Japanische Autokonzerne beginnen mit dem Verkauf kompakter Elektrofahrzeuge

it’s about time – as a kei-car fan in Europe I feel like right now is a good time to export them again to Europe given the economy and ever increasing price of normal cars. We haven’t had kei-cars since about 2010s, and from what I heard the latest passenger kei-cars are far ahead of the tin-can shitboxes we had from the decade prior.

One hurdle is perhaps the elevated speed limit in places in Germany where 130 km/h+ speeds are normal, and meanwhile kei-cars are self-limited by manufacturers to 140 km/h – I’d imagine these cars wouldn’t have the handling to cope with Autobahn speeds but would be really great off the highway.

EDIT: The second one would be range – Europe is pretty widely spaced and isn’t as dense as some Japanese megacities like Tokyo. It’s one of the reasons why European EVs have such a long range. Something like a Nissan Sakura with a 180km range isn’t all that viable when a short intercity trip is 80 km one-way. It’s the same hurdle that small battery EVs like the MINI EV and Mazda MX-30 had to overcome.

Still, I’d like to see the Nissan Sakura and Honda N-One in Europe – they’re pretty cool cars.