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Japanese Car Makers Gear Up for Green Car Launches

October 20th, 2011 by admin Leave a reply »

Both Toyota and Honda are assaulting the green car market in 2009 with major launches this summer in Japan – “Japan!” I hear you say, “What has that got to do with me in the US?”

The answer is simple – Japan is leading the advance into green car development and the chances are you and me are going to be driving Japanese (and possibly Korean) green cars in 10 years time unless something very radical is done with our markets and most of all, our car makers and even more than them, the political will to effect change.

In Japan, Honda launched the hybrid Insight in February and it has become the first hybrid car to lead new car sales in that country – that is some impact to make in one of the leading car making and car using economies in the world. Meanwhile, Toyota is moving forward with developments and refinements to its best seller, the Prius and this is due to be launched there now (May) – it has 40,000 advance orders for that month alone! More than this, the price gap between hybrid and gas models is narrowing – making more sense for consumers to move to the green alternative vehicle and this gap is only going to get narrower and probably will be extinguished altogether as mass production and volumes bring with them economies of scale.

So far, Honda and Toyota are the only car makers who are achieving the pricing levels with the fuel performance and this underlies the huge sums and efforts they have already tied up in R&D; something Capitol Hill is desperately trying to make good and bring US manufacturers to heel.

They have a long upward struggle to match the foreign car makers lead but with Chrysler marrying Fiat (or being adopted) this will start giving US manufacturers access to the green technology reserves while the Government and bankruptcy courts sort out the debris of these huge companies, wallowing like sulky hippopotamii.