Not surprisingly, the emphasis at the Tokyo Motor Show was on electric cars, hybrids and fuel cell vehicles. Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn set the tone: “The race for zero emissions has begun. This is a new era for the automobile industry.”
Nissan predicts that electric vehicles will take 10 per cent of the global market by 2020. Other Japanese manufacturers think that is an over-estimate but Toyota does expect gasoline-electric hybrids to account for 30 per cent of its sales in the same time frame.
Honda believes that, for Japanese buyers, protection of the environment is now the most important factor in choosing a new car. But that may tell more about Japanese buyers than indicating a world-wide trend.
The Japanese domestic car market is estimated at 4.3 million this year, 8.5 per cent down on 2008, and although a ‘new for old’ scrappage scheme and tax incentives have improved the situation in recent months there seems to be no prospect of a return to the 6 million annual sales of 10 years ago.
One reason is the economy. In better times the Japanese changed their cars every three years, just before the first mandatory safety checks. Now the average age of cars on Japan’s roads is nine years.
More worrying for the manufacturers is a lack of interest in cars and motoring among the younger generation. That, in part, may be childrens’ natural aversion to anything liked by their parents – and the older generation was very keen on cars. But it also reflects changing social patterns. Young Japanese, it seems, are more interested in staying at home, communicating remotely, on line and through mobile phones, than meeting in person. For them, going for a drive is a chore, no longer an expression of freedom.
Toyota’s hard-driving new president Akio Toyoda – the founder’s grandson – thinks that the car makers bear some responsibility for the lack of enthusiasm. After all, he says, Toyota dropped all of its affordable sports models.
Toyoda has made it part of his mission to bring back cars that appeal to driving enthusiasts. The Lexus LFA supercar is part of that – though it has been under development for five years – but it is FT86, the 21st century version of the Celica sports coupe, that is really significant.
The FT86 will go on sale in 2011 and share its rear-wheel drive platform and 2-litre ‘boxer’ four with a similar Subaru, a marque of which Toyota owns 16.7 per cent and which carried out the engineering and development.
There is also a drive to inject some excitement into the iQ minicar, which can (just) accommodate four people in a 3m long package. There will be a sporty version with the name Gazoo (from the enthusiast website started by mister Toyoda) and lots of ways of personalizing the car, rather as the BMW Mini and the Fiat 500.
During his participation in the Nurburgring 24 Hour race (he has done it three times), Toyoda cooked up an idea with follow competitor Ulrich Bez, the chief executive of Aston Martin. Toyota agreed to supply iQs to be converted in Britain into a luxury mini-car called the Aston Martin Cygnet. Of that deal, Toyoda said, “It’s an honour for us. After all, Aston Martin created the first James Bond car!”
And whilst it is currently busy promoting its electric cars – which, so far, are not even remotely sporty – Nissan has updated its 370Z and made a slightly more comfortable version of the sensational GT/R which is one the fastest cars in the real world.
Honda is also keen to show that it has not lost the spirit that created the NS-X and won Formula 1 World Championships. It positions the new CR-Z as a sports coupe as well as an environment-friendly hybrid. It will be on sale early next year.
Mazda, maker of the world’s best-selling sports car (the MX-5), was the only major manufacturer not to have a pure electric or plug-in hybrid at the Tokyo Motor Show. There is a reason for that. Mazda was part of the Ford engineering and product development process until Ford sold most of its shares last year. It is currently raising money to fund its own future programmes, but in the meantime can present only a Mazda 5 MPV hybrid which uses a hydrogen–fuelled rotary engine as a generator.
Since it is not ready to be part of the electric revolution, Mazda has concentrated on improving the efficiency of its engines and continuing to give its mainstream cars a sporty character. Its Kiyora concept predicts an ultra-economical small car with the style and spirit of a sports coupe.
Mazda’s marketeers call this ‘sustainable zoom-zoom’. Not a bad slogan for the cars that are needed to re-kindle enthusiasm in the new environmental era.
