Japan’s Automotive Brilliance
Tokyo, Japan
You can’t go anywhere around Australia without noticing just how many Japanese made vehicles are motoring around our roads (and off them). Since the 1960s, Japan has been among the top 3 automotive manufacturers in the world. The country is home to a number of motor companies, and you’ll be familiar with them: Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Subaru, Isuzu. There are, of course, more than these mainstream manufacturers. Japan has around 78 car-manufacturing factories in 22 regions, and these employ over 5.5 million people (more than the entire population of New Zealand).
The strong competition that is happening on a global scale in the automotive industry has forced the manufacturers to come up with a new model design every four to five years. Along with the new models, new innovative designs and new technologies are presented and used by the automakers in their new vehicles. Automotive manufacturing is the prominent manufacturing type in Japan, which takes up 89% of the country’s manufacturing sector. A large amount of time and money are invested into developing and improving the automotive manufacturing process, which, in turn, increases the quality and efficiency of their manufactured automotive products.
Some of the brilliant new developments from Japan automobile manufacturers have led to distinct and innovative new designs for current and future automobiles. In order to control the market dependency on fuels, and in order to design vehicles that are more fuel-efficient, Japanese automakers have invested and built hybrid vehicles and fuel-cell vehicles.
The ideology and popularity of environmentally friendly vehicles is creating a wave of global interest and demand for these sorts of vehicles. More and more automakers around the globe are focusing on creating the types of vehicles that are friendlier on the environment to their production line. Japan’s automotive manufacturers are leaders in this field. Japanese innovations in these technology sectors include autonomous taxi services and airport transportation, high-definition maps and open-source software modules for autonomous vehicles, advanced hydrogen fuel cell and alternating-current battery technology, and silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor films for EV power electronics. Japanese companies have been developing hydrogen fuel cell technology, which is projected to reach a market size of approximately $43 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 66.9% from 2019 to 2026. Japan’s prowess in creating autonomous vehicles and their resulting cutting edge safety features puts them well ahead of the game.
An electric vehicle is an automobile that produces power from electrical energy stored in batteries instead of from the burning of fossil fuels. Top automakers such as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are already class leaders.
Hybrid vehicles use two or more distinct power sources to move the car. Typically, electric motors combine with traditional internal combustion engines to produce power. Hybrid vehicles are highly fuel efficient. Again, Japan’s Toyota motor company is one of the automotive industry leaders in hybrid vehicle research and production – with the Toyota Prius model leading the way. Hybrid variants are available on many of Toyota’s collection of new vehicles.
A Fuel Cell Vehicle is equipped with a “Fuel Cell” in which electricity is generated through the chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. This chemical reaction provides the source of power to the motor. Fuel cell systems operate by compressing hydrogen made from natural gas and gasoline, which is then converted to hydrogen by on-board systems. Toyota’s latest fuel cell vehicle, the Mirai II, is sold in Japan. The Mirai II uses a Hydrogen Electrochemical fuel cell that creates 130 kW. The electric motor that is powered by the fuel cell produces 136 kW and 300 Nm. It’s very stylish, too.
Toyota Mirai II
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