Toyota and Honda may be leading the world in the manufacture of green cars, but their native Japan has not been exempt from the global economic downturn with sales of new vehicles slumping.
According to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association, October 2008 compared to October 2007, suffered a 13.1 per cent sales drop of new vehicles, excluding mini-vehicles of up to 660cc, to 233,922 units sold.
Passenger car sales suffered a sizeable fall of 13.4 per cent to 202,572 units while sales of cars with engine displacements of more than two litres declined by a massive 21.5 per cent to just 87,675 units. Truck sales also suffered badly down 11.4 per cent to 30,261 units, and even smaller cars were not exempt from the falls albeit slumps in this sector were not as dramatic as elsewhere with overall sales falling by 6.1 per cent to 114,897 units.
The only success story in Japan has been the emergence of mini-vehicles. The Japan Mini Vehicles Association stated that new sales in October rose 6.2 per cent year-on-year to 145,444 units.
