Japanese domestic car market is almost dying

Tokyo motor show was one of big exhibition in the world once. In 1991, there are over 2,000,000 attendees but only 614,000 attendees in this year. Japanese domestic car market is shrinking rapidly. It maybe because of economical recession and trend of ecology movement. But biggest reason of this shrink is that Japanese are losing interest in real cars.

Few weeks ago, one of Toyota’s top executive blamed at “Grand Tourismo”, Playstation TV game for decreasing car sales. Japan is very small country. Also, many public transportation, such as railroad, bus are available in most of city. Basically we don’t need car in urban. Even country side, super high quality Japanese car last 10 to 20 years with no trouble. Why should we buy new car, then?

Besides, if you own car in Japan, you have to pay six kind of taxes. Motor Vehicle Acquisition Tax.Consumption Tax, Motor Vehicle Tax, Motor Vehicle Weight Tax, Gasoline Tax and Road Tax. Under recession, people can’t afford such luxury for unnecessary item.

Car industry is still big business sector in Japan. But if people lost interest about car, who else want to build car?