Why Japan is Slow-Rolling EVs

In 2010, Nissan shocked the world by introducing the Leaf. While Toyota had experienced major success with its Prius (particularly the second generation released in 2003), the Prius was an electric hybrid, which still used a gasoline-powered motor to generate electricity, avoiding the problem that most electric vehicles at the time had: few available charging stations. As long as the Prius can fill up with gasoline, it can generate electricity to charge the batteries and drive the motors. The Leaf was a major step further down the EV road. It had no gasoline motor at all. It contained a 24-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery, which, when fully charged, had a range of 200 kilometers.

It was a significant success. It was the first electric vehicle to win European Car of the Year and World Car of the Year for 2011, and Japan Car of the Year 2011-2012. The Leaf sold more vehicles during its first year in the market than Toyota and Honda had sold Priuses and Insights in their first years.

The Leaf expanded to be an alternate power source for houses using the Vehicle-to-Home system. The intelligent charger could be connected to the house power to provide electricity to the house in times of emergency, and on the other side, the vehicle could track demand on the grid and only charge during times of low demand. Nissan was the innovator, and it seemed like the world would be standardizing on its technology. But it did not end up that way. Why not?

One cannot ignore Nissan's internal dynamics, with the dramatic story of Carlos Ghosn and his failed attempt to create a multinational Nissan/Renault/Mitsubishi chimera. But why did other Japanese firms not follow in Nissan's footsteps and pick up the EV banner? Even today, Toyota and Honda are minor players in the EV game, with only a handful of models that are not marketed aggressively. Tesla and Chinese manufacturers like BYD, Geely, and Guangzhou eclipsing the Japanese players many times over.

If one queries one of the AI agents as to why Japan is slow to adopt EVs (I used Gemini), the first answer is that Japan has fewer charging connectors than the US and Europe. But this feels more like a symptom than a cause. No need to install chargers if there's not much demand for them, right? It also highlights consumer preferences, with Japanese consumers preferring more affordable cars, but again, this feels like the limited models and lack of infrastructure drive it. Automaker reluctance is listed, and Toyota's skepticism of EVs is highlighted. However, the list of Japanese automakers includes Nissan and Mitsubishi, two manufacturers that rolled out 100% electric vehicles, which seems contrary to skepticism. Toyota might think it can drive the market, but if they are wrong, the market will make them pay a heavy price (which they seem to be doing).

The remaining two reasons that Gemini gave have some legs. One doesn't seem to provide an explanation on the surface, but upon further reflection, it does. The other is a clear reason which has impacted other countries, though not in the same way. Let's deal with them one at a time.

First, the easier of the two is that "Many consumers are still unclear about the benefits of buying EVs." There are two reasons why the Japanese are tepid on EVs. First is that Japan has had a special category of vehicle called the "kei car" (kei meaning light), since 1949. Kei cars took a while to catch on, with the first successful vehicle generally believed to be the Subaru 360, which looks like a Volkswagen Beetle, and a Citro?n 2CV had a baby. Kei cars are limited in size and in engine displacement. The result is that the vehicles don't take up much room and generally get fantastic gas mileage. They are very convenient and account for about 1/3 of domestic auto sales in Japan. The second reason that the Japanese aren't as excited about EVs is most major cities' incredible mass transit network. Japanese who are concerned about the environment or do not want to pay for gasoline and maintenance can use a massive network of trains, subways, people movers, busses, trolleys, etc., to get where they want to go. Most of this network, especially in cities, is electric, so the emissions problem is not visible to the end user.

The final reason that Gemini posits for why the Japanese are not going crazy for electric vehicles is "Hydrogen fuel-cell technology." Japan started working on hydrogen fuel-cell technology and energy generation back in the 1970s. The pinnacle of this policy was the 2017 Basic Hydrogen Strategy, when the nation declared that "Japan should lead the globe in hydrogen use." Vehicles have always been key to the government's plans for hydrogen, and half of the government budget for the development of hydrogen-cycle energy has been earmarked for vehicles. Unfortunately for Japan, the hydrogen economy has not developed as quickly as Japan hoped it would. The majority of hydrogen produced today is still black, brown, or grey hydrogen, produced from fossil fuels like anthracite, lignite, or methane, respectively, which release lots of carbon into the atmosphere. The hope was that blue hydrogen (grey hydrogen with carbon capture and storage) would ramp up more quickly than it has, and green hydrogen (production of hydrogen from water through electrolysis) has proven extremely difficult to implement and scale at a reasonable price. From the 1970s, Japan could have envisioned so-called Pink hydrogen, produced by nuclear energy, but the 2011 Fukushima Disaster has permanently slowed down nuclear energy production in Japan. Still, even with all of these actions, Japan remains committed to a hydrogen cycle. With apologies to Regina George, someone needs to tell Japan, "Stop trying to make hydrogen happen. It's not going to happen." (Or, more correctly, by the time it might be too late.)