"Kei" Cars in Japan: A "Galapagos" Sector?

Mike Smitka Under Japanese taxation, licensing and inspection systems there are 3 broad classes of cars (and light commercial vehicles): ful...

Walmart overseas: why so poor a performance?

Mike Smitka Let me follow up on my previous post on Walmart's strategic challenges. There I noted that Walmart has been singularly unsuc...

Waiting for the stars to align: Japan's Consumption Tax increase

Japan, as does much of the world, has long-run fiscal challenges. Its population aged faster than anticipated. No mechanism was put in place...

Japan update: ADAS, wearables, integrated cockpits, and autonomous cars

Yoshiki Chubachi Will the joy of driving be a design criterion for tomorrow’s vehicles? It had better be. A couple of weeks ago, QNX Softwar...

Autosaurus Rex: Car Death in Japan (revised)

Iwao Corp: After the last auction Thanks to Prof. Shioji of Kyoto University for arranging this tour in conjunction with the 22nd GERPISA Co...

Auto Auctions, Japanese Style

Here're just a few notes on a visit to the Kinki branch of Toyota Auto Auction on a day when they were offering 1,700 vehicles (of whi...

“Moral Motors” vs the Traditional Franchise New Car Dealer.

First, some ground rules.  This is not to imply that the “traditional” franchised new vehicle dealers aren’t “moral.”  But there is a percep...

Japan's Changing Labor Force

...it's too late for less male-centered policies... A concurrent set of posts on the NBR Japan Forum is on the role of women in the labo...

The Decline of the Japanese Auto Industry

Here are three graphs, pulled from a talk I gave at UMTRI in the spring. The Japanese auto industry – that is, manufacturing and retail ins...

Costs in the Japanese auto industry

...it's not just OEMs... Monday I was at the award ceremony for the Automotive News PACE Supplier of the Year competition, for which I...

Honda as Japan's Exemplar

...Make where you sell, and that's not Japan... For a while the impact on the auto industry of 3/11 – the earthquake and tsunami – and ...

Reverse Import Deja Vu?

...a strong yen should boost exports to Japan... In 1992 I wrote a paper about Japanese car imports, later picked up by the Economist, in J...

Making the smartphone connection: The state of automotive navigation in Japan

A guest post from Yoshiki Chubachi, the automotive business development manager for QNX Software Systems in Japan Yoshiki Chubachi The marke...