Why are Japanese streets empty of US cars? It’s no mystery — they’re not good enough.
by gkanai
Tags:
- Japan
Why are Japanese streets empty of US cars? It’s no mystery — they’re not good enough.
Why are Japanese streets empty of US cars? It’s no mystery — they’re not good enough.
by gkanai
43 comments
Also Too F’n Big
There is not one single U.S. vehicle I would buy over Japanese cars/trucks.
Just utter trash since the 80’s.
Think cars with small numbers, not big ones that need to be said by some deep manly man voice
This is one of those duh answers…
I’ve been seeing a lot of big Jeeps around recently.
They’re technically no longer a U.S. brand I guess, but the aesthetic and size is still there.
Why would you import something too large to fit on the road and in parking spaces, and accrue various fees on top of that?
Oh, but sure, it’s because US cars are just shit
Before being discontinued, Fiesta could have sold a few units.
Ranger pickup might get a few sales though that market is rather small in Japan. Alphard’s are about as wide and long as Ranger’s.
Try driving a F150 in Tokyo.
No shit. American car companies long ago stopped trying to sell cars on anything other than the fantasy that if you buy something big enough, you might finally be respected by your coworkers and actually leave your city more than once a year.
When you have US automotive companies focusing on big trucks and SUVs in their home country, what makes them think that those cars would sell in Japan? And american cars are known to be unreliable.
Meanwhile, in the US, we would buy kei cars in a heartbeat.
I used to often see Chrysler Cherokees on the road, but I don’t see many of them these days.I wonder why.
When I see someone driving a giant American tank in the tiny streets of Japan, I just think they look like the biggest fucking over compensating moron ever lol.
Next on Bloomberg. Did you know water is wet? News at 11:00…..
As a mechanic and car enthusiast, lol, no.
There are plenty of us vehicles in Japan, for starters. I’m always amazed at how many completely random us vehicles I see. Especially Chevy Astros.
None of the big 3 have ever tried to sell there because it’s never been a worthwhile venture. The exchange rate combined with very different automotive tastes are the primary reasons why. The low per capita gdp and being right hand drive, coupled with it being a pretty small market are some more.
“too big” is a dumb excuse, there are lots of big Japanese cars and lots of small American ones.
“not good enough” is a bad excuse too. There’s lots of good American cars, and many low quality/cheap jdm cars as well.
engineer: how big should be this new car?
boss: yes
I see plenty of US cars in my area. It’s not every other car that is a US brand, but it’s not anywhere close to 0%.
They have not developed a dealer network or repair store network for Japanese users at all. According to 2023 data, Ford has only 69 dealers in Japan. Mercedes-Benz has 327. Incidentally, Toyota has 5,007 dealers.
Why do they think it’s strange if their products don’t sell when they don’t invest in the market?
In an article debunking claims about unfair trade practices, how does Bloomberg fail to mention the fact that a large portion of **”Japanese” cars sold in the USA are actually [MADE in the USA](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-where-automakers-build-cars-sold-in-america/)?**
Seems like a missed opportunity.
Not only Japan, no? Europe doesn’t really buy US cars either, i think it’s under 2%. They just suck
To big, to expensive, shit fuel economy, poor build quality, LEFT HAND DRIVE. I could go on.
I saw THREE pickup trucks in 4 months of being in Japan. One was in Enoshima, and was a Surf gear hauler for someone, one was in Okinawa, and was driven by a US service member (I think), and the other was north of Tokyo, hauling landscaping equipment. NONE of them were bigger than an F150
Too big, left hand steer (not even sure there are parts available to make them RH steer), use way too much gas, likely less safe than required by Japan, and did I mention too f’in big for most models.
The US doesn’t build cars for the Japanese market, that’s the primary reason. It’s the same reason you don’t see Japanese semi trucks dominating us highways.
If it was just about quality, VW and Audi consistently rank among the least reliable cars produced but do ok for import brands here.
The last car made by an American company that I could have seen doing well in Japan was the Chevy Bolt. It would have to have been RHD and have a CHAdeMO port but was otherwise pretty well suited to the Japanese market especially given the comparatively poor domestic competition in EVs.
Too big, and too shitty. Why would anyone buy a garbage car?
Japan has like what, 10 or 11 car and truck companies? You gotta bring your A game to compete. My area has tons of import cars but they are all European except for the rare Caddy and the one whack job with a Hummer. I live near Meguro dori and every frickin foreign car company has a showroom, Lamborghini being my sons’ favorite to check out.
I sometimes see American vehicles here in Tokyo so to say “empty of” is an exaggeration. That said, when I do see an American car, I know it from a distance. They are wider and heavier looking. That isn’t to say that is “bad,” but it’s not the best size for Japan streets. Narrow streets need narrower cars. I would think that if Ford started making a smaller F150 – narrower, shorter bed, lower to ground or Cadillac made a “city vibe” version that was again, narrower, shorter, we might see more.
Saw a bunch of Teslas when I was there last year
Maybe a Rivian, but other than that, wouldn’t buy any American car, and I am an American in America (FTM). Did some supply chain work with Ford, complete chaos. I appreciate the new CEO, but he is bucking 70 years of crappy management.
70s F150, there were two models, the US model and the US model with a Japanese built US designed transmission. People would wait for the latter and skip the former. When the Ford engineers tore the Japanese transmission apart they found that it was to specification, very precisely so — they were just better. Same design, the Japanese just followed the specification
Own a Mercedes, have spent maybe $2000 on non-routine maintenance. It just runs. Owned it for almost 20 years. The other car is a Toyota, 120k miles, nothing other than routine maintenance.
Owned a Jeep, 4 carburetors, a new transmission, a new engine — and no, I didn’t abuse it — it was just shit.
For the comments mentioning size, come to Japan and come to the countryside. Yes, we don’t have F-150s and Subrubans, but we do have crossovers, vans, and larger cars like the Toyota Crown.
Not good enough is a simplistic answer. Could it also be partly because Japanese buyers are generally very nationalistic when it comes to their domestic auto industry specifically? There’s only such a small percentage of non-Japanese cars that Japanese buyers are willing to accept, and they mainly want those to be high-status luxury/exotic ones apparently.
Car buyers in other countries love to have options from all over the world. I wouldn’t be opposed to buying a car with unique/eccentric style or certain features or performance even if it was deemed less reliable/more costly to own over the long term.
Maybe US brands realized that it was always going to be an uphill battle with Japanese consumers trying to get them to buy a non-Japan car.
It’s absolutely a practicality thing.
However, don’t get the wrong idea. Japanese people love SUVs and big trucks. You still see them around (more so SUVs than trucks). A lot of peoples goals in life are to get an SUV or Jeep; especially when starting a family comes into question. Yeah, it sucks, is hard to park, pay for, etc. But it’s a very shallow status thing (same as North America).
Also, from my personal experience (my Japanese friends are in their early 20s) kei cars and other normal-sized cars are seen as an old-people/middle-aged thing. Big car = young and cool
It really is size that’s the issue. I have a friend in Ibaraki with a 2018 Subaru Outback. He loves the car but he was saying Subaru won’t sell Outbacks in Japan soon because they have gotten way too big, so he’s going to have to go to some other car when his Outback dies.
Overseen on Twitter: “US folks do know that their stuff [like pickup trucks] are too large for Japanese roads, but they tend to go on to say that American brands do have ‘compact cars’ too, but those so-called compacts are the size of Subaru Outbacks [considered to be the upper end of the size spectrum in Japan].”
And I agree. Bring us something the size of the Toyota Yaris, Nissan Note, or the Honda N-BOX and then we’ll talk.
American cars are garbage
Element 1: Turn signals
Japanese cars that run in Japan generally have turn signals on the right side.
This is a result of Japan historically prioritizing JIS standards over ISO standards, so it’s for Japan’s convenience. But it can’t be changed now.
It’s very annoying when the turn signal lever goes from right to left.
Element 2: Narrow roads. Even on country roads.
Country roads in America are large and wide, but that’s not the case in Japan, where the country is made up of mountains and not plains.
Because it costs a huge amount of money to build large roads in mountainous regions, Japan’s country roads are winding and narrow.
The only roads that American cars can comfortably drive on are toll highways, or in Hokkaido.
They aren’t empty of US cars. Theres just not a large market for them. Seeing as japan is an export driven country and it is very expensive to import things like vehicles, which are already inherently expensive, only select few people who both really like ADM and can afford to ship it over will have that.
It’s very expensive to own a car in Japan, it’s expensive to get a license and it’s hard to get a parking place, which is also expensive Not sure why you’d want to buy a foreign made car from the other side of the planet to make that even more expensive. Also Japanese cars are Left hand drive.
All the talk about them not buying American Cars is propaganda. They make some of the best cars in the world themselves.
Too big, poor fuel efficiency, little effort put into dealerships or after-sales support.
Far too few right-hand drive models.
In any case, they clearly aren’t considering the Japanese market at all.
But I get it—catering to Japan’s unique market doesn’t bring in much revenue.
So I don’t think American companies are necessarily making the wrong choice.
At this point, there’s really nothing left we can do.
“youre gonna buy our cars and you’re gonna pay top dollar for it!”
Too big, too wide, too inefficient. EVs however are doing fine. Tesla sells a lot of model 3s and Ys. I see plenty on the road.
They don’t have DONALD TRUMP
They are too giant. Trucks over there are smaller than our cars.