Hacker News Reader

Comment by twblalock | Hacker News Reader

I would lump Honda in with the losers too -- they have also invested in hydrogen cars, and I think the only electric car they've ever made is an EV version of the Fit, which you may see driven by the maintenance staff at a college campus near you.

I might also lump Nissan in with the losers -- what have they done since the Leaf, which is now totally outclassed in terms of range?

I'm actually more optimistic about Ford and GM, which are investing heavily in electric cars and self-driving cars, than I am about the Japanese brands.

I say this as a happy Toyota Prius owner. I like my car, but I think electric self-driving cars are where the money is going to be in the future, and I wish Toyota would make a better effort in that area.

View on HN

I don't think it will take Toyota and Honda long to get on the bandwagon. While they did take a wrong turn with hydrogen (and that's blatantly obvious in Japan where the Nissan Leaf is starting to become popular), they have invested really heavily in electric drive train cars. It's not like they have to start from scratch.

The really big loser among the big boys in Japan is Mazda. They are reportedly just getting into hybrid vehicles in 2019 and while they are also planning a "bespoke" electric vehicle, I really don't think they are taking it seriously (could be wrong).

Mitsubishi has a production electric vehicle that I've seen from time to time in Japan. Again, the Leaf dwarfs it in terms of popularity (at least out where I live), and I'm still not sure what to make of it. I've never seen one when casually looking into a Mitsubishi showroom, and I don't think they really see it as mainstream. If you go to a Nissan showroom, though, the Leaf is front and centre.

It will be interesting to see where it goes. I personally predict that Japan, as a nation, will go electric far before the US does. The distances that people drive here are typically quite short because the speed limits are very low. A lot of people would consider 100km to be quite a long drive. I've also seen charging infrastructure pop up here (mostly in luxury hotels, but also in many businesses and apartment buildings -- alas not the one I live in).

I just got back home to San Jose after a few weeks in Japan, and I see far, far, far more hybrid and electric vehicles on the streets here than I saw in Japan.

Part of the problem is that few Japanese homes have garages (I mostly saw carports, if anything), and few Japanese apartments have any kind of guaranteed parking.

Where are you going to put the charger in Japan? Are you going to install it outside where it will be rained on? If you live in an apartment, are you going to buy a huge extension cord and drag it out to where you parked your car a few blocks away? I suppose the main advantage in Japan is that the charger is very unlikely to be stolen, but still.

Japan's public transportation is great, most people don't even need cars there.

The public transportation is great here, but where I live most families still have cars. Not all of Japan is Tokyo.

Japan has a vehicle per capita of 591 cars per 1000 ppl vs the US 797/1000, which is a lot lower but also far far from "nobody has a car".

But tons of people have cars, even in Tokyo where they are more a luxury than a necessity.

In Oslo, Norway, people mostly park on the street as well, and there are a lot of EVs. The municipality provides charging stations around the city, so being outside on a street is not a problem at all. Also, most public parking lots and garages have charging stations as well.

The chargers I've seen are actually built into the parking log. [0] Image of ones similar to the ones I've seen. People who have an electric vehicles at home do, indeed, have a large cable similar to what you see on that image. It's better than it looks, because it retracts into the wall. I've never had a close look at ti, but I assume the coupling is protected from water somehow.

Keep in mind that I live in the countryside. Large cities have serious parking challenges. I'm not surprised that San Jose has lots of electric vehicles on the streets (more than Japan), but that is hardly typical of the US. Overall, both countries have very little penetration at this point.

As for hybrids, the top 2 selling cars in Japan last year were essentially the Prius with over 300k vehicles [1]. Admittedly, there isn't anything else making a big impact, but that's still quite a large percentage of the overall market.

[0] http://electriccarsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/cha...

[1] http://www.best-selling-cars.com/japan/2016-full-year-japan-...

Leaf driver (bought second hand), and DIY electric motorbike builder here.

The commercial chargers are all waterproof, with connectors rated IP67 or similar, usually with a drain outlet for any water that does somehow manage to get in the connector. The cables are similarly rated.

The lowest rated cable I own is the "home charge" kit, which takes a normal (UK) 3 pin wall socket and imitates a "proper" EVSE charger for the car with a J1772 connector at the car end. The wall plug bit I currently solved by fitting a waterproof outdoor socket and use that when I need to charge at home.

At some point I should take advantage of the government grants for fitting a proper home charger akin to the commercial ones...

At least in the short term, having a few charging spots here and there (similar to parking spots for handicapped people) might be enough. Make them free to use for overnight parking/charging, and people won't need a garage. Of course you have to plan to scale up the infrastructure in time (which is hard because a parking lot full of chargers can drink electricity in the megawatts), and sooner or later it won't be free anymore, but it's a start.

> I just got back home to San Jose after a few weeks in Japan, and I see far, far, far more hybrid and electric vehicles on the streets here than I saw in Japan.

One thing to keep in mind is that in Japan the average age of vehicles is very low, so things could change almost overnight. Japan can be slow to adopt some things but once they do they do it en-mass.

The Japanese real-estate market is also very different, houses depreciate in value and are generally not seen as an investment. A 15-year old house is likely to be bulldozed and rebuilt from the group up by a new owner [0]. This also means the housing stock has rapid turnover and newer models can accommodate EV charging much quicker than in the US.

[0] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-dispo...

I wouldn't count Nissan as a loser, they are very closely linked to Renault who do have more current EV models. Both typically rebadge each other's vehicles for different markets.

Then why hasn't Nissan rebadged some electric Renault vehicles? I suspect Nissan has not seriously considered doing so.

I wish they would. I would love to own the EV version of the Kangoo here in the states.

I suspect that Nissan USA management remembers the outcome from the last time a Renault vehicles were imported into the US [0].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Medallion

Also, Nissan in Japan and Europe have almost entirely divorced SUV and Truck sales, banishing them to doomed new brands, but Nissan USA doesn't seem to have the guts to do that when they still rely so heavily on those sales for gross margin. Every time I see a Titan ad I wonder if there is a Japanese executive in Nissan cringing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com