Kimiyuki Suda shoed be a perfect customer for Japan’s carmakers. He’s a young, successful executive at an Internet-service company in Tokyo and has plenty of disposable income. He used to own Toyota’s Hilux Surf,a sport utility vehicle. But now he uses mostly subways and trains. "It’s not inconvenient at all," he says. Besides," having a car is so 20th-century."
Suda reflects a worrisome trend in Japan; the automobile is losing its emotional appeal, particularly among the young, who prefer to spend their money on the latest electronic gadgets. Alarmed by the decay of car sales and a tendency of "demotorization", the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) launched a comprehensive study of the market in 2006 and found that Japanese demographics (人口统计数据) have something to do with the problem. The country’s population has grown by nearly 20 percent since 1990, and most city dwellers use mass transit on a daily basis, it less essential to own a car. Experts say Europe, where the car market is also quite mature, may be in for a similar shift.
But in Japan, the "demotorization" process is also driven by cost factors. Owning and driving a car can cost up to $ 500 per month in Japan, including parking fees, car insurance, toll roads and various taxes. Taxes on a $17 000 car in Japan are 4.1 times higher than in the United States,1.7 times higher than in Germany and 1.25 times higher than in the U. K. , according to JAMA. "Automobiles used to represent a symbol of our status, a Western, modem lifestyle that we aspired for," says Kitamura. For today’s young people, he argues," such thinking is completely gone."
Cars are increasingly just a mobile utility; the real consumer time and effort goes into picking the coolest mobile phones and personal computers, not the hippest hatchback. The rental-car industry has grown by more than 30 percent in the past eight years, as city dwellers book weekend wheels over the Internet. Meanwhile, government surveys show that spending on cars per household per year fell by 14 percent, to $ 600, between 2000 and 2005, while spending on Net and mobile-phone subscriptions rose by 39 percent, to $1 500, during the same period.
What. seem(s) more appealing to Japanese young people than the automobile