of popularity (price, secondary market, battery, range, infrastructure).
And as the world is still dominated by EV electric vehicle development, it is much easier and more practical to refer to the mature EV market in other developed countries than to establish an unknown hydrogen-powered system by ourselves.
Also considering the current increase of PV and battery models for home use in Japan, it is significantly more convenient than replacing hydrogen energy at a specific place, going to a gas station to refuel, and going home every day to charge EVs in your own home.
Therefore, even though the market and Japan are not optimistic about the development of EV electric vehicles, in terms of the world trend and feasibility, so the vacancy of related facilities and policies did not succeed in developing the EV car market, in the future EV cars are still one of the last new energy vehicles that may be popular in Japan. Maybe the EV car in Japan is not not developed, but there is no one to develop it before.
