A lot of us have never been in a Nissan Leaf. But what about a battery operated Nissan Leaf Nismo race car? Chances are slim: Only eight of them have been (hand) built so far. Yesterday, I was in one of the few. Read More >

I was still a little shook-up from the treatment administered by Matsuda-san, and it must have shown. “Why don’t you get some fresh air?” was the polite Japanese suggestion. Read More >

Today, I drove all 530 hp (more or less) of the 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged 24-valve V6 engined Nissan GT-R down their test track in Oppama, not too  far from the U.S. Yokosuka Navy base, home of the 7^th Fleet. In a way, car, neighborhood and situation reminded me of the nuclear weaponry: Have it, but don’t use it. Read More >

I was in the air to Tokyo when Nissan announced its half year results in Yokohama. But Nissan was kind enough to send me a video they produced in their spanking new Yokohama studio. In an interview with CFO Joe Peter, Nissan’s Dan Sloan discusses not just Nissan’s good numbers, but also the strong yen (which makes them look less good), Thailand, and the outlook for the rest of the year.

Floodwaters in Thailand show no signs of receding, and continue to affect car production in Thailand and around the world. Toyota’s three Thai plants in Samrong, Gateway and Ban Pho are dry. They have been shut down for a lack of parts since October 10, and the closure will continue at least through November 12, Toyota says in a statement. Read More >

When the March 11 tsunami hit, Nissan was first to recover. This was caused by quick reaction and sheer luck. Now that Japanese carmakers are under water in Thailand, it looks like Nissan will emerge relatively unscathed again. The Nikkei [sub] reports that Nissan plans to resume partial production in Thailand from November 14. Read More >

The US-Korean (not quite) free trade agreement will bear fruit, and U.S. cars will be shipped to Korea. The funny part is: Some of the first companies to do so are Japanese. The Nikkei [sub] writes that Toyota will begin exporting cars from the U.S. to South Korea in early November. Read More >

The Nikkei [sub] says that Nissan will move the (or a) headquarters of its Infiniti brand to Hong Kong, and that Nissan “will begin manufacturing Infiniti-brand vehicles in China as early as next year, becoming the first Japanese automaker to produce luxury cars in that nation.”

Not so fast, say close-to-the-matter contacts in Yokohama. Read More >

Regular Vehicle Sales Japan October 2011

Sales of new cars in Japan rose 28.3 percent in October to 247,927 units, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association reports today. For the current fiscal year (April-October), sales are still 22.2 percent in the hole at 2,214,878 units, compared to 2,846,804 units sold in the same period of 2010. The numbers do not include sales of separately reported minivehicles. The numbers are not a sign of newfound health. They are simply the effect of a comparison with a market that had crashed in fall 2010 after subsidies were withdrawn. Read More >

It took Honda factories just a few weeks to recover from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan with the force of 31,250 Hiroshima-Nagasaki nuclear bombs (if some scientists are right.) Once parts came in, all Honda factories were ready to make cars again. Now, Honda faces a more devastating disaster – caused by plain rainwater. Honda will have to keep its Thai factory closed for half a year once the flood waters recede, The Nikkei [sub] writes. Honda’s total production loss is expected to exceed 100,000 units, accounting for about 3 percent of Honda’s global output. Read More >

Toyota says it will suspend production at its assembly plants in Indiana, Kentucky and Ontario, Canada, along with an engine factory in West Virginia to cope with a shortage of parts, caused by flooding in Thailand. The parts shortage is beginning to affect global operations. Read More >

Divorce is a complicated matter. Sometimes, it takes a while for all involved that it’s over. Apparently, they are in that phase. If the German magazine Wirtschaftswoche is correctly informed, then VW CEO Martin Winterkorn wants to bring the matter to a conclusion until the end of this year – one way or the other. Says Wirtschaftswoche: Read More >

Japanese carmakers, which barely have recovered from the effects of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, find themselves in another catastrophe. Floods in Thailand cost Japanese automakers approximately 6,000 cars a day, Toshiyuki Shiga, chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, said today in Tokyo. Read More >

The exodus of Japanese automakers continues – this time, in the opposite direction. If the sources of The Nikkei [sub] are right, then Mazda will stop making the Mazda6 in the U.S. and move production to Japan and China. Read More >

According to U.A.W. talking points, the Japanese car market is closed to foreign imports, and the yen is kept artificially low. Utter insanity on both counts. The customs duty on new cars imported to Japan is exactly zero, and the yen is so obscenely expensive that Japanese carmakers openly threaten to leave and privately are shifting as much production as possible out of the country. Unbeknownst to talking point readers, Japan has had a thriving car import market for decades. For more than a year, imports to Japan showed an uptick. TTAC has been taking about this for quite a while,  here, then here  and also here.

Today, The Nikkei [sub] did wise up to the fact that imports are getting hotter in Japan despite a tepid new car market. The Nikkei sent a reporter to an Audi showroom, interviewed a BMW customer, and noted a societal change: “My wife prefers foreign cars, so that’s why we bought one,” a bank employee who traded his domestic car for a BMW told The Nikkei. “They have lower fuel efficiency than Japanese cars, but that is not a big problem because we drive only on weekends.”

Now what’s really going on with imports to Japan? Let’s look at it a little closer. Read More >