New Car Sales in Japan Hit 30-Year Low; Sales of Minicars Rising
03 December 2005
Nikkei. Japanese domestic new-car sales fell for a fifth consecutive month to hit a 30-year low in November of 305,569 units, excluding minicars (which are treated separately)—an 8.2% drop year on year.
This represents the sharpest drop so far this year, resulting in not only the weakest sales for a November since the 304,000 units sold in 1974, but also less than 60% of those in the peak year of 1989.
By vehicle type, sales of passenger cars with engine displacements of more than 2 liters plunged 13.5% in November. Sales of subcompacts, which have engine displacements of more than 660cc and no greater than 2 liters, dropped 7.2%.
The biggest reason for sluggish new-car sales seems to be the growing popularity of minicars. Buoyed partly by high gasoline prices, cumulative minicar sales from January to November came to 1.79 million units, up 2.6%. The proportion of minicars to overall automobile sales has risen to 33% from 23% in 1990.
Toyota and Nissan both suffered sharp declines in sales in November, year-on-year. Toyota was down 12.3% to 140,000 units, excluding Lexuses. Nissan declined 20.3% sales to 49,000 units.
In contrast, Honda increased sales by 3% to 37,000 on strong demand for the Step Wagon and other subcompacts.
Good. What is the defintion of a minicar?
Posted by: tom | 04 December 2005 at 08:45 AM
The Japanese Kei-class (minicars):
Max length: 3,400mm
Max width: 1,400mm
Engine displacement: 660cc or less
Background on the development of the kei-class can be found on jcars.
Posted by: Mike | 04 December 2005 at 09:11 AM
I wrote something a while ago..
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/07/japanoid_a_impo.php
http://japanoid.com/ is importing older models of these cars to Canada.
Posted by: Mikhail Capone | 04 December 2005 at 01:47 PM