The Missing Intercity Link Why Kei Cars fail outside Japan
Kei cars are small tiny little cars that JDM importers love to sell in foreign markets as city cars. Kei Jidosha or light cars as they’re classified in Japan are entitled to lower taxes but have to fit within the small footprint and engine size restrictions set by the Japanese Government, and like anything that only exists in Japan, automotive enthusiasts, journalists and transportation advocates often wonder and bemoan why they can’t get such tiny space efficient cars in their corner of the world. While the comments section is always filled with answers that Americans (and the rest of the world) love huge cars and will only buy big cars, the reality is that these cars do not make good city cars, in fact a lot of Kei cars have a van/pickup body style for working people who need cars.
A city car can be any car that is designed to live in the confines of a city where space is at a premium and people demand compact small cars easy to park and drive and while a lot of kei cars can fit that definition such as the Honda N-One, Mazda Carol and Suzuki Wagon-R and yet these cars rarely dominate city car sales with larger compact hatchbacks such as the Fit, Demio and Ignis selling comparable numbers despite being taxed more for exceeding Kei car dimensions and engine sizes. So why don’t more city folk buy a Kei car?
Any modern city these days has wide lanes, ample parking spaces and large high-speed highways connecting the center to the suburbs, All modern cities have invested a lot of their money to ensure cars and trucks can drive quickly and easily in and out to do their job. Sure a Kei car’s small footprint makes them absolutely perfect for the Japanese homeowner with a tiny garage, but a majority of city-folk in Japan live in apartments far out in the suburbs and apartments often have enough space the average sized sedan. Car companies trying to sell City folk small cars don’t understand that city folk are just fine living with a small sedan or hatchback or even a small crossover SUV.
So size never is a real issue in a city. Size does become a huge issue however out in the Japanese countryside, a majoriy of rural roads do have well sealed asphalt roads but they were originally designed for foot/horse traffic so often are too narrow for cars to pass each other in some places especially on winding mountain roads where cars have to take turns to carefully pull to the side to let the other car pass, something normal cars will have trouble doing being wider than a Kei Car.
Also notice how cities have inner city highways? Travelling at a high speed is very nerve-wrecking inside an underpowered tall thin vehicle, turning stability is compromised by the narrow width of the car body and the tall roof of the car, this is made even worse by the regulations requiring a 660cc engine that can barely make 58 horsepower. Car manufacturers have attempted to skirt around these issues by adding in more gears, turbocharging and electric hybrid drive but the fact remains these cars have to run at high RPM at highway speeds, they can barely overtake other cars at the minimum 80km/hour speed and are more prone to rollovers even with electronic stability aids. A city car must be able to travel the whole city and cities are big and huge places necessitating highway usage to travel the full extent to get from suburb to city center or to get to another faraway suburb, and Kei cars are just not good highway cruisers.
But if Kei cars are used by rural people, don’t they need to travel long distances in highways or roads to get to places? Well a majority of Kei cars are used for local travel from villages to get to rice fields for a farmworker for example or for daily delivery of mail where it needs to serve up to four or five suburbs which can be very far and they’re good enough to be used for slow driving in small back roads. Well what if they need to get to another town over or to the city for example? For that they simply drive their car to the train station and leave it parked there, while driving is seen as more convenient thanks to the freedom to go anywhere you want anytime you want, when there’s a reliable train service with fast bullet trains to cities driving seems to be a poor tiring alternative. Why drive for 5 hours and have trouble looking for parking spots in the middle of Tokyo when you can just park your car at the local station and get anywhere in Tokyo using fast and use reliable bus and trains inside the city?
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So why do Kei cars sell? Well when you have decent public transportation that serves regularly and cheaply to rural areas and cities that are easily traversed using public transportation and rural people who need cars will buy them.
For proof just look at Japan’s next door neighbour, China has been in a crazy frenzy building and expanding it’s bullet trains and creating large public metros for inner city travel. While they don’t have the regulations limiting car size or give tax breaks for smaller cars there still exists a big market for small tiny electric cars quadricycles and auto-rickshaws, China’s best selling electric car, the Wuling Mini EV is a small car with a very similar size and engine specification to Japan’s Kei cars and its selling well because it’s a good enough car for local rural travel. Sure it may work in a city, but city cars need longer range due to traffic and how large cities get. Good Public Infrastructure will make people buy more reasonable cars.
