While petrol-electric hybrids are currently climbing the Japanese car sales charts, the key focus of this year’s Tokyo motor show – open to the public on Saturday with an expected visitor count of 1m vs 1.43m two years ago – is on zero-emission EVs.
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Nissan is showing its fully-electric, medium-sized family Leaf hatchback in public for the first time. The automaker will launch it in Japan, the United States and Europe in late 2010 and mass produce it globally from 2012.
”Leaf will make waves in our industry as the world’s first affordable zero-emission car,” Nissan president Carlos Ghosn told Kyodo News.
Nissan is also showing a two-seat EV concept – the Land Glider – with a cocoon-like body that can tilt up to 17 degrees as it goes around corners like a motorcycle.
”The race to zero emission has begun,” Ghosn said.
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By GlobalDataThough looking more like a concept from a science fiction movie, Ghosn emphasized the company plans to market the Land Glider as part of its broad EV lineup, which will also include a more compact EV, a fully-electric Infinity luxury car and the Leaf.
Toyota and Honda, while both enjoying booming demand for the Prius and Insight hybrids, are also preparing to enter the EV market while broadening their lineup of hybrid models.
Toyota, which plans to launch an EV in 2012, is displaying its full-electric 2.7m vehicle – the FT-EV II – which is more compact than its ultra-mini iQ car.
Honda, long a skeptic in EVs and a proponent of fuel-cell cars, is also shifting course with President Takanobu Ito saying the company will launch fully electric cars not only in the United States, but also in Japan and Europe.
It is taking the wraps off an urban-use, small electric car – the EV-N – which has a retro, square look.
In addition to EVs, Honda is also showing a near-production version of its two-seater CR-Z sports car hybrid and a six-seat hybrid – the Skydeck – with scissor-like front doors and sliding rear doors.
Mitsubishi Motors, maker of the ‘i-MiEV’ EV now on sale to corporate users, is taking the wraps off a sport utility vehicle plug-in hybrid concept, the PX-MiEV and the i-MiEV Cargo, which provides greater luggage space than the egg-shaped hatchback EV.
Company president Osamu Masuko said the company has already delivered around 600 units of the i-MiEV and said the plug-in hybrid concept, expected to be marketed in 2013, will offer ”a future car that balances both the environment and the fun of driving.”
Fuji Heavy Industries, the maker of the Subaru Plug-in Stella, is also showing the Hybrid Tourer Concept with a power train combining both its signature boxer engine and a hybrid system.
Other automakers are opting to stay with updated conventional technology, like Mazda Motor which is displaying a Kiyora concept compact car using its world premiere next-generation petrol engine and automatic transmission to achieve fuel efficiency of 32km per litre.
Toyota affiliate Daihatsu Motor is exhibiting a concept model of its four-seater minivehicle – the e:S – with fuel economy of 30km/litre using an existing platform and lighter materials.
Toyota is also hoping to breathe life into the market by going back to the roots of fun and exciting-to-drive cars byunveiling a lighter and environmentally-friendly compact sports car concept – the FT-86 – which draws its inspiration from the mid-1980s AE86 Corolla Levin sports coupe.
