Dec 15 (cleantechnica.com) - The Japanese EV market has been quite slow compared to other markets such as Europe and China. This is despite Nissan being the early leader in the market when it produced a mass market electric car, the Nissan Leaf.
The Leaf was the first electric vehicle to get to 500,000 sales. It took about 10 years to get there, which was pretty good for one of the early movers in this space. The Mitsubishi i-MiEV was another popular vehicle over a decade ago. However, several Japanese automakers focused on plug-less hybrids. This slowed down the growth of plug in and battery-electric vehicles in the country.
Nissan has recently released its long awaited follow-up electric vehicle, the Nissan Ariya. The Ariya is an all-electric crossover vehicle. The Ariya starts from around $48,000 in some markets. Another interesting Nissan EV released in Japan this year is the Nissan Sakura. The Sakura offers value-for-money and functions as an entry-level EV in the mini vehicle segment. The Kei-Car segment is huge in Japan and its definitely ripe for electrification en masse. ...continue reading
