The best EVs we don’t get – where are the small electric cars in Australia?

I am on my way to Europe to attend the Electric Vehicle symposium in Gothenburg, among other work. Flying via Tokyo makes for a pleasant trip and also allowed me to stop by the Nissan Global HQ to see what’s in their lobby. Nissan uses their office in Yokohama and o showcase the best of the boast present and future of the brand.

Whilst some might be pulled in by the Z cars in Tomica or police livery, or by the Hyper Punk concept; there really is only one car for me – Sakura.  I love small cars and Japan has made them part of the ecosystem with a formal classification, ‘Kei’.

Kei vehicles are small, light vehicles, limited in power, but as such are taxed at a lower rate than other vehicles.  In many cities, including Tokyo, you need to demonstrate you own or rent a parking space before you can purchase and register a vehicle; in a city where land is at a premium, smaller spaces are cheaper.

Kei  vehicles are understandably popular, making 37% of vehicles sold in Japan in 2024. The Nissan Sakura, and its platform sharing sibling the Mitsubishi ekX is not the first electric Kei vehicle, that honour goes to the Mitsubishi Minicab Kei Van and Keitora (kei truck), however it is the first successful one.

EV cars have not been a roaring success in Japan, Nissan led the way with the Leaf back in 2009 but the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear disaster it caused meant that Japan had other priorities including having to reduce energy consumption rapidly – dropping 25% over between 2011 and 2024.

There has also been some confused messaging over how to decarbonise road transport with Toyota favouring hybrids and hydrogen as the path and Nissan also having a strong hybrid platform.

In recent years though EV sales have been picking up, not least because of the Sakura, and the government renewed and refreshed incentive programme for both public charging and vehicles that led to a massive growth in the availability in public charging from 2016 followed by a upswing in EV sales from 2020 onwards.

The Sakura is a fantastic piece of industrial design. It seats four adults in comfort. For the picture I shot I moved the drivers seat back to show representative legroom, I ended up moving it forward to get a suitable driving positing for my 184cm height. Luggage room is certainly tight although you get a good load space with one or other of the rear seats folded flat.

I didn’t drive it on this trip but I did on a previous one. It’s a nippy little runabout that comes with the bells and whistles you’d expect of a modern car including the driver assist features you’d expect, such as lane departure warning and automatic emergency braking.

Range is a modest 180km averaging 124Wh/km although it can go as low as 100Wh/km in city mode. At 12.4kWh/100km this beats the slippery, but larger first generation Hyundai Ioniq I regularly drive around at around 13.5kWh/100km.

It’s also V2G and V2H capable with a Nichicon made wallbox shown with the car. V2X has always been a strong selling point of EVs and hybrids in Japan. V2L has long been a feature of disaster preparedness programs that are a feature of Japanese TV.

When the earthquake or typhoon comes, I’ve experienced a few of each in my trips to Japan; the power  often gets cut, being able to run your fridge and rice cooker on an extension lead is a life saver – V2H takes this to the next level.

First and foremost this car is a local runabout, not a highway cruiser, designed for daily life, commuting, shopping and perfect for business uses such as pathology courier work that consumes a lot of small, light, vehicles in Australia.

There is an appetite for Kei format vehicles in Australia.  My inspiration for this article was one of my neighbours parking a Daihatsu Hi-Jet Kei Tora in my street, there’s several others in my neighbourhood along with some other Kei format vehicles.

I went digging for data and although cars registered under SEVS scheme are not broken out by make and model, you can draw some conclusions.

BITRE does not publish comprehensive registration statistics by model other than the top 20 vehicles in a specific month In January 2024 the Daihatsu Hi-Jet was a top 20 light commercial vehicle sold in Australia.

That gives us a snapshot that says that in 2023 174 Daihatsus Hi-Jet Kei trucks were registered in Australia. Not massive but nothing to be sneezed out without dealer support and brand marketing – Daihatsu aren’t even a presence here.

It’s also worth noting the popularity of the small, practical Suzuki Jimny. In my neighbourhood it’s conspicuously the most popular model that I can see. It sold nearly 10000 in 2024.

It could have sold a lot more Mike Costello of Cox Automotive reported that it’s was experiencing negative depreciation  – that is to say people wanted them so much that people were prepared to pay a premium for a used one. Evidence enough that a certain segment of Australians love small, practical and efficient cars with quirky design.

Would a car like this sell in Australia? Several people started selling grey imports of the Sakura on the SEVS scheme, however they hit a snag in July 2024. Despite type approval being granted for this vehicle it was rescinded with orders placed and cars in the country and on ships bound for Australia.

In granting the type approval for the Sakura the department of infrastructure had made a mistake. Australia has long been part of the process to develop and harmonise vehicle safety standards through the UN World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations.

The Australian Design Rules (ADR) implement most, but not all of these standards.When a particular crash test (Pole Side Impact) was added to the standards Japan argued that Kei vehicles should not have to undergo this tested at the proposed 32km/h but should be able to pass it at 26km/h on the basis that this light small vehicles would experience lower speed collisions due to their low power; they even produced crash statistics to demonstrate that this was the case.

So the UN rules state that cars under 1.49m wide need only pass the pole side impact test at 26km/h. The Australian ADR implements the 32km/h test but does not allow for the lower speed test for narrow vehicles. So the Sakura was not able to be registered here.

This is not the end of the story because last year, as part of the implementation of the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard the department of Infrastructure conducted a consultation on harmonising the ADR more closely with global standards.

The Vehicle Industry was almost universally in support of this  as Australia’s divergent rules costs vehicle importers of all sizes considerable time and money to implement.

Harmonising the ADR with global standards would not only allow kei cars into the country again but fix other anomalies such as the fact that Australi has never adopted the Pedestrian Safety standards or even come up with its own pedestrian safety standards for vehicles.

Small light vehicle are an unserved segment. There’s a clear  demand for small, light and efficient personal transport, fleet and commercial vehicles. We can’t get to a zero carbon economy by swapping heavy and inefficient ICE vehicles for heavy and inefficient EVs, especially when average occupancy is so low.

The heavier vehicle consumed a lot more resources to construct, embodies more carbon and continues to consume more resources and energy through its lifecycle.

I urge Nissan, Mitsubishi or any other manufacturer to offer Australians the choice of small, light, efficient and practical EVs . Any OEM taking that leap may have a surprise hit on their hands.