Cars in Japan

I drive a white 1994 Suzuki Alto (I’ll attach a picture later). I purchased it for the equivalent of fifty US dollars. It runs well, seats five, and gets 55 MPG. And it will likely be destroyed in September.

Automobile tax is due every year, and vehicle inspections are valid for two. Automobile tax for a standard car is calculated by its emissions, but one can expect to pay at least $300 USD per year for it. My boss’ van runs about $500 per year.

Car inspections, paid for every two years, cost about $800. They insure that all parts of the car are running well, and take around 20 minutes to complete.

My car is a kei-car. Kei is this kanji 軽, meaning “light.” Kei-cars have yellow license plates, instead of the white license plates for standard cars. Kei’s are defined by their engine size, which periodically expands. They were originally a distinction for defining who paid taxes on vehicles—automobiles were a luxury item, but scooters were generally affordable after the war. Vehicles with engines as small as scooters were exempt from the heavy yearly automobile tax. The size limit of kei engines and vehicles rose, and since becoming large enough for cars, they have expanded regularly. The engine limit is currently 660 cc, but mine is 550 cc. To put this into perspective, a coworker drives a 3.4 liter engine van.

With engines that small, the vehicles can’t help but be fuel-efficient. My car achieves 55 MPG even at its age—it pulls strongly to the left and makes arthritic sounds going up hills. They are also (especially of late) just as easy to drive and just as safe as standard cars.

Kei-cars require $72 of tax per year in my town, but one must still pay for vehicle inspection every other year.

The combination of automobile tax and vehicle inspection fees works to cause a car turnover rate far higher than that of the US. People figure that if they’re going to be paying so much money for a car anyway, it might as well be a good one, and usually get rid of cars around the time that their vehicle inspections expire. The average duration of ownership has gone up since the popping of the economic bubble, but it still doesn’t touch that of the US.

People don’t replace their cars at every two-year cycle, but the two-year cycle does provide a convenient time interval. It’s such a convenient time interval, in fact, that I don’t think it would be an exaggeration at all to describe the vehicle inspection requirement as a billion dollar regulation. The Japanese used car market is constantly glutted with perfectly functional (and relatively new) cars (especially standard white-plate cars), with the result that a. Supply outstrips demand so much that prices are kept low, and b. Serving to decrease supply, older (but still equally functional) cars are regularly scrapped. Kei-cars are peculiarly more resistant to devaluation because of their demand as a cheap vehicle.

All of this puts a lot of money into the hands of automobile makers and takes it out of the pockets of people who can mostly afford it. Although in much of Japan a car is a necessity, most of the taxes can be avoided by driving a kei-car. In addition, creating the kei class ensures a very large group of extremely fuel-efficient cars.

This last aspect is what I am particularly interested in as I look for another car to replace my hot rod (alternately described as a pregnant white lawnmower) whose vehicle inspection period expires in September. As I mentioned, the car regularly gets 55 MPG—although I don’t drive much, this is still an important statistic, not least of all because gasoline is $6/gallon and rising, here.