With disgraced Mitsubishi’s reputation and share price rapidly going backwards earlier this month, Japan’s new car industry was taking a rare step forward.
New car sales in Japan rose 1.6% for the year in April – recording its first growth in 16 months.
It totalled 324,748 vehicles, according to data from the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.
This automotive anomaly comes at a time when tax hikes have carved a lot from Japan’s usually-strong minicar sales.
While sales for everything bar minicars grew 7.2% to 212,713 for April, the pint-size passenger car dropped by 7.5%.
Also known as ‘kei’ cars, minicars are 660cc-or-less vehicles and traditionally popular among city dwellers. The advantage to ownership has been government subsidies and lower regulatory costs.
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