2013 Japan EV Sales Report

Originally published on EV Obsession.

Following up on my 2013 US EV sales report, 2013 Europe EV sales report, 2013 China EV sales report, and 2013 world EV sales report, here’s a 2013 EV sales report for Japan. It’s the last one for the year as a whole.

Again, thanks to Jose Pontes for scrounging together the data.

Clearly, the Japanese market is a bit less diversified than the US and European EV sales markets. There are the two big dogs — the 100% electric Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, which has seen a strong sales start. Actually, if you look at December sales, despite having to rush a bunch of Mitsubishi Outlander PHEVs to the Netherlands, the vehicle outsold the Leaf in Japan.

The Toyota Prius PHEV sits at a strong 3rd, while three more Mitsubishi models trail behind, followed only by Nissan’s New Mobility Concept.

I wouldn’t expect major changes in 2014. Nissan Leaf sales will be strong. Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV sales will be strong. Toyota Prius PHEV sales will be decent. The one big surprise might be the Mitsubishi i, if a recently announced price drop of several thousand dollars (in the US) is also going into place over in Japan. Also, perhaps we’ll see sales of the Nissan e-NV200 electric van in 2014 as well.

Rather than cut into the Toyota Prius–dominated market, it looks like Toyota is going to hold back on bringing a 100% electric vehicle to market (other than the Toyota RAV4 EV which is basically just a California compliance car).

If you prefer static images (or if that embedded chart above doesn’t show for you), here’s a chart of Japan’s 2013 electrified vehicle sales: